Mark Volman, a musical pioneer who helped shape the sound of the 1960s with The Turtles, has left us at the age of 78, closing a vibrant chapter of rock history.
KTLA reported that Volman, a co-founding member of the iconic rock-pop band known for the timeless hit "Happy Together," passed away on Friday in Nashville after a brief and unexpected illness.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Volman’s journey began in high school, where he met Howard Kaylan, a partnership that would define decades of music.
Together, they tinkered with early bands like The Nightriders, a surf rock group, and The Crossfires before forming The Turtles, steering toward a folk rock vibe that captured the era’s spirit.
The Turtles soared to fame with Top 40 hits like a cover of Bob Dylan’s classic and the catchy "She’d Rather Be With Me," but it was "Happy Together" that became their triple-platinum signature, topping the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967.
With eight albums under their belt, The Turtles cemented their place in music history, though by the 1970s, tensions with their label, White Whale Records, dimmed their output—a classic tale of corporate overreach stifling creativity.
Volman and Kaylan didn’t let label disputes silence them; they joined Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, lending vocals until 1971, proving their versatility in a shifting cultural landscape.
Through the 1970s and 1980s, the duo stayed busy with a radio show on L.A.’s KROQ-FM, film soundtracks, and session work for legends like Bruce Springsteen and John Lennon, showing that talent trumps bureaucratic nonsense.
Contractual shackles with White Whale meant they couldn’t even use their own names post-Turtles, so they toured as The Turtles featuring Flo & Eddie starting in 1983—Volman as “Flo,” Kaylan as “Eddie”—a quirky workaround to keep the music alive.
Their hit "Happy Together" endured, popping up in TV shows, films, and even a commercial for a Nintendo 64 game, a testament to its cross-generational appeal in a world obsessed with fleeting trends.
Volman and Kaylan toured sporadically as Flo & Eddie until 2018 when Kaylan stepped back, but Volman pressed on, performing as recently as the Happy Together Tour in 2023 in New Jersey, showing grit that’s rare in today’s cancel-culture climate.
Diagnosed with Lewy body dementia in 2020, Volman faced a cruel condition that disrupts thinking, memory, and movement, even causing hallucinations, yet he didn’t let it define him.
“I got hit by the knowledge that this was going to create a whole new part of my life,” Volman told People in 2023, reflecting on his diagnosis.
Sure, he accepted the challenge with a shrug of inevitability, but let’s be real—modern society often glosses over the raw struggle of such illnesses with platitudes, ignoring the need for real support over performative empathy.
Volman leaves behind his partner Emily, daughters Hallie and Sarina, brother Phil, and a legacy that reminds us of a time when music wasn’t bogged down by today’s oversensitized cultural debates, but simply brought people together—happy or not.