TURTLES & ZOMBIES

Having seen The Turtles and The Zombies (twice) in the last month, I can already declare this summer to be a success.

Actually, several years ago I got to see both bands together, at the Hippiefest tour stop in Coney Island. The two groups, both dating back to the 1960s and retaining their two key original members, quite appropriately shared the same backstage trailer, and each stayed on stage to watch the other’s show, with Turtles lead singer Howard Kaylan afterward intimating that he was so in awe of Blunstone, that he was building up the courage to tell him, before the end of the tour, that he was his biggest influence as a singer.

I saw the obvious connection last week at the second Zombies gig. Kaylan definitely matches Blunstone’s truly awesome range and precision, though no one can meet his level of joy. Then again, as Rod Argent noted at the beginning, he and Blunstone never imagined that at this stage of their careers—52 years after first forming—they’d be out there singing their British Invasion hits.

“You’re as old as you feel,” Blunstone said early on July 3 at the Payomet Performing Arts Center in the Cape Cod village of North Truro. “I sometimes feel very, very old!”

No older—or not by much—than anyone in the intimate outdoor house (front rows were so close, Blunstone noted, that if they were any closer those in them would be singing backup, “unpaid, I hasten to add!”), and when they played Central Park SummerStage three weeks earlier, it was all-ages, what with twenty-somethings and younger singing along to not only the big hits but album tracks from the band’s 1968 album masterpiece Odessey And Oracle, which they focused on along with songs from equally excellent new album Breathe Out, Breathe In.

As Blunstone noted, The Zombies’ also performed material that they hadn’t done live the first time around, as well as Blunstone and Argent solo songs recorded between 1968, when the group disbanded, and 2001, when it commenced its second life. These included his cover of “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted,” recorded for Dave Stewart and a huge hit in 1980 in England and Europe—but not the U.S., “sadly,” said Blunstone, “but I don’t want you to think I hold you personally responsible!”

Argent, of course, contributed “Hold Your Head Up,” his signature 1972 hit with his band Argent. He noted, for accuracy’s sake, that the chorus is not “Hold your head up, Whoa!,” as is generally believed, but “Hold your head up, woman!” His baroque organ solo on it and the set-closing, letter-perfect version of the Zombies’ monster debut hit “She’s Not There” underscored his position among the handful of rock’s great and readily identifiable keyboard aces—just as Blunstone remains among its greatest and most distinctive vocalists.

Not to leave the others out, for bassist Jim Rodford was the band Argent’s co-founder and played for years with The Kinks, as well as The Animals and Lonnie Donegan. His son Steve was on drums, and Tom Toomey was, to use Argent’s word, delicious.

One more thing: Argent and Blunstone, on and off stage, are two of the nicest guys imaginable: You couldn’t ask for a softer sell when it comes to promoting a new album, as Argent informed the crowd that he and the band had signed all the new CDs, that they were available, and that purchase or not, he hoped everyone would visit the Zombies’ website to sample it.

Cut to Howard Kaylan and his longtime partner Mark Volman, together now almost as long as The Zombies. Nice guys, too, they continue to have a blast on stage, as evidenced by their current Happy Together Tour stop a couple weeks ago at NYCB Theatre at Westbury. Kaylan, who gives Blunstone credit as an influence in his new memoir Shell Shocked, goofed on both his and Volman’s longevity and mortality, when he encouraged the crowd to take a posed picture of the pair, perhaps the last one ever, he suggested, noting that at their age, either or both could drop dead afterwards.

But the Turtles’ set (following shorter ones by fellow ’60s icons Gary Lewis, Mark Lindsay, Gary Puckett and Chuck Negron), like the Zombies’, sounded live—and dead-on: Miraculously, Kaylan, Volman, Blunstone and Argent have lost not a note in 50 years, their songs sounding as fresh and perfect today as they did when first heard on the radio. And really, hardly a day goes by when you don’t hear “Happy Together” in a movie or commercial, not to mention “Hold Your Head Up,” still frequently heard in a Scottrade spot.

“What happened to our music, man?” Kaylan asked at the beginning, after he and Volman hysterically took the stage in Psy garb and “Gangnam Style” song and dance. They answered with their music—our music—that brings us back in touch with who we are, and lets us feel good about it.

 

That neither The Turtles nor The Zombies are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is, as they say, a travesty.

 

 

Jim Bessman