Guitarist was SO Embarrassed by HIT He REFUSED a Writing Credit…Cost ‘em Millions!-Professor of Rock

Apparently, it was the world’s worst demo. Ever. No one wanted this song. Tons of artists passed over it. The sound quality was nearly unlistenable. And the performance on the track was even worse. Amateurish, out of time, and highlighted by a bizarre falsetto, it was insanely bad… and about to be lost to oblivion because no one was going to record this mess. It was so bad one of the band members turned a chance to co-write the song down… a decision that would cost him millions of dollars. The song Happy Together was going nowhere fast…. That is, until finally a surf band turned folk band, turned psychedelic band heard a diamond in the rough. The band was called the Turtles with Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman. They themselves were on their last legs… having released five straight singles that absolutely bombed. Needing a surefire hit, who knows why they took a chance on this horrible demo? But we’re glad they did. Because as they say, the rest is history. It’s a tale of two intrepid friends Howard and Mark or Flo and Eddies as they would later be known, they have stuck together for the long haul, and so has their signature classic that everybody loves Happy Together. And I mean everybody. It’s a song that you can’t not sing along to when it comes on. It’s pure magic. And you’re going to love the story behind it, coming up… NEXT on the Professor of Rock.
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So it’s time for another edition of our series The New Standards. This show takes an in-depth look into songs that transcend genre, decade, and fads - songs that are landmarks in our culture and society. In previous episodes, we have covered Hey Jude by The Beatles, Mrs. Robinson by Simon and Garfunkel, and Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison For today’s episode, we’re returning to that same golden era in the late 60s for one of pop’s all-time greatest hits. From their 1967 album of the same name, it’s Happy Together by the Turtles.
So the membership of the Turtles would change multiple times over the course of the band’s original run between 1965 and 1970. But what remained constant was the leadership and friendship of Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, both of whom grew up in Westchester, California. The two friends sang a cappella together in their high school choir. And when Mark discovered Howard was in an instrumental surf band called the Nightriders, he had to join… even though he didn’t know how to play an instrument.
Said Howard, “I’ve always been attracted to funny people. So when he asked about joining the group, especially when he answered that he had no particular skills at all. I was sold. The band could really use this guy in it. You know a little levity, something to lighten up the situation. Because it was not a happy band.”