<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Turtles almost didn\u2019t happen.\u00a0 Call it fate or kismet or whatever, but one of the top selling bands of the late 1960s were DOA and then they weren\u2019t (more on this in a bit).\u00a0 When vocalist Mark Voman passed away in September of 2025, it prompted me to find a copy of his 2023 book <\/span>Happy Forever – My Musical Adventures with The Turtles, Frank Zappa, T.Rex, Flo & Eddie, and More <\/span><\/i>(with John Cody, Jawbone Press).\u00a0 Volman states in the book\u2019s introduction that he took twelve years to finish <\/span>Happy Forever<\/span><\/i> because he actually didn\u2019t write most of it.\u00a0 Inspired by a book about George Plimpton (<\/span>George, Being George <\/span><\/i>(2008)), <\/span>Happy Forever<\/span><\/i> tells Mark\u2019s story through interviews done with family, friends, and bandmates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>George, Being George<\/span><\/i> was based on interviews with over 200 people after Plimpton was gone.\u00a0 Volman\u2019s take was, \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure I could find two hundred people who tolerated – let alone admired – me.\u00a0 Surprisingly, over one hundred amazingly fantastic and impressive people agreed to be interviewed about me.\u00a0 They are actually the writers of this book.\u00a0 Throughout the book, I interject (hopefully without being facetious or didactic) to add insights, and sometimes self-defenses.\u201d\u00a0 Obviously, Plimpton never had a chance to add commentary, but Volman does not abuse this privilege.\u00a0 He credits co-author John Cody for doing the heavy lifting in coordinating and conducting the interviews.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mark Volman was a born and bred California kid who came into the world on April 19, 1947.\u00a0 Growing up in Westchester (about ten miles south of Los Angeles proper), he was but a bike ride away from Disney\u2019s Magic Kingdom which opened when he was eight years old.\u00a0 His mother used to often say, \u201cThat boy is so smart – he shouldn\u2019t be so silly.\u201d\u00a0 As Volman himself recalled, \u201cI realized early on how to get attention, and I loved making my family laugh.\u00a0 The words, \u2018Oh, Mark, stop!\u2019 were used a lot in our house.\u201d\u00a0 He grew up hearing his dad\u2019s collection of Dixieland jazz and picked up the clarinet at an early age.\u00a0 Fellow Turtle Howard Kaylan credits the record collections of both Mark\u2019s father (Joe) and brother (Phil) for, \u201cOur musical influences which were all in place by junior high.\u00a0 We were ready to roll, I\u2019ll tell you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Kaylan (nee: Kaplan) came west from New York when his father worked for General Electric and was transferred to El Sugundo.\u00a0 When the GE job disappeared, he went to work for Hughes Aircraft.\u00a0 This new job put young Howard in the right place to see the likes of future astronaut Scott Carpenter and the X-15 rocket plane making aviation history.\u00a0 He first met Mark in tenth grade when they were next to each other in the a cappella choir.\u00a0 They were ahead of the curve as they both read music and sang their parts flawlessly, which led to them being sent out almost daily by Mr. Robert Wood, the director (for cracking each other (and the class) up).\u00a0 When Howard and Al Nichols started a surf band, it didn\u2019t include Volman.\u00a0 Mark asked to join (he isn\u2019t even sure why he asked) and started out toting their equipment.\u00a0 Before too long, he was banging a tambourine and eventually made it on stage to play saxophone and sing some back up vocals.\u00a0 They were called The Crossfires and the band was well known at Westchester High.\u00a0 When they started playing sock hops, more songs with vocals were added to their repertoire.\u00a0 The Crossfires even won a Battle of the Bands at the Santa Monica Civic Center.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mark\u2019s high school girlfriend and eventual first wife, Pat, recalled that they got pretty popular:\u00a0 \u201cAfter winning the Battle of the Bands, they worked at the Revelaire Club in Redondo Beach.\u00a0 It was all-ages so a lot of kids from high school would go there and get all crazy.\u00a0 Everybody would look forward to going Friday or Saturday night to the Revelaire.\u201d\u00a0 Future Doors keyboard player Ray Manzarek remembered hearing The Crossfires rehearse at the Club when he and his brother\u2019s band, Rick and the Ravens, auditioned there.\u00a0 He recalled, \u201cI was impressed, even then, with Mark and Howard\u2019s harmonies.\u201d\u00a0 The Crossfires got a little radio airplay from a couple of 45s they recorded and as well as a little TV time on a local channel.\u00a0 They went the usual garage band route and played anywhere and everywhere they could get booked in the LA circuit.\u00a0 The band made $120 a night (as the Revelaire house band) which was split six ways.\u00a0 Backing\u00a0 up a lot of famous musicians at the club made them very versatile, but along the way, money became an issue (especially when a couple of the guys in the band got married and had kids on the way).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The night The Crossfires decided they weren\u2019t going to be able to continue, they wrote a letter of resignation.\u00a0 Howard was delegated the job of marching upstairs to the office to tell the owner his house band was going to call it quits when fate intervened.\u00a0 Howard explains what happened on the way to deliver the bad news to Bill Utley (the owner):\u00a0 \u201cThese two guys stopped me, and they said, \u201cWe loved your set.\u00a0 We especially loved the way you did <\/span>Mr. Tambourine Man<\/span><\/i>\u2019.\u00a0 Now I started listening and paying attention.\u00a0 No one had ever singled out anything that we did as particularly good or commercial.\u00a0 The guys said, \u2018We want you to go into the studio and record three songs\u2019.\u00a0 We [the band] took a meeting backstage, and I said, \u2018Look, what have we got to lose?\u00a0 We\u2019re breaking up tonight.\u00a0 We can either do this, or not.\u00a0 Somebody says they\u2019re going to pay for us to go into the studio and make a record.\u00a0 Are we really not going to do it?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Kaylan continues the tale:\u00a0 \u201cIt was weird on many levels.\u00a0 It was weird because A)\u00a0 we\u2019re going to break up, B) we had no idea who these guys were, and C) these guys, Lee Lasseff and Ted Feigin, didn\u2019t have a name for their record company yet.\u00a0 They had no artists at that point, either.\u00a0 They just had a dream.\u00a0 Ted Feigin said he was the PR guy from London Records.\u00a0 Lee Lasseff said, \u2018I do the same thing for Liberty Records.\u00a0 And we\u2019re sick and tired of doing this crap, we wanna start our own record company, and you\u2019re the guys we\u2019re going to launch it with\u2019.\u201d\u00a0 Ironically, The Byrds weren\u2019t well known (yet) and had only released their version of Bob Dylan\u2019s <\/span>Mr Tambourine Man<\/span><\/i> two weeks earlier.\u00a0 The Turtles liked what they heard, picked up their own twelve-string guitar (a used Danelectro, not a Rickenbacker like Roger McGuinn used in The Byrds), and The Crossfires\u2019 version had caught Feigin and Lasseff\u2019s ears.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The record label they formed was called White Whale (and they called their publishing company Ishmael).\u00a0 They insisted that the band would need a new name and after pondering the variables, their new manager decided it would be \u2018The Turtles\u2019.\u00a0 Animal band names were popular and the \u2018tles\u2019 ending mirrored The Beatles name.\u00a0 Everybody in their neck of the woods knew the \u2018new band\u2019 was The Crossfires, but to the rest of the world, they were just another new band.\u00a0 On the heels of the British Invasion, everybody thought The Turtles were the next British band storming the American beachheads.\u00a0 The Turtles were not about to correct this misconception.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There was one small problem but it was a typical scenario for many bands in those days.\u00a0 Mark\u2019s brother Phil recalled what happened when the managers got involved:\u00a0 \u201cReb Foster and Bill Utley (who took over managing the band) were thieves.\u00a0 But they got interested in the Crossfires, and with Lee Lassiff and Ted Feigin, they formed White Whale, and Mark and Howard signed with White Whale.\u00a0 Our father had to sign everything because Mark was still underage.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Howard continued, \u201cMark and I were the youngest guys, and because we were so young, our parents had to sign for us, and we had to go before a judge to do it.\u00a0 The judge told us that we were making a gigantic mistake.\u00a0 He took both of our parents aside and said, \u2018You\u2019re doing the wrong thing,\u00a0 This is a contract that is going to get them in huge financial trouble.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if you\u2019re reading the small print here . . .\u2019.\u201d\u00a0 To put it simply, the record company would make good money and the band members would not.\u00a0 The parents explained it to the boys, and Kaylan said, \u201cWe wanted it so bad that we convinced them to sign.\u00a0 We figured one of two things would happen:\u00a0 A) this is not going to work, so it won\u2019t matter, or B) this is going to work, and we\u2019ll worry about it later.\u00a0 And everybody just signed it, because the odds of this working were slim and none.\u00a0 Reb became our manager and he came up with the new name.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In a period of ten days, the band changed their name, signed the contract, and began looking for material to record.\u00a0 Howard had written folk rock songs and as soon as he heard Dylan\u2019s <\/span>It Ain\u2019t Me Babe, <\/span><\/i>he knew exactly the formula they needed to make it work:\u00a0 \u201cI heard it more as a Zombies record, going from very quiet minor verses to crashing 4\/4 choruses.\u00a0 It changed the meaning of Dylan\u2019s song from a plaintive one to an angry one.\u00a0 We were saying, <\/span>\u2018No! No! No! It ain\u2019t me, babe!<\/span><\/i>\u2019 and singing it with that sort of venom after coming out of a very, very light, almost gay-sounding verse.\u201d\u00a0 Famed Wrecking Crew producer Bones Howe was brought in for their first record and the first thing he asked was, \u201cDo you know any Dylan songs?\u00a0 After Foster took them to L.A. for a fashion makeover, all they needed next was a seamless way to break out from being The Crossfires to being The Turtles.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0According to Al Nicols, they copped an idea from the PR campaign Alfred Hitchcock was using for his new movie <\/span>The Birds<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 All the movie ads proclaimed, \u201cThe Birds is Coming\u201d so The Turtles put up a big banner behind them at gigs that said \u201cThe Turtles Is Coming\u201d.\u00a0 Nicols described the switch:\u00a0 \u201cThe regular fans saw the banner and said, \u2018What\u2019s that?\u2019\u00a0 <\/span>It Ain\u2019t Me, Babe<\/span><\/i> was being played on the radio and the fans were getting excited (\u2018The Turtles are gonna come!\u2019).\u00a0 They didn\u2019t know – everyone across the country thought The Turtles were another band from England.\u00a0 And so, right in the middle of the show one night at the Revelaire Club, we took a break and put down our instruments.\u00a0 We went backstage and took off our seersucker jackets and all put on green velour hats and velour turtle necks (ed. note:\u00a0 the turtle neck shirts were an inspired idea).\u00a0 Reb came out and he says, \u2018We got a special treat for you:\u00a0 The Turtles!\u2019\u00a0 And here come The Crossfires back out.\u00a0 All the people are like, \u2018Ah, it\u2019s you guys!\u00a0 Oh, man!\u2019 But then we were The Turtles.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Three weeks later, they were No. 12 with a bullet on the <\/span>Billboard <\/span><\/i>chart.\u00a0 Dick Clark added them to his traveling <\/span>Caravan of Stars<\/span><\/i> music review.\u00a0 A couple of weeks later, they joined Herman\u2019s Hermits, The Lovin\u2019 Spoonful, Cannibal & the Headhunters and a host of other hot bands for a big show at the Rose Bowl.\u00a0 A week later, they repeated this show in San Diego. They found themselves performing in front of a hundred thousand people and Nicols recalled, \u201cWe couldn\u2019t even hear ourselves play.\u00a0 It was an overnight indoctrination of Beatlemania.\u00a0 This was something we had seen, but hadn\u2019t experienced, and then, boom!\u00a0 It happened.\u201d\u00a0 It was on the Dick Clark <\/span>Caravan<\/span><\/i> of Stars Tour <\/span><\/i>where The Turtles were first exposed to marijuana.\u00a0 Howard noted, \u201cMarijuana wasn\u2019t introduced to the high school culture until two or three years later.\u00a0 By <\/span>Sgt. Pepper<\/span><\/i>, I think everybody knew what pot was.\u00a0 But we\u2019re talking about Jan & Dean [when we got into it];\u00a0 this was the spring of \u201865.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When The Turtles did their version of <\/span>It Ain\u2019t Me Babe<\/span><\/i>, they were filed in the column set aside for \u2018protest groups\u2019.\u00a0 Howard explained how they made a conscious decision as to where they wanted their music to land:\u00a0 \u201cWe knew that we had more humour than we were getting into our folk-rock stuff, and we didn\u2019t want to be those doom-and-gloom guys that the west coast prophets – the Barry McGuire (<\/span>Eve of Destruction<\/span><\/i>) people – were turning themselves into.\u00a0 We figured, <\/span>\u2018What are we singing protest music for, anyway?\u00a0 What are we protesting?\u00a0 We\u2019re white, middle-class, affluent kids from Los Angeles, California, with our own band and our own income.\u2019\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>We knew exactly what we were doing.\u00a0 We knew that folk-rock was a very limited proposition.\u00a0 It was not like we lucked into good-time music – we reinvented ourselves.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The record company was shocked when they were informed that the band was planning to change the formula to avoid getting lumped together in the folk-rock protest scene.\u00a0 Luckily for The Turtles, they happened upon a song by P.F. Sloan – the same writer who had provided them with <\/span>Let Me Be<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 <\/span>Let Me Be<\/span><\/i> was decidedly in the protest genre, but the new song, <\/span>You Baby<\/span><\/i> helped them bridge the gap between their first hits and their new \u2018good-time music\u2019 formula.\u00a0 Kaylan surmised, \u201cThe folk-rock years were wonderful for us, and set us up with a rock\u2019n\u2019roll fan base, but if we hadn\u2019t made the move into good-time music, we would have died with Barry McGuire.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Personnel changes came next.\u00a0 Drummer Don Murray was having trouble at home and was taking it out on the group.\u00a0 He also wasn\u2019t the greatest drummer, so they tried out drummer Joel Larson and he was a perfect fit, but he could not stay due to prior commitments.\u00a0 The next drummer to occupy the throne was Johnny Barbata who was not only good, he was a stick twirling show drummer who took a fifteen minute solo that gave the band a mid-show break.\u00a0 Barbata would eventually go on to play with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Jefferson Starship.\u00a0 The hits kept coming, the tours got longer and Mark Volman\u2019s tambourine tossing stage antics made their shows entertaining.\u00a0 Their 1967 No. 1 hit <\/span>Happy Together<\/span><\/i> knocked The Beatles <\/span>Penny Lane<\/span><\/i> out of the chart\u2019s top slot and became their signature song.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0All was great until they were invited to perform at the Nixon White House.\u00a0 The Turtles were Nixon’s daughter Tricia\u2019s favorite band.\u00a0 This gig opened doors to a different side of the political spectrum and when Howard got tired of doing \u2018dog and pony shows\u2019 for the well connected, he revolted and left The Turtles.\u00a0 When he stopped to visit the band months later, he found they were trying to continue in a more democratic manner with all members contributing their own songs.\u00a0 As Creedence Clearwater Revival found when they made one album this way, it was a bad idea.\u00a0 CCR needed John Fogerty in the lead and The Turtles needed Kaylan and Volman at the helm.\u00a0 When their last album (the democratically produced <\/span>Turtle Soup<\/span><\/i>) crashed and burned, the band\u2019s end was near.\u00a0 By 1970, The Turtles had disbanded, but the recorded legacy they left behind has remained strong.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I never owned a Turtles album or 45 until I found a <\/span>Greatest Hits <\/span><\/i>CD.\u00a0 It must have been on my mind for a while because I purchased it before I even owned a CD player.\u00a0 My Turtles collection has been greatly expanded over the years.\u00a0 Playing <\/span>She\u2019d Rather Be With Me<\/span><\/i> in my own bands always brought a smile to my face –\u00a0 I\u00a0 called it \u2018The Turtle Effect\u2019.\u00a0 The Turtles are a band one never gets tired of because they mixed great hooks and much humour into their catalog of hits.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan were not done with the music business when The Turtles folded.\u00a0 We will come back to their continuing adventures in a future article, <\/span>FTV:\u00a0 Flo & Eddie.<\/span><\/i> \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Yes, lip synching as one can see by no guitar cords and Johnny Barbata’s drumming not matching the music – and what about<\/p>\n that introduction Ed?\u00a0 Hmmmmmmm – okay, so he only references\u00a0Happy Together\u00a0<\/em> – but I loved singing\u00a0She’d Rather Be With Me<\/em> . . . so here you go<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Turtles almost didn\u2019t happen.\u00a0 Call it fate or kismet or whatever, but one of the top selling bands of the late 1960s were DOA and then they weren\u2019t (more on this in a bit).\u00a0 When vocalist Mark Voman passed away in September of 2025, it prompted me to find a copy of his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,8,12,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-humor","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3766"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3770,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766\/revisions\/3770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}