Howard Kaylan
Encyclopedia
Howard Kaylan is an American
rock and roll
musician
, best known as a founding member and lead singer of the 1960s band
, The Turtles
, and "Eddie" of 1970's rock band Flo & Eddie
.
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.
founded The Turtles, a popular band of the late 1960s. At the end of 1970, Kaylan and Volman signed on as members of Frank Zappa
's band, The Mothers of Invention
. Five album
s and the film, 200 Motels
came from that partnership, as did the stage names "Flo & Eddie
". 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. Thanks to Burger King
, the NFL
, Sony PlayStation
, and countless other television advertisement
s and motion pictures, the Turtles' catalog remains a staple for licensing and reproduction in the twenty-first century.
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 can be heard singing with John Lennon
, Bruce Springsteen
, Ramones
, Blondie
, Duran Duran
, The Psychedelic Furs, T.Rex, Alice Cooper
and many more.
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.
, an old hippie on Suddenly Susan
and a younger one on the It's Garry Shandling's Show
.
In 1983, Kaylan appeared in the rock and roll
comedy
Get Crazy
, starring Malcolm McDowell
and Daniel Stern
. Kaylan played the part of Captain Cloud, a spiritual guru type of character, leader of a caravan of time lost gypsy-like hippie
s. 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
. After bringing it to his friend (and Rhino Records president) Harold Bronson for input, the project was lengthened and shot as a one-hour movie. The following year, scenes were added and it was back into the movie studio once again to complete what would now be a full-length feature. My Dinner With Jimi
thus became the first film written by Kaylan. It was produced by Bronson for Rhino Entertainment, and directed
by Bill Fishman (Tapeheads
, Car 54, Where Are You?
) for Fallout Films. In 2005, Kaylan appeared in a featured role in Stephen King
's Riding The Bullet.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, best known as a founding member and lead singer of the 1960s band
Band (music)
In music, a musical ensemble or band is a group of musicians that works together to perform music. The following articles concern types of musical bands:* All-female band* Big band* Boy band* Christian band* Church band* Concert band* Cover band...
, The Turtles
The Turtles
The Turtles are an American rock group led by vocalists Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman. The band became notable for several Top 40 hits beginning with its cover version of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" in 1965...
, and "Eddie" of 1970's rock band Flo & Eddie
Flo & Eddie
Flo & Eddie are a comedic musical duo.The two were the original founding members of the Top 40 rock group the Turtles. After the Turtles dissolved, Volman and Kaylan first joined the Mothers of Invention as "Phlorescent Leech & Eddie"...
.
Early days
Kaylan was born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and grew up in Westchester
Westchester, Los Angeles, California
Westchester is a suburban neighborhood in western Los Angeles, California, United States. It is home to Los Angeles International Airport , Loyola Marymount University , and Otis College of Art and Design.-Geography:...
, a suburb of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. He studied choral music and clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
, and won a Bank of America
Bank of America
Bank of America Corporation, an American multinational banking and financial services corporation, is the second largest bank holding company in the United States by assets, and the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by market capitalization. The bank is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina...
Fine Arts Award at the age of 16. He graduated early (as valedictorian
Valedictorian
Valedictorian is an academic title conferred upon the student who delivers the closing or farewell statement at a graduation ceremony. Usually, the valedictorian is the highest ranked student among those graduating from an educational institution...
) from Westchester High School
Westchester High School (Los Angeles)
Westchester High School is a public high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Local District 3.It is located in Westchester , USA, a suburban neighborhood adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport and bordered by Playa Vista to the north, Inglewood to the east, El Segundo to the...
, and briefly attended UCLA
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
on a scholarship.
The Turtles
Kaylan and Mark VolmanMark Volman
Mark Volman is an American rock and roll singer, best known as a founding member of the 1960s band The Turtles. At times during his career he has used the pseudonym "The Phlorescent Leech"...
founded The Turtles, a popular band of the late 1960s. At the end of 1970, Kaylan and Volman signed on as members of Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
's band, The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention were an American band active from 1964 to 1969, and again from 1970 to 1975.They mainly performed works by, and were the original recording group of, US composer and guitarist Frank Zappa , although other members have had the occasional writing credit...
. Five album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
s and the film, 200 Motels
200 Motels
200 Motels is a 1971 American-British musical surrealist film cowritten and directed by Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer and starring The Mothers of Invention, Theodore Bikel and Ringo Starr. The film covers a loose storyline about The Mothers of Invention going crazy in the small town Centerville...
came from that partnership, as did the stage names "Flo & Eddie
Flo & Eddie
Flo & Eddie are a comedic musical duo.The two were the original founding members of the Top 40 rock group the Turtles. After the Turtles dissolved, Volman and Kaylan first joined the Mothers of Invention as "Phlorescent Leech & Eddie"...
". 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. Thanks to Burger King
Burger King
Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
, the NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
, Sony PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
, and countless other television advertisement
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
s and motion pictures, the Turtles' catalog remains a staple for licensing and reproduction in the twenty-first century.
Flo & Eddie
Flo & Eddie released nine albums on Warner Bros. RecordsWarner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...
and Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
in music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
; in film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
they provided music and voices for animated films like Down and Dirty Duck; and they appeared in radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
broadcasting.
In the 1980s, "Rock Steady With Flo and Eddie" was recorded in Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley International Airport to the rest of the island...
, and the partners began writing comedy and script with Chris Bearde
Chris Bearde
Chris Bearde is a comedy writer, producer and director best known for his work as a writer on the '60s zeitgeist hit Laugh In and for co-writing and producing TV specials for Elvis Presley, Bob Hope, Sonny and Cher, Bill Cosby, Steve Martin, Jim Carrey, Andy Williams, The Jackson Five, The...
, Larry Gelbart
Larry Gelbart
Larry Simon Gelbart was an American television writer, playwright, screenwriter and author.-Early life:...
and Carl Gotleib. Simultaneously, they began writing regularly featured columns for Creem
Creem
Creem , "America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine," was a monthly rock 'n' roll publication first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. It suspended production in 1989 but received a short-lived renaissance in the early 1990s as a glossy tabloid...
, Phonograph Record Magazine and the L.A. Free Press.
They also produced
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
many albums for other bands and artists, as well as singing backing vocals
Backing vocalist
A backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists...
on over 100 albums. Flo and Eddie can be heard singing with John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
, Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, Ramones
Ramones
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...
, Blondie
Blondie (band)
Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...
, Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...
, The Psychedelic Furs, T.Rex, Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades...
and many more.
Literature
In the mid 1990s, Kaylan turned his attention to the collecting and writing of dark fantasy literatureFantasy literature
Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form. Historically speaking, literature has composed the majority of fantasy works. Since the 1950s however, a growing segment of the fantasy genre has taken the form of films, television programs, graphic novels, video games, music, painting, and other...
and science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. 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.
Media appearances
He portrayed an orthodox minister who "married" Laura to Stavros in a dream sequence on General HospitalGeneral Hospital
General Hospital is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running American soap opera currently in production and the third longest running drama in television in American history after Guiding Light and As the World Turns....
, an old hippie on Suddenly Susan
Suddenly Susan
Suddenly Susan is an American sitcom that was broadcast on NBC from 1996 to 2000. The show takes place at The Gate, a fictitious magazine which is based in San Francisco. Among the magazine's employees is Susan Keane , who always has been cared for by someone else...
and a younger one on the It's Garry Shandling's Show
It's Garry Shandling's Show
It's Garry Shandling's Show is an American sitcom which was initially broadcast on Showtime from 1986 to 1990. It was created by Garry Shandling and Alan Zweibel. The show is notable for its frequent use of breaking the fourth wall to allow characters to speak directly to the audience...
.
In 1983, Kaylan appeared in the rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
Get Crazy
Get Crazy
Get Crazy is a 1983 film directed by Allan Arkush and starring Malcolm McDowell, Allen Garfield, Daniel Stern, Gail Edwards, and Ed Begley, Jr.-Premise:...
, starring Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell is an English actor with a career spanning over forty years.McDowell is principally known for his roles in the controversial films If...., O Lucky Man!, A Clockwork Orange and Caligula...
and Daniel Stern
Daniel Stern (actor)
Daniel Jacob Stern is an American film and television actor. He is known for his roles in the Hollywood films C.H.U.D., Diner, City Slickers and the first two Home Alone films, and as the narrator for the television series The Wonder Years.-Early life:Stern was born in Bethesda, Maryland to a...
. Kaylan played the part of Captain Cloud, a spiritual guru type of character, leader of a caravan of time lost gypsy-like hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
s. In 1987, Kaylan and Volman appeared in a new music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
of the song
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...
"Happy Together
Happy Together (song)
"Happy Together" is a 1967 song from The Turtles' album of the same name. Released in February 1967, the song knocked The Beatles' "Penny Lane" out of the #1 slot for three weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the group's only chart-topper. "Happy Together" reached #12 on the UK Singles Chart in...
", made in order to promote the romantic comedy Making Mr. Right
Making Mr. Right
Making Mr. Right is a science fiction/comedy film, directed by Susan Seidelman and starring John Malkovich as Jeff Peters/Ulysses and Ann Magnuson as Frankie Stone.This film is primarily about an android and a woman's misadventures.-Plot:...
, 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
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. After bringing it to his friend (and Rhino Records president) Harold Bronson for input, the project was lengthened and shot as a one-hour movie. The following year, scenes were added and it was back into the movie studio once again to complete what would now be a full-length feature. My Dinner With Jimi
My Dinner with Jimi
My Dinner with Jimi is a 2003 autobiographical film written by Howard Kaylan, dealing with events in 1966-67 which led up to the night in 1967 when Kaylan encountered The Beatles in London, England...
thus became the first film written by Kaylan. It was produced by Bronson for Rhino Entertainment, and directed
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
by Bill Fishman (Tapeheads
Tapeheads
Tapeheads is a 1988 comedy film directed by Bill Fishman. The film stars John Cusack, Tim Robbins, Sam Moore, and Junior Walker. The movie was produced by Michael Nesmith, who is seen briefly in the film as a bottled water delivery man.-Plot:...
, Car 54, Where Are You?
Car 54, Where Are You?
Car 54, Where Are You? is an American sitcom that ran on NBC from 1961 to 1963. Episodes had various directors, the most recognized being Al De Caprio. Stanley Prager and Nat Hiken also directed several episodes. Most of its filming was on location in The Bronx, and at Biograph...
) for Fallout Films. In 2005, Kaylan appeared in a featured role in Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
's Riding The Bullet.