Howard Kaylan may be best known as a member of the Turtles, but his life in music is much, much more far-reaching.
The Turtles
From his recording with fellow Turtle Mark Volman as Flo and Eddie to his work on over 100 albums by artists like Bruce Springsteen, Frank Zappa, John Lennon, the Ramones and Alice Cooper, Kaylan undoubtedly has a lot of stories.
Shell Shocked: My Life With the Turtles, Flo & Eddie and Frank Zappa, etc. was written with Jeff Tamarkin and will be released on April 16 via Backbeat Books.
According to the publisher:
If Howard Kaylan had sung only one song, the Turtles’ 1967 No. 1 smash hit Happy Together, his place in rock-and-roll history would still be secure. But that recording, named in 1999 by BMI as one of the top 50 songs of the 20th century, with over five million radio plays, is only the tip of a rather eye-opening iceberg. For nearly five decades, Howard Kaylan has been a player in the rock-and-roll revolution. In addition to his years with the Turtles, Kaylan was a core member of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention and the dynamic duo Flo and Eddie, and part of glam rock history with Marc Bolan and T. Rex. He’s also given street cred and harmonies to everyone from John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen and Alice Cooper to the Ramones and Duran Duran, to name just a few. Howard Kaylan’s life has been a dangerous ride that he is only too happy to report on, naming names and shedding shocking tales of sex, drugs, and creative excess. Shell Shocked will stand alone as not only one of the best-told music-biz memoirs, but one with a truly candid and unmatchable story of rock-and-roll insanity and success from a man who glories in it all.
Here, from last November, Kaylan talks about the book, reads an excerpt and leads a couple of singalongs at Vicki Abelson’s Women Who Write (Shot and edited by Angela Aguirre).
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