"The Association" is a pop music band from California in the folk rock or soft rock genre. During the 1960s, they had numerous hits at or near the top of the Billboard charts and were the lead-off band at 1967's Monterey Pop Festival. Jules Alexander was in Hawaii in 1962 serving a stint in the Navy when he met Terry Kirkman ,a visiting salesman. The two young musicians jammed together and promised to get together once Alexander was discharged. That happened a year later; the two eventually moved to Los Angeles and began exploring the city's music scene in the mid-1960s.

At the same time, Kirkman played in groups with Frank Zappa for a short period before Zappa went on to form The Mothers of Invention. Eventually, at the LA nightclub The Troubadour, in 1964, an ad hoc group called The Inner Tubes was formed by Kirkman, Alexander and Doug Dillard, whose rotating membership contained, at one time or another, Cass Elliot, David Crosby and many others who drifted in and out.

This led, in 1965, to the forming of The Men, a 13 piece folk-rock band. This group had a brief spell as the house band at The Troubadour.

After a short time, however, The Men disbanded. At the suggestion of Kirkman's then-fiancée, Judy, they took the name The Association.

The Men were first managed by Doug Weston, owner of the Troubador, before switching to actor Dean Fredericks, who remained on board when the Association was formed and helped get them the Valiant deal. In 1966 Fredericks turned the reins over to Pat Colecchio, who managed the group for the next eight years.