Rose was born in Washington, D.C., and raised by his mother Mary, who worked for the Army Corps of Engineers, his aunt, and his grandmother in an area known as South Fairlington Historic District, in Arlington, Virginia, where he was to meet Scott McKenzie, who lived nearby. Rose learned to play the banjo and guitar, and won the top music award in high school. Rose graduated from Gonzaga College Prep School, a noted Jesuit institution in DC, class of 1958. From there he joined the United States Air Force (in the Strategic Air Command), in the pre-Vietnam era, and was stationed in Kansas.[clarification needed] He later worked as a merchant seaman on the S.S. Atlantic and in a bank, before becoming involved in the music industry.\n', '

His first band was The Singing Strings, which included his friend McKenzie, who later joined with John Phillips (eventually of The Mamas & the Papas) in a local group called The Abstracts, later The Smoothies and eventually The Journeymen. Other members of the Strings were Buck Hunnicutt, Speery Romig and Alan Stubbs. In 1962, Rose teamed up with ex-Smoothie Michael Boran as Michael and Timothy. Jake Holmes, Rich Husson and Rose formed a group called The Feldmans, later known as Tim Rose and the Thorns.\n', '

In 1962 Rose met singer Cass Elliot (also eventually of The Mamas & the Papas) at a party in Georgetown and formed a folk trio with her and singer John Brown called The Triumvirate. Later, after Brown was replaced by James (Jim) Hendricks, they changed the name to The Big 3. They soon landed a job at The Bitter End, a folk club in New York\'s Greenwich Village.\n', '

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