The Turtles, featuring Flo & Eddie
Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, September 1973
FLO & EDDIE are well-known (if rather rotund) figures; their supporting role in the colossal Alice Cooper psychodrama alone assured them a massive national audience. Before that, known as the Phlorescent Leech & Eddie, they gained much notoriety as Frank Zappa's antic sidekicks during a particularly prosperous and popular phase of the Mothers. And before that, as Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, they were known to many as the principal protagonists in a group called the Turtles. The Turtles were not exactly obscure; everybody knows 'Happy Together', and a sizable segment of pop fandom would recall, if pressed, 'Elenore' and possibly 'It Ain't Me Babe' or 'You Baby'. There's much more to the Turtles saga than a few big hits, however; even though they were quite commercially-oriented, and proud of it. Their music covered virtually the entire spectrum of American 60's rock, and their story, fraught with the trials, traumas, and tribulations of the latter-day pop scene, is harrowing and most interesting.
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