It's the song that drew thousands of hippie kids to a chilly San Francisco summer 45 years ago, when an unpopular war was raging in Vietnam and our city by the Bay was the primary mecca of LSD fans, music fans, and gentle people with flowers in their hair. It's the song they played to summarize the Summer of Love, 1967, in the 20th Century music montage known as Forrest Gump. It's the song that helped defined the late sixties two full years before Woodstock. And the man who originally sang it is now dead.

Scott McKenzie was a friend of John Phillips, the man who went on to form The Mamas and the Papas, and McKenzie turned down an offer to become an original member of the group, opting instead to be a solo artist. The song that made him famous, and remains the song that defines him as an artist, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)," was written by Phillips, as was McKenzie's second hit, "Like an Old Time Movie." And later in life, McKenzie toured with a new version of The Mamas and the Papas with Terry Melcher, Mike Love (of the Beach Boys), and Phillips, and McKenzie helped write the Cocktail theme song that made a hit for the Beach Boys in the 80s, "Kokomo." He stopped touring with Phillips in 1998.

McKenzie was born Philip Wallach Blondheim in 1939, and later changed his name to Scott McKenzie after Warhol superstar Jackie Curtis told him he looked like a Scottie dog, and because other people at parties in New York told him they couldn't understand his name.

In the last two years, McKenzie suffered from Guillain-Barre Syndrome. He died in his home in Los Angeles.

[BBC]