The Turtles were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1965. The band achieved several Top 40 hits throughout the latter half of the 1960s, including "It Ain't Me Babe" (1965), "You Baby" (1966), "Happy Together" (1967), "She'd Rather Be with Me" (1967), "Elenore" (1968), and "You Showed Me" (1969), with "Happy Together" reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

The group originally consisted of lead vocalist Howard Kaylan, backing vocalist Mark Volman, lead guitarist Al Nichol, rhythm guitarist Jim Tucker, bassist Chuck Portz, and drummer Don Murray, with subsequent members being bassists Chip Douglas and Jim Pons, and drummers Joel Larson, Johnny Barbata, and John Seiter.

As the Turtles' commercial success waned by the end of the 1960s, they became plagued with management problems, lawsuits and conflicts with their label, White Whale Records, leading the group to break up in 1970. Kaylan and Volman (alongside Pons) then joined Frank Zappa's band, the Mothers of Invention, where, for contractual reasons, they performed under the name Flo & Eddie (Volman as "Flo", Kaylan as "Eddie"). After leaving Zappa at the end of 1971, Kaylan and Volman continued to perform under the Flo & Eddie name, becoming popular as a comedy rock act, and also went on to long-lasting success as session musicians for artists such as John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, and Alice Cooper. In 1983, Kaylan and Volman began touring as The Turtles featuring Flo & Eddie. Kaylan ceased touring in 2018, while Volman continued to tour with the Turtles until his death in September 2025, with Ron Dante (previously of The Archies) replacing Kaylan.

History

1963–1966: Formation, initial success and first personnel changes

The Nightriders, the Crossfires and the Tyrtles

In early 1963, New Yorker Howard Kaylan and Californian Mark Volman attended the same school, Westchester High in Los Angeles (Kaylan had moved from New York City as a child). The two sang in the school's a cappella choir, where Volman soon heard about Kaylan's instrumental surf music band, the Nightriders, which included Kaylan on saxophone and choir members Al Nichol on lead guitar, Don Murray on drums and Chuck Portz on bass. Volman joined the group as a saxophonist, just before the group changed its name to the Crossfires in the same year. After high school graduation, the band continued on while its members attended area colleges, picking up rhythm guitarist Jim Tucker as a sixth member along the way.

They released a single, "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" b/w "Fiberglass Jungle", on the local "Capco Records" label, eventually signing with newly formed White Whale Records. Adhering to the prevailing musical trend, the group rebranded itself in 1963: with the help of KRLA and KFWB DJ and club owner Reb Foster, the Crossfires signed as a folk rock band under the name The Tyrtles, an intentionally stylized misspelling inspired by the Byrds and the Beatles. However, the trendy spelling did not survive long, and they had to name themselves The Turtles.

thumb|upright=1.1|The founding lineup of The Turtles

Because of the stylistic change from "Surf music" to "Folk rock", Kaylan and Volman dropped the saxophones to become the band's vocalists. Kaylan became the group's lead singer and keyboardist (although he would give up most of the keyboard parts to Nichol in their hits). Volman began to harmonize with Kaylan's lead singing, becoming a third guitarist as well as a percussionist for the band.

"It Ain't Me Babe" and "You Baby"

As with the Byrds, the Turtles achieved breakthrough success with a cover of a Bob Dylan song. "It Ain't Me Babe" reached the Billboard Top 10 in the late summer of 1965, and was the title track of the band's first album. the band's new sound ranged from chamber pop to straightforward pop music. This same year saw the Turtles performing the title song (composed by John Williams with lyrics by Leslie Bricusse) for the Twentieth Century-Fox bedroom farce A Guide for the Married Man.

Impressed by Chip Douglas's studio arrangements, Michael Nesmith approached him after a Turtles show at the Whisky a Go Go and invited him to become the Monkees' producer as that band wanted to break out of their "manufactured" studio mold. Douglas accepted and left the Turtles, producing the Monkees' next three albums: Headquarters; Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. (both 1967); and The Birds, the Bees & the Monkees (1968), the last of which he co-produced with the band. Meanwhile, the Turtles continued with new bassist Jim Pons replacing Douglas.

"She'd Rather Be with Me", "You Know What I Mean" and "She's My Girl"

Other hits, all written by Gordon/Bonner, followed "Happy Together", making 1967 a lucrative year for the Turtles. A follow-up, the brassy "She'd Rather Be with Me", reached No. 3 on the US charts in late spring and actually out-charted "Happy Together" overseas, reaching No. 4 in the UK.

The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands

thumb|The band in 1968. From left: [[Jim Pons, Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman, Al Nichol, John Barbata.]]

"Sound Asleep" and "The Story of Rock and Roll", the first two singles in 1968, stalled somewhere in the middle of the Top 100. The band's fortunes changed when former member Chip Douglas returned to work with them as a producer. Late in 1968 the band released a concept album called The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands, in which the group pretended to be 11 different bands (with fanciful names including the Bigg Brothers, Nature's Children, the US Teens featuring Raoul, and the Fabulous Dawgs), each with a song in a different genre. The album yielded two singles: "Elenore" and "You Showed Me", both peaking at No. 6. "Elenore" also reached No. 7 in the UK chart.

1980s

In the 1980s, the duo began hosting their radio show on KROQ-FM in Los Angeles and WXRK in New York City and recorded soundtrack music for children's shows like the Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake. In 1980, Flo and Eddie performed backing vocals on Alice Cooper's Flush the Fashion and sang backup on Bruce Springsteen's "Hungry Heart" from his album The River. 1982 saw the re-release of the Turtles' original albums through Rhino Records.

In 1983, they also contributed backing vocals to the self-titled debut album of British New wave band Espionage, produced by Roy Thomas Baker and released by A&M Records. Also in 1983, Howard Kaylan appeared in the comedy film Get Crazy, starring Malcolm McDowell and Daniel Stern: Kaylan played the part of Captain Cloud, a spiritual guru, leader of a caravan of time-lost hippies. In the same year, Kaylan and Volman 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 sidemen who had played with different groups. In 1984, the Turtles embarked on a U.S. Happy Together tour with Gary Puckett & the Union Gap, Spanky & Our Gang and the Association.

In 1987, Kaylan and Volman appeared in a music video of their 1967 song "Happy Together" to promote the romantic comedy Making Mr. Right. That year also saw the debut of the previously unreleased Shell Shock album, as well as a new retrospective CD 20 Greatest Hits, both released by Rhino. The latter compilation was followed in 1988 with 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, 3 Feet High and Rising, featured a tape loop repeating the first 11–12 seconds of the Turtles song "You Showed Me" in the short album-filler skit "Transmitting Live from Mars", with some percussion and a sampled French language lesson added by De La Soul's producer Prince Paul. Kaylan and Volman sued for copyright damages in 1989, demanding $2.5 million but settling out of court in 1991 for $1.7 million. This established a legal precedent, causing the music industry to begin carefully crediting (and paying royalties for) sampled works on future rap music and other recordings in general.

1990s

In 1991 Music Club Records released a Turtles' anthology in the United Kingdom: Happy Together: The Best of the Turtles. In 1993, Rhino Records presented Captured Live, a live album of their 1992 tour. In 1994 Sundazed Music re-released all of the Turtles' original albums, and in 1999 Varèse Sarabande released Happy Together: The Best of White Whale Records, which included many of the Turtles' singles.

Original drummer Don Murray died on March 22, 1996, at the age of 50.

2000s

In 2002, the film Adaptation used their song "Happy Together" extensively as a device to portray the closeness of the two brothers Kaufman, both played by Nicolas Cage; this film closes with the Turtles' version over the final credit scroll and time-lapse photography.

Also the 2005 film Imagine Me & You, the title of which was taken from the first line of the song "Happy Together", used this song in its end credits. In 2009, a Turtles compilation CD titled Save the Turtles: The Turtles Greatest Hits was issued on their FloEdCo Record label and distributed by Manifesto Records.

2010s

Starting in the summer of 2010, the Turtles Featuring Flo & Eddie toured throughout the United States as part of the Happy Together: 25th Anniversary Tour, an oldies concert series that retained the "Happy Together" moniker in subsequent years. They performed alongside other 1960s and 1970s pop stars, including Gary Puckett, Mitch Ryder, Mark Lindsay, Mark Farner, Gary Lewis, and Micky Dolenz. The 2015 tour featured the Buckinghams, the Cowsills, the Grass Roots, and the Association. In 2016, the complete output of the Turtles was reissued as two box sets, titled The Complete Original Album Collection and All the Singles. The expanded editions of the six albums contained in the former were issued separately in 2017.

In 2018, since Kaylan required heart and back surgery, he was told by his doctors to cease touring, so Ron Dante (a prolific session musician of the Archies, the Cuff Links and the Detergents fame) replaced him.

2020s

Original rhythm guitarist Jim Tucker died on November 12, 2020, at the age of 74.

Drummer John Barbata died on May 8, 2024, at the age of 79.

Volman died after a short illness on September 5, 2025, at the age of 78.

Personnel

Final line-up

  • Mark Volman&nbsp;– backing vocals, guitar, percussion <small>(1965–1970, 1983–2025; his death)</small>
  • Ron Dante&nbsp;– lead vocals, guitar

Former members

  • Howard Kaylan&nbsp;– lead vocals, keyboards, percussion
  • Al Nichol&nbsp;– guitar, keyboards, backing vocals
  • Jim Tucker&nbsp;– guitar, backing vocals
  • Chuck Portz&nbsp;– bass guitar
  • Don Murray&nbsp;– drums
  • Chip Douglas&nbsp;– bass guitar, backing vocals
  • Joel Larson&nbsp;– drums
  • John Barbata&nbsp;– drums, percussion
  • Jim Pons&nbsp;– bass guitar, backing vocals
  • John Seiter&nbsp;– drums

Timeline

Discography

  • It Ain't Me Babe (1965)
  • You Baby (1966)
  • Happy Together (1967)
  • The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands (1968)
  • Turtle Soup (1969)

See also

References