Ah, I love The Turtles. Even though they had a few big hits, they were completely screwed over by their record company and managers (more on that later) and today they are rather under appreciated.
The story behind 'Elenore' is that after hitting big with a couple of pop songs ('Happy Together' and 'She'd Rather Be With Me'), the band wanted to branch out and had recorded a concept album with each track being by a different fictitious group ('The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands'). The record company however pressured the band with coming up with something commercial so they wrote down as many clichés as they could e.g. 'I really think you're groovy', 'Gee, I think you're swell', 'You're my pride & joy etc.' and, voilà, 'Elenore' was born.
Here is a great live version from 1968 with Mark Volman ('Flo') and Howard Kaylan ('Eddie') in fine form vocally and a marvelous performance from Jonny Barbata on drums. After record company pressure, the band split and Flo & Eddie (along with bass player Jim Pons) went on to join Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention for a string of late 60s/early 70s gigs and albums.
Bonus clips: Flo & Eddie explain their managerial & record company woes...
... Flo & Eddie with Zappa and band sing 'She Painted Up Her Face' in a typically incoherent segment from the movie '200 Motels'...
... Another track from 'Battle of the Bands', 'I'm Chief Kamanawanalea (We're the Royal Macadamia Nuts)' has been sampled numerous times and formed the backbone of a precedent setting legal case brought by the band against De La Soul (along with yet another sampled track 'You Showed Me')
The story behind 'Elenore' is that after hitting big with a couple of pop songs ('Happy Together' and 'She'd Rather Be With Me'), the band wanted to branch out and had recorded a concept album with each track being by a different fictitious group ('The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands'). The record company however pressured the band with coming up with something commercial so they wrote down as many clichés as they could e.g. 'I really think you're groovy', 'Gee, I think you're swell', 'You're my pride & joy etc.' and, voilà, 'Elenore' was born.
Here is a great live version from 1968 with Mark Volman ('Flo') and Howard Kaylan ('Eddie') in fine form vocally and a marvelous performance from Jonny Barbata on drums. After record company pressure, the band split and Flo & Eddie (along with bass player Jim Pons) went on to join Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention for a string of late 60s/early 70s gigs and albums.
Bonus clips: Flo & Eddie explain their managerial & record company woes...
... Flo & Eddie with Zappa and band sing 'She Painted Up Her Face' in a typically incoherent segment from the movie '200 Motels'...
... Another track from 'Battle of the Bands', 'I'm Chief Kamanawanalea (We're the Royal Macadamia Nuts)' has been sampled numerous times and formed the backbone of a precedent setting legal case brought by the band against De La Soul (along with yet another sampled track 'You Showed Me')
