The Turtles

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Image:Theturtles.jpg The Turtles are an American bubblegum pop, psychedelic and folk-rock band, best known for 1967's "Happy Together" (see 1967 in music).

1 History
2 Post Turtles
3 Discography
4 External links

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History

The band was formed by Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman in Westchester, California (a suburb of Los Angeles) in 1965, as a surf rock group called "The Crossfires". With the help of DJ and club owner Reb Foster, The Crossfires signed to White Whale Records, and, adjusting to the prevailing musical trends of the time, became a folk-rock group known as "The Tyrtles", the misspelling an ode to The Byrds that was soon dropped. Like the Byrds, The Turtles' first break was with a Bob Dylan cover, "It Ain't Me Babe", which was a Top Ten hit in summer 1965 (see 1965 in music) and the title track to their first album. Their second single, "Let Me Be" also appeared in the top 30 that fall. Their third single, "You Baby" charted in the top 20 in early 1966. However, their second album You Baby never entered the top 200, and of several singles released that year only two ("Grim Reaper of Love" and "Can I Get to Know You Better") entered the top 100.

In the beginning of 1967, a heavy touring schedule combined with a lack of recent chart success were cited by drummer Don Murray and bassist Chuck Portz, who left the group to be replaced by John Barbata and Chip Douglas, respectively.

It occurred to the band that, for eight months, they had been performing a certain song on stage that was moderately popular with the fans, but had yet to be recorded; originally written by songwriters Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon, "Happy Together" seemed almost a parody of itself, and had already been rejected by countless performers. Their biggest hit and signature song, "Happy Together", considered 1960s pop at its best, provided a turning point for the Turtles and for Douglas, who arranged the song for record. With its tongue-in-cheek atmosphere, incessant background guitar riff, addictive chorus and backing vocals, simple drum and organ lines, and even an oboe playing along during the second chorus, it spent three weeks at #1 on the American charts in 1967, the only Turtles record to do so replacing the Beatles' single "Penny Lane" in the #1 spot. The album by the same name was released in April and charted at a high of #25.

Impressed by Douglas's work, Monkee Michael Nesmith approached him after a Turtles show at the Whisky A Go-Go and invited him to become the Monkees' new producer, as the band wanted to break out of their "manufactured" studio mould. Douglas accepted, left the Turtles, and was replaced by bassist/singer Jim Pons.

1967 became The Turtles' most successful year in the charts, with another song written by Bonner and Gordon, "She'd Rather Be With Me", which reached #3 on the US charts in the late spring, and actually outcharted "Happy Together" overseas. Two other top-15 singles followed, "You Know What I Mean", and "She's My Girl", which marked a shift by the band towards psychedelic music as the genre became more popular. Golden Hits was released later that year, charting in the top 10.

1968 was a fairly successful year: The next two singles, "Sound Asleep" and "The Story of Rock and Roll" charted in the middle of the top 100, but were never received quite as well. After a year, two albums, and several hit singles with the Monkees, Chip Douglas returned to the Turtles as their producer. Later in the year, The Turtles released a concept album called The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands, in which the group pretended to be eleven different bands (with names like 'The Bigg Brothers', 'Nature's Children', 'The US Teens featuring Raoul', and 'The Fabulous Dawgs'), each with a song in a different genre. "Elenore" and "You Showed Me" became the album's singles, both reaching the Top Ten. "Elenore" may be the only Top Ten single to contain the lyrics et cetera, and was itself a tongue-in-cheek answer to White Whale's demands for more songs like "Happy Together".

Kaylan and Volman rebelled against White Whale's attempts to push The Turtles towards factoryesque studio chicanery (including firing the rest of the band, and recording and touring with hired musicians) and they recorded Turtle Soup, a critically well-received album that was produced by Ray Davies of The Kinks - his only production work for another band in his entire career - and inspired by The Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society. Kaylan and Volman insisted the whole band share in the writing and singing. In spite of Turtle Soup's critical success, commercial acclaim was low and the band soon began disintegrating.

In 1970, The Turtles released More Golden Hits, which contained the singles "Sound Asleep" and "The Story of Rock and Roll", and in 1971, a B-sides and rarities album, Wooden Head, their last album. With the demise of The Turtles, White Whale Records was left with few, if any, commercially viable bands, and soon folded.

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Post Turtles

Kaylan and Volman (accompanied by Pons) joined the Mothers of Invention as "The Phlorescent Leech & Eddie", since the use of the Turtles name (and even their own names in billings) was prohibited by their contract with White Whale. Flo & Eddie, as they soon became known, recorded albums with the Mothers, and later released a series of records on their own. They also recorded soundtrack music for children's shows like the Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake, and began hosting their own radio show on KROQ in Los Angeles and WXRK in New York City.

When White Whale's master recordings were sold at auction, the winning bidders of the Turtles masters were Kaylan and Volman, making them the owners of their own recorded work. In 1984 (see 1984 in music), they legally regained the use of the Turtles name, and began touring as The Turtles... Featuring Flo and Eddie. Instead of trying to reunite with their earlier bandmates, they began featuring all-star sidemen who had played with different groups.

Also in 1984, they released a new greatest hits CD on Rhino Records, 20 Greatest Hits, and in 1988, released another, Turtle Wax: The Best of The Turtles, Vol.2, which featured the best of their "album tracks" and previously-neglected single B-sides.

The 1989 debut album by hip-hop combo De La Soul featured an uncredited sample from the Turtles (specifically, the intro to "You Showed Me"), in the song "Transmitting Live from Mars". Kaylan and Volman sued, winning a large settlement, setting a legal precedent, and causing the music industry to begin carefully crediting (and paying royalties for) sampled works on future rap and other recordings. As they explained, "We don't hate sampling; we like sampling. If we don't get credit, we sue, and all that stuff (a share of the royalties, plus punitive damages) comes back to us!"

Music Club Records released a Turtles anthology in the UK in 1991, Happy Together: The Best of the Turtles. Repertoire Records in Germany released their own compilation, titled Elenore, in 1993, as well as re-releasing the original Happy Together album. Rhino Records also presented Captured Live, a greatest-hits-live album of their 1992 tour, that year. Sundazed Records re-released all of The Turtles' original albums in 1994, and in 1999 Varese Sarabande released Happy Together: The Best of White Whale Records, which included many of the Turtles' singles.