The videos of The Turtles brought a lot of e-mail from folks like — well, here's one from John Hall…
"Happy Together" was not the first hit. It was their fourth Top 40 hit and their only #1 hit. First was a Bob Dylan cover, "It Ain't Me Babe," which made the top 10. Third was my personal favorite Turtles song, "You Baby."
Okay…first and only #1 hit. Duly noted. Now, here's one from someone who didn't want his name mentioned…
Here's something you might not know about the Turtles: On the liner notes to Frank Zappa's 1965 album Freak Out was a quote attributed to a noted L.A. D.J. that said he could make him "as popular as the Turtles!" By 1971, the Turtles had broken up and three of them — Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman, and bassist Jim Pons — were all in Zappa's touring band. Cool, huh?
Cool, indeed. And right after I got that, I received this from voiceover guy supreme (and a former L.A. D.J.) Neil Ross…
One of the great live shows I ever saw was when Volman and Kaylan were briefly part of Frank Zappa's aggregation. I saw them in San Diego. They did a truncated onstage version of their 200 Motels movie which had recently been released. The high point of the show was when Kaylan and Volman, backed by Zappa's other excellent musicians, launched into a medley of their old Turtles hits. Brought the house down. Those cats could really sing! You'd have enjoyed it.
I would have. And we'll all be listening to hear Neil Ross as the announcer on the new season of Press Your Luck on CBS. (I'm not sure if it's a secret that he's also the voice of The Whammy so I won't mention that.) Then Jeff Blair wrote to ask…
I'm sure others have inquired, but did your interest in the Turtle boys follow over to their stint with Zappa?
Not so much. I can't really explain it but I never warmed to the work of Mr. Zappa. It may have had to do with a couple of interviews I caught of him where he talked at some length about the greatness of the work he was doing and the even-greater greatness of the work he had yet to do. Or something like that. Perhaps I was judging him unfairly but I pretty much ignored him after that. The one exception was "Eddie, Are You Kidding?", which I thought of mostly as the work of Kaylan and Volman.
Thanks to all who wrote in about that and/or to be generally supportive of the new mixtape feature. More to come.