Populist poet and prolific songwriter Rod McKuen has died at the age of 81.

Known as the 'King of Kitsch', he died in Los Angeles of respiratory arrest after suffering from pneumonia.

A Grammy winner and double Oscar nominee, McKuen worked with a string of household names including Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand.

His best-known song was arguably Seasons in the Sun, a number one hit in the US for Terry Jacks. He later wrote for Madonna's Ray of Light album.

The artist was co-credited on Madonna's track Drowned World/Substitute for Love, which borrowed from McKuen's Why I Follow the Tigers.

Seasons in the Sun - like another of his compositions, If You Go Away - was an English-language reworking of a song by McKuen's idol, French artist Jacques Brel.

McKuen earned two Oscar nominations, one for the song Jean, from 1969 film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and another for the song score of 1970 Peanuts movie A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

He clinched his only Grammy, for best spoken word recording, for his Lonesome Cities album, one of nine albums to chart between 1968 and 1971.

Of his collaboration with Sinatra - on the album A Man Alone - he wrote, in 1999: "You can imagine how excited I was when Frank Sinatra asked me to write an original album for him.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31053895

I used to listen to his commentaries on NPR back in the day. He used to claim that he was once rescued by a pair of Siberian Huskies.  ;D

Sad to hear this news. :(

Rod McKuen will always be associated with this iconic tune for me, and many many others in this country:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-l0o3tOXw0

(Not surprisingly, not a hit in US - but it hit #1 where I live!)