The Turtles co-founder Mark Volman, known for singing on the No. 1 Billboard hit “Happy Together,” has died at 78 following a brief but unexpected illness.
The vocalist and guitarist, whose 1960s pop group rose to fame with songs like “It Was a Very Good Year” and “Elenore,” died on Friday in Nashville, Tenn., his rep confirmed to People.
While the exact illness he was battling was not made clear, the Los Angeles native told the outlet in 2023 that he’d been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia three years earlier.
The disease, caused by an abnormal buildup of proteins in the brain, is a “complex and challenging brain disorder” that can include symptoms such as hallucinations, loss of coordination and cognitive fluctuations, according to the National Institutes on Health.
“I got hit by the knowledge that this was going to create a whole new part of my life,” Volman told People at the time. “I said, ‘OK, whatever’s going to happen will happen, but I’ll go as far as I can.’”
Volman, alongside childhood friend Howard Kaylan, formed The Turtles in the mid-1960s. In a YouTube posted in April, he said he and Kaylan began playing in clubs when they were 15, but assumed their time together would end when they graduated high school in 1965.
Instead, they picked up additional band members and released their first Top 10 hit, a version of Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe.” That kicked off a five-year run that included two appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” five studios albums and more than 20 compilations.
After the Turtles split in 1970 amid conflicts with their record label, Volman and Kaylan continued making music with groups including Frank Zappa’s The Mothers of Invention and the comedic act Flo & Eddie.
In 1992, at the age of 45, Volman returned to school to get his bachelor’s degree from Loyola Marymount University, where he was a member of the school choir. He graduated in 1997 magna cum laude, and eventually earned his MFA in 1999.
He went on to teach music business and industry courses at the college level, eventually becoming an associate professor and the coordinator of the Entertainment Industry Studies Program at Belmont University in Nashville.
In 2015, Volman and Kaylan celebrated 50 years of playing and performing together with the Happy Together Tour, featuring other popular acts from the 1960s, that continues to tour to this day.
Singer Sandy Yaguda of Jay and the Americans, who were on the tour earlier this year, spoke with TMZ of his time with Volman. He said they traveled together for several months in 2024, but that health issues forced Volman to step back from this year’s trek.
“He fought long and hard, and part of the joy of his life was performing,” Yaguda told the outlet. “He was funny, he was enjoyable. He made everybody smile off stage and onstage. He made everyone’s life better.”
In 2023, Volman published memoir about his life in music, titled “Happy Forever: My Musical Adventures With The Turtles, Frank Zappa, T. Rex, Flo & Eddie, and More.”
“I’m lucky that I grew up in a band that was [like] a family,” he says in the book. “For all the problems that we did have, we were drawn to taking our drugs together, and we spent a lot of evenings discussing spiritual things…a lot of time putting our heads together and asking questions.”
Volman married twice and is survived by both of his ex-wives, two daughters and a brother, according to Variety.
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