Outtakes from the Liner Notes to The Association: Just the Right Sound

"Obsessing With Dawn Eden" is on semi-hiatus this month, as I am currently recovering from writing 5,000 words about the Association for Rhino's upcoming two-CD set. In place of my regular column, here are two stories that did not make it into my notes. One, Terry Kirkman's "Cherish" story, was omitted for reasons of space, while the other, Bones Howe's tale of "MacArthur Park," because members of the group deny that anyone made the famous "any two guys" comment.

Next month's column will feature Bob Kelly, a.k.a. Kelly's Heels, the wonderful bastard scion of Glenn Tilbrook and Michael Mazzarella, whose music you may sample at the Warmfuzz label Website: http://www.warmfuzz.com. Other than that, the best thing I've heard this month is Evie Sands' incredible "Take Me for a Little While" on The Girl Group Sound: 25 All-Time Greatest Hits From Red Bird Records (Varese Vintage). Zombies expert Alec Palao tells me that Rod Argent had already written "If It Don't Work Out" for Dusty Springfield by the time "Take Me for a Little While" appeared, but the Sands record has a mighty similar feel.

Now, without any further ado, some Association outtakes:

On "Cherish":

One day, Mike Whalen, a former member of the (pre-Association group) Men who had recently replaced Barry McGuire in the New Christy Minstrels, heard the Association rehearse "Cherish" and asked its writer, Terry Kirkman, for a copy of the sheet music. "The next thing I know," Kirkman says, "without ever asking my permission, he's singing it in the Christy Minstrels."

When the song received an enthusiastic response at the Christys' live shows, the group's managers invited Kirkman to come to a concert and hear them perform it. Since it was not in their show that night, they sang it for him in their dressing room. Afterwards, one of the managers followed Kirkman to his car and asked for permission to release the song. (According to future Association member Larry Ramos, who was in the Christys at that time, they had already recorded it.)

Kirkman was incredulous. "I said, 'I can't let you do that! I've got my own band. We're about to record an album. You've got to be out of your mind.'" The manager, however, would not take no for an answer. "He's standing, like in an old B-movie, screaming at me, 'You'll never work in show business again!"

On "MacArthur Park":

After Bones Howe produced the Association's Insight Out, he began producing The Magic Garden for the Fifth Dimension, which was composed by Jimmy Webb.

Bones Howe: "While we were doing that, Jimmy kept saying to me, 'I'm writing a cantata for the Association.' I kept saying, 'Jimmy, we've got to finish this record. You've still got two more songs to write for this album.'...

"Finally, we finished The Magic Garden and I went to Jimmy's house and he played me the songs on the piano and it was wonderful. I said, 'As soon as the Association get back (from their tour), we'll get together.'"

Webb was so excited about his song that he hoped the Association would come to his house so he could play it for them. The Association's manager, Patrick Colecchio, however, according to Bones Howe, suggested they meet on "neutral ground," so Howe rented Studio Three at Western Recorders.

Bones Howe: "Jimmy sits down at the piano and I say, 'You've got to listen to this all the way through, because it's meant to be one whole side of an LP. It's got several movements, and every one of them could be opened up and we could put it out as a single.'" There was also connecting music, and Howe thought they could expand on that vocally, as the Fifth Dimension had done with The Magic Garden.

Bones Howe: "Jimmy sits down and he plays them this whole thing from beginning to end, and the last movement is 'MacArthur Park'. He finishes, the guys kind of look at each other, and Pat (Colecchio) goes, 'Maybe Jimmy could go outside for a second and we could talk about this among the guys.'

"Jimmy goes outside, closes the door, and either Terry Kirkman or Russ Giguere says, 'Any two guys in this group can write a better piece of music.'

"I was devastated. It's the old cartoon thing; I see the Grammy on wings, flying away. It's like, here's an opportunity to do something really different that nobody else has done. I thought it was a brilliant idea....

"Then they all began talking about the songs of theirs that they wanted to do on the album. I had to go tell Jimmy Webb that they weren't going to cut his song."

P.S. Howe did get his Grammy, a year later, for the Fifth Dimension's "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In".

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