Tag: Turtles

It all started with a cracked single of the song Eleanor by The Turtles when I was a kid. I was hooked on this band and soon got the greatest hits. They had some nice pop songs in their catalog. If you ever get a chance to see Flo and Eddie…go see them. I saw them on July 20, 1987, with many more bands…though not many original members, Flo and Eddie were there though. They kicked off the concert with Bon Jovi’s Shot Through The Hot…and said…”No no…we don’t play that crap…we play this crap” and proceeded to start playing their songs. I saw them at the local minor league baseball team’s stadium…they played at the end of the game.

This song was written by  Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon…the same two who wrote their biggest hit…Happy Together.

The band was formed by Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan. They were saxophone players who did whatever was trendy in order to make a living as musicians. They were also in the choir together in high school.

They played surf-rock mostly at the time. They also played backup for The Coasters, Sonny And Cher, and The Righteous Brothers when they came through. After a while, Howard and Mark gave up the sax and became singers. They signed a deal with White Whale Records as The Crosswind Singers. When British groups took over America, they tried to pass themselves off as British singers and renamed themselves The Turtles.

Like The Byrds, The Turtles recorded a Bob Dylan song for their first single It Ain’t Me Babe and it was a hit. In 1967 they released Happy Together which peaked at #1. She’s Rather Be With Me was the follow-up single. Not a bad song to follow up the massive hit. This song peaked at #1 in Canada,  #3 on the Billboard 100, #8 in New Zealand, and #4 in the UK in 1967. The two songs were on their album Happy Together. It peaked at #25 in the Billboard Album Charts…which is peculiar with you think about it…having two singles hit #1 and #3 off of that album but they were more of a singles band.

The Turtles recorded for a small record company named White Whale. They broke up in 1970 and part of the reason was to get away from their manager…who was also their first manager that got the job again.

Volman and Kaylan were very smart. 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. When the 80s came around and CDs were sold…they made the money and not their old record company. They also hosted some radio shows in the 70s and 80s and recorded soundtrack music for children’s shows like the Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake.

They became known as Flo (Phlorescent Leech) and Eddie. Kaylan and Volman joined Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention as Flo and Eddie because of contractual restrictions of their record company. Kaylan and Volman sang backing vocals on several recordings by T. Rex, including their worldwide 1971 hit “Get it On (Bang A Gong). Later they did the backup vocals on Bruce Springsteen’s Hungry Heart.

If you are in any way interested in watching band documentaries… watch The Turtles doc! It is hilarious. I will include the full doc above the song.

Here is the documentary…watch it if you have time. What they did to their last manager (who was also their first) is classic! Now…I hope if you didn’t read most of this…READ NOW…if you don’t do anything else today…on the video below…their documentary… GO TO 1:12:46 and listen (or just click the link)…it’s very funny and very sad…this happened all of the time. Of course they were gullible…that helped! It is only a couple of minutes and starts with them talking about their 8 managers. 

She’d Rather Be With Me

Some girls
Love to run around
Love to handle everything they see
But my girl
Has more fun around
And you know she’d rather be with me
Me oh my (me oh my, I’m a lucky guy)
Lucky guy is what I am
Tell you why, you’ll understand
She don’t fly although she can

Some boys (some boys)
Love to run around
They don’t think about the things they do
But this boy (this boy)
Wants to settle down
And you know he’d rather be with you
Me oh my (my)
Lucky guy is what I am (my)
Tell you why, you’ll understand (my)
She don’t fly although she can (my)

Some girls (some girls)
Love to run around
Love to handle everything they see
But my girl (my girl)
Has more fun around
And you know she’d rather be with
Yeah, she’d rather be with
You know she’d rather be with me

You know she’d rather be with me
You know she’d rather be with me
You know she’d rather be with me

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