Look at any publicity photo or album cover from the rock group The Association, and it’s easy to pick out guitarist//singer Larry Ramos.
The contrast is even more noticeable watching old color footage of the band’s appearances on TV variety programs like The Ed Sullivan Show or The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. There, amidst six other white faces (at first, clean shaven, then sporting a variety of era-appropriate facial hair) is one guy with much darker skin and Asian facial features (or are they Mexican? or Black?). And a level of enthusiasm that marks the stage presence of Larry Ramos.
The Association would have four massive hits in the ‘60s with “Cherish,” “Along Comes Mary,” “Never My Love,” and “Windy.” The last two featuring Ramos—a native of Hawaii from Filipino descent—on co-lead vocals. Ramos had already been the first Asian-American performer to win a Grammy for an album from his previous group, The New Christy Minstrels.
The story of Larry Ramos, along with his musical triumphs and personal journey tied to his ethnicity and the color of his skin, is the subject of the documentary Along Comes Larry. The 30-minute film recently had its world premiere in Houston at the Asia Society Texas Center.
Along Comes Larry was a passion project for Writer/Director/Narrator Rick Quan. The longtime Emmy award-winning broadcast-journalist-turned-documentarian (and younger brother of Houston politician and attorney Gordon Quan). And though he was aware of the Association’s music, it wasn’t until he was doing research for a Grammy segment on TV that he stumbled across an article about Larry Ramos and his place in music history.
“I enjoy making documentaries about Asian-American pioneers. I was working in Hawaii at the time, and Larry’s story fascinated me. I thought this guy needs to get more recognition,” Quan says prior to the event at the Asia Society.
After gaining the trust of Ramos’ daughter, Tracey and filing a 3-minute report for a Honolulu TV station, he knew there was more to tell. And he began requesting interviews with family, former band mates, and music critics while sifting through archival footage.
Currently, Quan has entered the documentary for consideration in several upcoming film festivals, and hopes that leads to wider distribution. “I hope they feel inspired that there were people doing this back in the day, and give Larry some respect for opening doors in the music business.”
In an exclusive backstage interview with the Houston Press, Association co-founder, 81-year-old Jules Alexander, and Larry’s Ramos’ younger brother, 79-year-old Del Ramos (who has spent decades in the group), spoke about Larry’s impact both personally and professionally.
“He was an excellent musician and singer, just top of the line. No two ways about it,” Alexander says. “We were together for so long I knew him down, up, backwards and sideways. We’ve argued, we’ve laughed, we’ve cried. My memories of him are on such a big canvas.”
Del Ramos says he was set for a job path as a commercial artist. But at the age of 15 after seeing his brother in concert with the New Christy Minstrels at L.A.’s Troubadour Club—and the reaction he received—made him almost instantly switch his career desires.
“He was the most talented person I knew. And I always admired him,” Ramos says. “I sat in the fifth row directly in front of his microphone. And at the end, everybody stood up and cheered. I was in shock. And then I said ‘This is what I want to do!’ To get recognition immediately after your work, with the audience, that was it. So I learned to sing and play.”
Along Comes Larry covers Ramos’ beginnings in music as a child ukulele prodigy in Hawaii (and catching the attention of talent scout/showman Arthur Godfrey). There’s footage of him at the age of eight playing and singing in the 1950 musical Pagan Love Song—though his footage was excised from the final film, possibly at the request of a jealous co-star.
Ramos joined the folk group New Christy Minstrels, and then the Association after Jules Alexander left the group to study spirituality in India (a full year before the Beatles made their more famous pilgrimage). When Alexander returned the next year, Ramos stayed on, making them a now seven-member group.
The doc’s heaviest moments come when Ramos (via an archival interview) and bandmates discuss the racism he would face on the road and in the industry. Epithets like “China Boy,” “Slant Eye,” and “Made in Japan” were slung around, usually to his face.
Sometimes even “good naturedly” from his own bandmates as part of onstage schtick. But when bandmate Terry Kirkman put an end to it, Ramos would say “You mean I can just be myself now?”
Writer/Activist Guy Aoki is also shown noting that Ramos would carry his ukulele everywhere with him—especially while touring in the South—to head off any harsh questions about his race, ethnicity or what he was doing there. As soon as Ramos told any inquisitor that he was from Hawaii, Aoki says their demeanor changed entirely. Everyone, it seems, loved Hawaii.
The Association continued to perform on and off for decades, often with a shifting lineup of original/classic members. Ramos was there for most of, until he began having health issues including a heart attack and metastatic melanoma. He made his last appearance with the band in 2014—at one point singing a special Hawaiian-language version of “Never My Love.” Two months later, he died at the age of 72.
“It broke my heart when he sat me down in our mother’s house and said ‘I can’t go on the road anymore. I’m having trouble playing simple chords and my left hand is going out.’” Del Ramos—tearing up—says.
He then laughs remembering his brother “never took care” of his instruments and saw them as simple tools of the trade, the musician’s equivalent of a plumber’s crescent wrench. He’d leave rusty strings and sweat-stained areas intact. Alexander adds “He needed to change his strings all the time, but he wouldn’t because he was lazy!”
Following the documentary screening and a Q&A with Quan and bandmembers, the current lineup of the Association (Alexander, Ramos, Jordan Cole, Paul Holland, Bruce Pictor, and Paul Wilson filling in for ailing original member Jim Yester), played an hour-plus show.
It featured all the hits, covers of ‘60s songs by other bands, and deeper cuts like “No Fair At All,” “Six Man Band,” and the anti-war “Requiem for the Masses” (the later accompanied by a video showing U.S. soldiers over the years). Also “Enter the Young,” which was the first song played at 1967’s Monterey Pop Festival, which the Association opened.
During the concert, members would stop in between song to offer reminisces of Larry Ramos and the stories behind the songs. An enthusiastic audience made of largely of senior Asian-Americans clapped, sang, waved the lights on their cellphones. Some members even came dressed in their finest hippie clothing.
This event was just one of about 100 cultural events that take place each year at the Asia Society in Houston’s Museum District (they’ll welcome Japanese indie-pop musician Mei Semones and pianist Lionmilk on July 13).
“We have a large Asian and Asian-American population in the community here in Houston, and we uplift and celebrate the contributions of those populations with our programs. And the story of Larry Ramos is wonderful,” says Chris Dunn, Senior Marketing and Communications Manager for the Asia Society Texas Center.
Of course, when the songs of so many bands that got their start in the ‘60s were recorded, there was no thought that they would last through time. Much less be appreciated by new audiences and still performed nearly six decades later.
In 1999 when music publishing organization BMI put out the list of the Top 100 Songs of the Century for radio and TV play, No. 1 was “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” by the Righteous Brothers. Number two? The Association’s “Never My Love.”
“You never know how long these things are going to go. You can’t predict if a song will really last, and there are so many reasons for that,” Alexander says. “It blows me away that these songs are still so popular!”
“Quality music lasts forever,” Ramos adds. “These songs affect people in a really positive way. The songs even get to us emotionally. There was one time we were doing ‘Never My Love’ and it was a tough time in my life and I started crying. And I looked around and so was Jim!”
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
