Mark Volman, the musician who co-founded the Turtles and the offshoot band Flo & Eddie, became a member of Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention, and changed the course of sampling with his lawsuit against De La Soul, has died. Volman revealed in 2023 that he was diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease Lewy body dementia in 2020, but he continued to tour after the diagnosis. According to Deadline, he died today in Nashville following a brief, unexpected illness. He was 78.
Volman is best known for his work with the Turtles. He founded the band with Howard Kaylan in Los Angeles in 1963, playing surf-rock under the name the Nightriders. That was quickly changed to the Crossfires, and then, in 1965, the Tyrtles, with a tweaked spelling a la the Beatles and Byrds — fitting given the folk-rock sound the band had opted to pursue at the time. Just as the Oneders eventually gave up and changed their name to the Wonders, the Tyrtles became the Turtles ahead of their breakthrough hit, a cover of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe." The band scored further hits with "Let Me Be" and "You Baby," but commercial momentum was stalling out when "Happy Together" came along. Co-written by Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon, the 1967 orchestral psych-pop single topped the Hot 100 and still stands as the Turtles' signature song.
In the wake of "Happy Together," the Turtles had a run of big hits including "She'd Rather Be With Me," "You Know What I Mean," "She's My Girl," "Elenore," and "You Showed Me." By 1970, the band wound down, and longtime co-conspirators Kaylan and Volman became members Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention, adopting the pseudonyms Flo (short for Phlorescent Leech) and Eddie because their contract with White Whale Records prohibited them from using their real names.
During their Mothers Of Invention years, Volman and Kaylan played on several Zappa albums while also working as session musicians, contributing vocals to T. Rex recordings such as the hit "Get It On (Bang A Gong)." An injury to Zappa left them with time to create their first Flo & Eddie album, 1972's The Phlorescent Leech & Eddie, kicking off a decade of original LPs that saw the duo helping to lay the groundwork for comedy rock. They continued their session work all the while, including an appearance on Bruce Springsteen's 1980 hit "Hungry Heart." In 1983, Volman and Kaylan began touring as the Turtles featuring Flo & Eddie, an arrangement that continued for decades to come. Volman remained a fixture of the touring circuit until this year, carrying on even after Kaylan retired from the road in 2018.
In 1989, Volman and Kaylan became aware that De La Soul and producer Prince Paul had sampled a few seconds of the Turtles song "You Showed Me" on De La's landmark debut 3 Feet High And Rising. The Turtles guys sued, settling out of court for $1.7 million in 1991. The case established a legal precedent and transformed musicians' approach to sampling, which had previously been a wild frontier.
Below, revisit some of Volman's music.
