{"id":19597,"date":"2020-10-08T05:30:15","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T09:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19597"},"modified":"2020-10-08T08:38:18","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T12:38:18","slug":"guide-for-the-turtles-fan-an-album-by-album-discussion-with-mark-volman-part-3-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/10\/08\/guide-for-the-turtles-fan-an-album-by-album-discussion-with-mark-volman-part-3-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Guide for the Turtles Fan: An Album-by-album Discussion with Mark Volman (Part 3 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two<\/a> \u2026 <\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"Turtle Soup<\/b><\/i> (originally released October 1969)<\/b>
\nFor their fifth album, The Turtles made a highly unconventional choice in producer: they called on British musician Ray Davies, best known as leader and songwriter of The Kinks. Prior to working on Turtle Soup<\/i>, Davies had never produced another artist. But Volman is proud of the finished album, the only long player to feature no songs from outside songwriters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an album package \u2013 songs and everything \u2013 Turtle Soup<\/i> is probably one of the best we put out,\u201d Volman says. He doesn\u2019t make outsize claims about The Turtles\u2019 body of work, though. \u201cI\u2019m not sure that any of our albums are Brian Wilson quality. Brian had the whole thing in Hawthorne, California; we were just a bunch of kids from [L.A. neighborhood] Westchester. That\u2019s really what we were,\u201d he says. \u201cWe weren’t a band that was going to go into history, but we capture our place in time very comfortably.\u201d<\/p>\n

Highlights on Turtle Soup<\/i> include the darkly sophisticated \u201cSomewhere Friday Night,\u201d the ambitious arrangement of \u201cLove in the City\u201d and the aggressive rocker (with a folk protest vibe) \u201cHouse on the Hill.\u201d \u201cYou Don\u2019t Have to Walk in the Rain\u201d is another classic in the mold of the band\u2019s sunshine pop hits. And the instrumental work on \u201cShe Always Leaves Me Laughing\u201d \u2013 especially Al Nichol\u2019s chiming 12-string guitar and Jim Pons\u2019 kinetic bass lines \u2013 adorn a memorable tune. Drummer John Seiter turns in a first-class vocal, too, on \u201cHow You Love Me.\u201d The carefully layered sound of Turtle Soup<\/i> foreshadows later Flo & Eddie masterworks like \u201cMarmendy Mill,\u201d \u201cKeep it Warm\u201d and \u201cMama, Open Up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several tracks on the second LP in the Turtle Soup<\/i> vinyl set appeared previously on Rhino Records\u2019 Shell Shock<\/i>, released in 1987. Those tracks make plain the fact that near the end of their time together, The Turtles were making some of the best music of their career. \u201cIf We Only Had the Time\u201d was so good that Kaylan and Volman would re-record it with a new arrangement on their 1973 album Flo & Eddie<\/i>. The bonus LP also includes five demo recordings (two of those previously unreleased) and a radio spot promoting the 1969 album.<\/p>\n

\"\"Wooden Head<\/b><\/i> (originally released September 1970)<\/b>
\nThe Turtles themselves had little to do with the release of what would be their final album. Producer Bones Howe assembled this collection of previously-unreleased material at a time when the group had already split. Most of the songs on Wooden Head<\/i> were recorded years earlier, in the period between You <\/i>Baby<\/i> and Happy Together<\/i>. Poorly promoted on release, it would become the rarest of all Turtles LPs.<\/p>\n

The eleven songs on the original Wooden Head<\/i> rank among the band\u2019s least-known material \u2013 no hits \u2013 but as with all Turtles material, the music has its charms. And the bonus disc includes alternate versions and mixes of better-known songs along with some rarities and one previously unreleased track, an alternate take of the band\u2019s pop arrangement of \u201cWe\u2019ll Meet Again,\u201d a 1939 classic popularized by Vera Lynn.<\/p>\n

Volman is very pleased with the quality of the Manifesto reissues of The Turtles\u2019 catalog. \u201cWe always wanted to have a vinyl recollection of our history,\u201d he says. And coupled with Manifesto\u2019s 2016 2CD set All the Singles<\/i>, the band\u2019s entire body of work is readily available for 21st<\/sup> century listeners.<\/p>\n

Mark and Howard\u2019s effort to bring all of their material together under one roof may yield future reissues, too: after their tenure with Frank Zappa\u2019s Mothers, they continued with an even more varied and sophisticated musical project. Re-branding themselves (for legal\/contractual reasons) as Flo & Eddie, the duo made a series of ambitious records that rocked hard, swung for the fences creatively, and provided even more laughs. They released five records for three different labels between 1972 and 1981, and today they own the rights to all of those recordings as well.<\/p>\n

Will those albums see deluxe reissue? \u201cDestiny has a way of reeling itself up,\u201d Volman says. \u201cAnd I think they will, someday. You never know.\u201d He even makes mention of a batch of unheard material that could serve a Wooden Head<\/i>-like role in the Flo & Eddie catalog. \u201cHoward and I have a bunch of material that hasn\u2019t been released; we didn\u2019t know how we were going to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working with different musicians, Kaylan and Volman re-launched The Turtles in the early 1980s. Featuring fellow \u201860s sensations (variously including Mark Lindsay, The Cowsills, Gary Lewis, The Grass Roots and others), their highly successful Happy Together Tours began in 2010 and continued until 2019 (the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to the 2020 tour before it began).<\/p>\n

2015 marked the half-century anniversary of Kaylan and Volman\u2019s musical partnership. That same year, Volman dealt successfully with throat cancer. Today, it\u2019s fair to wonder about the post-pandemic future of the Turtles. Kaylan \u2013 who, like Volman, turned 73 earlier this year \u2013 sat out the most recent Happy Together Tour to deal with health problems of his own, and he has long made it clear that he has no interest in reuniting the original band. \u201cWe broke up for a reason in 1970, mainly because we couldn\u2019t stand each other,\u201d he told me in a 2009 interview. \u201cSo the thought of getting back into that mind-trip after all of these years of relative calm, to me, is just a shattering thought. That would never, ever happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in 2020, Kaylan\u2019s lifelong musical partner strikes a more accommodating tone. \u201cWe’ve had a couple of producers step up and think it might be fun to do the original band,\u201d he reveals. \u201cBecause we\u2019re all still living: Al [Nichol], Jim Tucker, Jim Pons, Johny Barbata, me, and Howard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings materialize,\u201d Volman says. \u201cThe right offer could make people do different things.\u201d<\/p>\n

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