The band formed in Los Angeles in 1965. Its roots go back to a high school band called The Nightriders which featured Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman. They changed their name to the Crossfires before becoming The Tyrtles. The misspelling of Turtles was imitating the misspellings that The Byrds and The Beatles had used. However, they soon changed to The Turtles. Their first hit came with a cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’ which got to number 8 of the US Hot 100 but subsequent releases didn’t fare too well until 1967’s ‘Happy Together’ which topped the charts in the US and gave them their first UK hit where it went to 12. They would go on to score a total of 17 Hot 100 hits and 3 UK hits. They would not manage any further US chart toppers, and ‘She’d Rather Be With Me’ would give them their best UK peak of 4. They would be 1 of 17 acts that would dislodge The Beatles from the US number 1 slot (if you exclude The Beatles replacing themselves at 1) as ‘Happy Together’ replaced ‘Penny Lane’ at 1.
Date of entry
Song
Peak (weeks at 1)
Weeks
04-Feb-1966
Let Me Be
6
11
21-Apr-1967
Happy Together
3
11
11-Aug-1967
She’d Rather Be With me
1 (2)
10
20-Dec-1968
Elenore
6
9
Total hits
4
Total weeks
41
Biggest climber awards
5
Star rater climbs
7
Biggest fallers
3
Weeks with oldest in the charts
0
Longest run in the charts (weeks)
11
Weeks with more than 1 in the charts
0
Biggest gap between hits (weeks)
61
Top 30 points ranking
167
Top 20 points ranking
=170
Top 30 points
820
Top 20 points
410
Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman sang backing vocals on the following T. Rex hit:
Date of entry
Song
Peak (Weeks at 1)
Weeks
30-Apr-1971
Hot Love
12
6
Total hits
1
Total Weeks
6
Total chart involvement for the band and its members:
SA Singles Charts 