About four years ago, I wrote a recollection of how I discovered and became a fan of the music of the Turtles. This week, the passing of former Turtle Mark Volman prompted us to spotlight Flo & Eddie: Mark Volman and his long-time musical partner in crime Howard Kaylon, a collaboration that even predates their work with the Turtles. We played a bunch of Turtles and Flo & Eddie tracks, a live cut of Flo & Eddie performing the Turtles' biggest hit "Happy Together" as members of the Mothers with Frank Zappa, examples of Flo & Eddie singing back-up for the Ramones, Blondie, T. Rex, the Knack, and the Johnny Popstar Luv Explosion, a pre-Turtles Flo & Eddie surf instrumental by the Crossfires, and a stupendous track they produced for Starry Eyed And Laughing. We didn't even get around to Flo & Eddie backing Bruce Springsteen ("Hungry Heart") or Psychedelic Furs ("Love My Way").
The Turtles placed nine hit singles in Billboard's Top 20; we didn't play any of them (unless you wanna count the Mothers doing "Happy Together"). The Turtles' hits were phenomenal records...but the Turtles were so much more than just their hits. Hell, I dumped my 2-LP Turtles best-of when I realized that I needed to own all of their individual albums. Good decision!
In lieu of further commentary, this is an edit of what I wrote in 2021 about the origin of my Turtles fandom:
Some of the best stories start with a bunch of 45s. Even if the story itself never goes anywhere, you've still got a bunch of 45s. That's a great start for anything.
The story of my discovering the music of the Turtles doesn't exactly start with a bunch of 45s, but a small collection of 7" singles served as an integral early part of that story. The setting was Jean Price's front porch in Syracuse's Northern suburbs, 1967. Jean wasn't there at the time; she was older, and she certainly wouldn't have been hanging out with a bunch of seven- and eight-year-old children. In truth, I don't even remember Jean herself, and I have no recollection of why I was hanging out on her porch with a small group of the other neighborhood kids.
But if I don't remember the why, I remember the what. We were looking through a box of 45s, presumably Jean Price's 45s. Memory won't surrender the identities of most of those singles, though I think the stash included either "Liar, Liar" by the Castaways or "Wipe Out" by the Surfaris, or maybe both of those. But I clearly, clearly remember seeing the White Whale Records logo, as I stared at the Turtles' "Happy Together" single.
I knew the song from the radio. I had no other specific tether to it in the moment. But in that moment, for whatever mystic forces manipulated (but fail to explain) the situation, "Happy Together" by the Turtles became immediately important to me.
As a teenager, I developed a consuming interest in the rockin' pop of the '60s, both the stuff I remembered from childhood and stuff that was essentially new to my post-adolescent ears. Oldies radio hooked me on the Turtles' pop classics "She'd Rather Be With Me" and "Elenore." "She'd Rather Be With Me" became the first Turtles track I ever owned, courtesy of a various-artists set called 20 Heavy Hits, scarfed up at the flea market. "Happy Together" followed, with a purchase of a (very) used copy of the cheap-o early '70s Do It Now compilation in the spring of 1977, my senior year in high school.
My first Turtles album was the 2-LP anthology Happy Together Again, a dusty and well-worn used copy rescued from the basement of Record Revolution in Cleveland Heights in the summer of '77, right before the start of my freshman year in college. This was my real indoctrination into all things Turtley, introducing me to wonderful Turtles tracks like "Outside Chance," "Grim Reaper Of Love," "Love In The City," and more.
Happy Together Again accompanied me to college in Brockport. I met a pretty Long Island girl named Eleanor (never mind the spelling), who of course loved the Turtles' "Elenore" but would have greatly preferred me refraining from singing it to her. Back home in the summer of '78, I played the album for my doomed friend Tom, who liked the Turtles but hated one line in "Let Me Be:" I am what I am and that's all I ever can be. That apparent expression of limitation bugged Tom; looking back decades later, I can't wrap my mind around how to reconcile that sentiment with the fact of Tom's suicide in 1979.
It's weird the things we wind up remembering. A friend objecting to an innocuous lyric he heard a year before he killed himself. A box of 45s on a neighbor girl's porch. I became a big fan of the Turtles, and I own each of their original albums via CD reissues on the Sundazed label. I missed a chance to see the Turtles/Flo and Eddie at a club show in Buffalo in the mid '80s, but saw them in Syracuse a decade later. I play the music of the Turtles at home, in my car, and on the radio.
The story didn't really start with a box of 45s. But by God, it should have. Happy together? Imagine me and you. I do. Brothers and sisters, friends and lovers and random passers-by. Together. We'll do the best we can in that regard.
NEXT WEEK: We will feature the songwriting and performing of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. This is what rock 'n' roll radio sounded like on another Sunday night in Syracuse this week.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream, and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO.
You can read all about this show's long and weird history here: Boppin' The Whole Friggin' Planet (The History Of THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO). You can follow Carl's daily blog at Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do).
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Carl's latest book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get Carl's previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.
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