The Association is a band whose brand of sunshine pop was most popular in the 1960s. Their close knit harmonies echoed those of The Beach Boys, but the group became a casualty of a shift away from this style of music as the decade ended.
The Association grew out of an earlier band called The Men but it took them time to find a record deal - and once they had one, it still took time for them to find fame. The song which launched them into the charts was "Along Comes Mary", it reached No.7 on the Billboard charts and the album from which it came, And Then… Along Comes the Association (1966), eventually produced their first No.1, "Cherish".
Their second album, Renaissance (1967), produced no such high achieving singles, but their third, Insight Out (1967) resulted in their next No.1, "Windy". A style change to country-rock for the next two albums resulted in a run of poorer sales for these and subsequent albums, but the band remained a popular concert draw. The membership of the band, which had always been fluid, continued to fluctuate wildly and the album sales continued to fare badly. Nonetheless the band has continued to tour to the present day, though albums of new material have not been forthcoming.
