Scott McKenzie Who Sang San Fransisco Has Died [VIDEO]

Scott McKenzie, who sang one of the big Summer of Love hits in 1967, San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair), has died.

The singer died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 73.  He had been in the hospital for two weeks recently, and passed away in his home.

McKenzie once failed an audition for a role as one of  the Monkees, (he apparently looked too old, at 24) and helped to put together what was then known as the First Monterey International Pop Music Festival (there never was a second).  "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair),"  was perhaps the most successful pop/hippie anthem ever recorded. With McKienze's  smooth delivery (backed by the same band that had played behind the Mamas & Papas  on their records, the song soared to number four in America and hit number one in England and much of Europe.

McKenzie battled Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a disease that affects the nervous system, and had been in and out of the hospital since 2010, reports AP. John Phillips, the leader of the 1960s group The Mamas and the Papas, wrote San Fransisco,  but McKenzie sang it and it has stood as an anthem for the 1960s counterculture movement.

McKenzie also co-wrote , a No. 1 hit for The Beach Boys in 1988, (Kokomo),  and toured with The Mamas and the Papas in the 1990s. Scott “dropped out” in the late ’60s, says his site bio. In 1970 he moved to Joshua Tree, a California desert town near Palm Springs. In 1973 he went to Virginia Beach, where he lived for 10 years.