June 22: Howard Kaylan lead singer of The Turtles, and Flo & Eddie, is 66-years-old today.

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Howard Kaylan was born as Howard Kaplan in New York City and grew up in Westchester, a suburb of Los Angeles, California. He studied choral music and clarinet, and won a Bank of America Fine Arts Award at the age of 16. He graduated early - as valedictorian - from Westchester High School, and briefly attended UCLA on a scholarship.

Kaylan and Mark Volman founded The Turtles. Originally a surf-rock group called the Crossfires, the band was formed in 1965. The Turtles became notable for several Top 40 hits beginning with their cover version of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" in 1965 Their second single, "Let Me Be," reached the top 30, while their third hit, "You Baby," charted in the top 20 in early 1966.

The band's second album, You Baby, failed to reach Billboard's Top LPs chart. the year 1967 proved to be the Turtles' most successful on the music charts. They scored their biggest and best-known hit in 1967 with the song "Happy Together."Also, "She'd Rather Be With Me" reached number 3 on the US charts in late spring and actually out-charted "Happy Together" overseas, reaching # 4 in the UK. Two successive top-15 songs followed: "You Know What I Mean" and "She's My Girl."

Towards the end of 1969, the group released its next album, Turtle Soup, a critically well-received LP produced by Ray Davies of the Kinks. At the end of 1970, Kaylan and Volman signed on as members of Frank Zappa's band, The Mothers of Invention. Five albums and the film, 200 Motels came from that partnership, as did the stage names "Flo & Eddie" ("Flo" being shortened from "Phlorescent Leech.")

The duo were not allowed legal use of their own names until multiple Turtles lawsuits were settled. In 1985, the old lawsuits were finally settled and the name, "The Turtles" reverted to Kaylan and his partner after fifteen years in litigation, as well as all of the master recordings they made.

Flo & Eddie released nine albums on Warner Bros. Records and Columbia Records in music; in film they provided music and voices for animated films like Down and Dirty Duck; and they appeared in radio broadcasting. In the 1980s, "Rock Steady With Flo and Eddie" was recorded in Kingston, Jamaica, and the partners began writing comedy and script with Chris Bearde, Larry Gelbart and Carl Gotleib.

Simultaneously, they began writing regularly featured columns for Creem, Phonograph Record Magazine and the L.A. Free Press. They also produced many albums for other bands and artists, as well as singing backing vocals on over 100 albums.

Flo and Eddie appeared as The Fluorescent Leech and Eddie on Frank Zappa's 1970 album Chunga's Revenge and in 1971 as lead vocalists on Zappa's Filmore East album as Howard Kaylan/Mark Volman where they sang Happy Together.

In 2006, Kaylan released his first solo album, Dust Bunnies. In the mid 1990s, Kaylan turned his attention to the collecting and writing of dark fantasy literature and science fiction. He wrote two short stories, by way of experimentation, and both were published in the best-selling anthologies, "Phantoms of the Night" and "Forbidden Acts." He also currently pens the widely read "Eddie's Media Corner" on the official website.

In 1983, Kaylan appeared in the rock and roll comedy Get Crazy, starring Malcolm McDowell and Daniel Stern.  In 1987, Kaylan and Volman appeared in a new music video of the song "Happy Together," made in order to promote the romantic comedy Making Mr. Right, which featured the song during its end credits.

In 2001, Kaylan wrote a treatment for a very short film about his first night on tour in London. It ended up as a full-length feature film, My Dinner With Jimi. In 2005, Kaylan appeared in a featured role in Stephen King's Riding The Bullet.

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For more about Howard, visit his Website at - http://www.howardkaylan.com/

and for The Turtles -
http://www.theturtles.com/

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