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Wilmington, North Carolina once had a thriving Black middle class and an elected interracial government. In 1898 white supremacists used violence to overthrow that government, kill Black residents and drive many others from the city.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
The Turtles | |
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 The Turtles in 1967 From left: Al Nichol, Chip Douglas, Johnny Barbata, Mark Volman, Jim Tucker, Howard Kaylan | |
| Background information | |
| Also known as |
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| Origin | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Works | |
| Years active |
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| Labels | White Whale, Sundazed Music |
| Spinoffs | Flo & Eddie |
| Past members |
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| Website | theturtles |
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),[5] 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, T. Rex, 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.
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.[6]
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.[7]
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.
As with the Byrds, the Turtles achieved breakthrough success with a rendition 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.[7] "Let Me Be", their second single, reached the Top 30, and "You Baby" charted in the Top 20 in early 1966. "You Baby", with its intricate vocal harmonies and upbeat tempo, was influential in the band's sound as it departed from the political, Byrds-type folk rock;[7][8] the band's new sound ranged from chamber pop to straightforward pop music.[2]
You Baby, the band's second album, failed to reach Billboard's Top LPs chart, and of several singles released in 1966, "Grim Reaper of Love" and "Can I Get to Know You Better" barely entered the Billboard Hot 100. One single, the tough "Outside Chance", written by Warren Zevon, did not chart. In 1966, the Turtles made an appearance in Universal's film Out of Sight, singing "She'll Come Back" on screen.
In early 1966, drummer Don Murray and bassist Chuck Portz quit the group. Murray was replaced by Joel Larson for a few months, before John Barbata became the band's new drummer in late 1966. Portz was replaced by Chip Douglas on bass.[7]
"Happy Together", the first of several key Turtles singles co-written by Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon, had been rejected by countless performers, but became the group's biggest hit and their signature song and signaled a turning point for both the Turtles and for Chip Douglas, who provided the arrangement.[7] The single replaced the Beatles' "Penny Lane" at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1967. The Turtles' only No. 1 remained there for three weeks. An album of the same name followed and peaked at No. 25. "Happy Together" reached No. 12 on the UK Singles Chart.[9] This same year saw the Turtles performing the title song (music by John Williams with lyric 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.
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.[9] Two successive Top 15 songs followed: "You Know What I Mean" and "She's My Girl". Both 45s showed a psychedelic side in the band's style. During that year, the band released two albums, Happy Together and Golden Hits, the former reaching the Top 30 and the latter reaching the Top 10. The similar album covers for Golden Hits and its 1970 companion More Golden Hits were designed by Dean Torrence of Jan & Dean.
By the end of 1967 the band were reduced to a five-piece, when rhythm guitarist Jim Tucker departed, citing the pressure of touring and recording new material. He moved to Grass Valley, California where he became an electrical contractor. He has denied that he left the band because John Lennon was rude to him, as Kaylan later suggested in his 2003 film My Dinner with Jimi.[10]
"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.[9] Although both singles were successful, they did not help to boost the album's sales, which peaked at No. 128 on the Billboard Pop Albums. The 1969 hit "You Showed Me" had been written by the Byrds' Gene Clark and Roger (then Jim) McGuinn in 1964. It was their last Top 10 single. Television appearances included a February 1968 spot on The Mike Douglas Show, to which they returned in April 1969. 1969 saw the band undergo another personnel change, with drummer John Barbata being replaced by John Seiter.
Towards the end of 1969, the group released its next album, Turtle Soup, a critically well-received LP produced by Ray Davies of the Kinks. Inspired by the 1968 concept album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, this was Davies's only released production work for another band (but Davies had previously produced demo recordings for the Iveys). Notable tracks include "Somewhere Friday Nite" and "Love in the City". In spite of Turtle Soup's positive reception from the music press, its commercial success was marginal, and the band began to disintegrate.
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Long disillusioned with their record label and its growing financial problems by this time, Kaylan and Volman resisted White Whale's efforts to turn the Turtles into something approaching an assembly-line pop act, like the early Monkees. The label apparently encouraged Kaylan and Volman to fire the rest of the band, tour with hired musicians and make records by adding their vocals to backing tracks recorded by Memphis session players. Such pressure convinced the band to record a single called "Who Would Ever Think That I Would Marry Margaret?", which they disowned after its release.
The Turtles wound down their career in 1970 with More Golden Hits, a second compilation album, and Wooden Head, a B-sides and rarities album. With the demise of the Turtles, White Whale Records lost its biggest moneymaker, had few commercially viable bands, and soon ceased operations.
In mid-1970, Kaylan and Volman joined Frank Zappa's band the Mothers of Invention, with Pons also joining in early 1971.[7] As well as the Turtles' name, Kaylan and Volman were unable to use their real names in billings due to them being prohibited by their contract with their label White Whale Records. Because of this, Volman and Kaylan began performing under the nicknames the Phlorescent Leech & Eddie or Flo & Eddie for short. Kaylan, Volman, and Pons worked with Zappa until December 1971, when the infamous attack on Zappa at the Rainbow Theatre in London left him no choice but to cease touring for a while. During their time together the former Turtles appeared on several Zappa albums, as well as starring in his 1971 film 200 Motels. Volman and Kaylan then went on to make several duo albums, still using the Flo & Eddie name.[7]
Volman and Kaylan sang backing vocals on several recordings by the band T. Rex, including their worldwide 1971 hit "Get It On (Bang a Gong)" and the albums Electric Warrior and The Slider. When White Whale's master recordings were sold at auction in 1974, the duo won the Turtles' masters, making them the owners of their own recorded work. They promptly licensed the tracks to Sire Records, which issued them as a compilation album titled Happy Together Again. In the mid-1970s, Volman and Kaylan started their syndicated radio show titled Flo & Eddie by the Fireside, which originated from KMET in Los Angeles.[11]
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.[12]
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.[13][14]
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.
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.[15]
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.[16] 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.[17][18]
Original rhythm guitarist Jim Tucker died on November 12, 2020, at the age of 74.[19][20]
Drummer John Barbata died on May 8, 2024, at the age of 79.[21]
Volman died after a short illness on September 5, 2025, at the age of 78.[22][23]
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
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, T. Rex, 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.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is a 2016 superhero film directed by Dave Green, and written by Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec. Based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters, it is the sequel to the 2014 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. The film stars Megan Fox, Will Arnett, Laura Linney, Stephen Amell, Noel Fisher, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, Alan Ritchson, Tyler Perry, Brad Garrett, Gary Anthony Williams, Brian Tee and Sheamus. The plot follows the Turtles as they attempt to stop a conspiracy plot by Shredder and Baxter Stockman to unleash an alien warlord named Krang. Following the box office success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies officially announced that a sequel was greenlit. Green began negotiations to direct the sequel in December 2014, taking over from Jonathan Liebesman, who directed the first film. Principal photography on the film began in April 2015, in New York City, and wrapped up in August 2015. Out of the Shadows premiered at Madison Square Garden in New York City on May 22, 2016, was released in theaters in the United States on June 3, 2016. The film received mixed reviews from critics, but was considered an improvement over the first film. It was a box-office bomb, only grossing $246 million against a $135 million budget, resulting in a planned third film being scrapped in favor of an animated reboot, Mutant Mayhem, released in 2023. Another live-action film is planned to release in 2028.
The Mock Turtles are an English indie rock band, formed in Middleton, Greater Manchester, in 1985, who enjoyed some success in the early 1990s. Their most famous song, "Can You Dig It?", which was released in the UK in 1991, charted at no. 18. When the song was re-released in slightly remixed form in 2003, it again reached the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart.
The Dream of the Blue Turtles is the debut solo studio album by the English musician Sting, released on 17 June 1985. The album reached number three on the UK Albums Chart and number two on the US Billboard 200. Five singles were released from the album: "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free", "Fortress Around Your Heart", "Russians", "Moon Over Bourbon Street", and "Love Is the Seventh Wave". The album earned Grammy nominations for Album of the Year, Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and Best Engineered Recording; the instrumental title track was nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance. A digital-only special expanded edition of The Dream of the Blue Turtles was released on 11 July 2025 to celebrate its fortieth anniversary. The version includes B-sides such as "Another Day" and "The Ballad of Mac the Knife", as well as remixes of "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free", "Love Is the Seventh Wave", "Moon Over Bourbon Street" and "Fortress Around Your Heart".
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Shirley Chisholm, elected in 1968.
