Scott McKenzie, the man behind the sixties flower power anthem
San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair) has died in Los Angeles.
The 73-year-old passed away on Saturday. A statement on the singer's website read: "Scott had been very ill recently and passed away in his home after two weeks in hospital.
"It has been our pleasure to maintain this website over the past 15 years and this is the hardest update of them all. Farewell our much loved and wonderful friend."
McKenzie was born Philip Blondheim and spent his early career in the band The Abstracts, who later became The Smoothies, before he turned down the offer of joining his close friend Jon Phillips in The Mamas & The Papas.
However, he continued to work with Phillips, who wrote his biggest hit in 1967, San Francisco.
The single reached number one in the UK in July of that year and went on to become an anthem of the Flower Power era.
The song was to be his only major hit in the UK and in the US and he stopped recording in the 1970s.
However, McKenzie did co-write the eighties hit for the Beach Boys, Kokomo.
He spent much of the 1990s touring with the band he could have originally joined, The Mamas & the Papas. Eventually, with no original members left, the group disbanded.
In retirement, McKenzie lived in LA and became a big fan of Facebook where he had many friends in his "Asylum".
The singer had been in and out of hospital for the last two years after falling ill with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a disease affecting the nervous system.
It is thought he may have had a heart attack earlier this month. His last Facebook message included a poem written just days before his death entitled The Final Ride