In the mid 1960s, the group Jim and the Lords inked a deal with producer Dave Hassinger’s production company. After a name change, the first Electric Prunes 45 was released. Their next two singles, 1967’s “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” and “Get Me to the World on Time,” are excellent examples of American psychedelic pop/rock, and both were Top 40 hits. Those tunes were written by outside songwriters, and so was much of the Electric Prunes’ self-titled debut album (1967), as Hassinger only permitted two group compositions on the LP. While the band successfully lobbied to have more of their own material included on album #2, Underground (1967)—and it’s a better record—there were no hit singles from it, and the LP didn’t do much in the marketplace. Things were about to change for the band in a way none of them could have foreseen. 
 

 
For the third Electric Prunes record, the trio of Hassinger, Prunes manager Lenny Poncher, and noted producer, arranger, and composer David Axelrod came up with the idea for the group to record an album of Axelrod’s compositions. The LP would combine classical and religious music with psychedelic rock. Once in the studio, the band was slow to pick up the material, as most of them didn’t read music. The pace of the learning curve wasn’t to Axelrod’s liking, so another group, the Canadian outfit the Collectors, was brought in, along with session musicians. In the end, the actual Electric Prunes only play on side one of Mass in F Minor (1968), though a few members, including lead singer James Lowe, appear on all the tracks. The album—a rock opera in which all the lyrics are sung in Latin—is a mixed affair. It’s certainly odd and obtuse. The opening number, “Kyrie Eleison,” is the highlight and the record’s best-known song, as it later appeared in the film Easy Rider (1969) and on its soundtrack. It’s the only track on the album lacking any orchestral accompaniment.

Following the album’s release, the Electric Prunes broke up. Though their moniker lived on.
 

 
The Electric Prunes’ name would continue to be used on subsequent LPs, despite the fact the no original members remained. Which brings us to album number four.

Continues after the jump…

 
In the mid 1960s, the group Jim and the Lords inked a deal with producer Dave Hassinger’s production company. After a name change, the first Electric Prunes 45 was released. Their next two singles—1967’s “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” and “Get Me to the World on Time”—are excellent examples of American psychedelic pop/rock, and both were Top 40 hits. Those tunes were written by outside songwriters, and so was much of the Electric Prunes’ debut album, as Hassinger only permitted two group compositions on the LP. While the band successfully lobbied to have more of their own material included on album #2, Underground—and it’s a better record—there were no hit singles from it, and the LP didn’t do much in the marketplace. Things were about to change for the band in a way none of them could have foreseen. 
 

Picture sleeve for a 1967 Japanese EP.

For the third Electric Prunes record, the trio of Hassinger, Prunes manager Lenny Poncher, and noted producer, arranger, and composer David Axelrod came up with the idea for the group to record an album of Axelrod’s compositions. The LP would combine classical and religious music with psychedelic rock. Once in the studio, the band was slow to pick up the material, as most of them didn’t read music. The pace of the learning curve wasn’t to Axelrod’s liking, so another group, the Canadian outfit the Collectors, was brought in, along with session musicians. In the end, the actual Electric Prunes only play on side one of Mass in F Minor (1968), though a few members, including lead singer James Lowe, appear on all of the tracks. The album—a rock opera in which all the lyrics are sung in Latin—is a mixed affair. It’s certainly odd and obtuse. The opening number, “Kyrie Eleison,” is the highlight and also the record’s best-known song, as it later appeared in the film Easy Rider (1969) and on its soundtrack. It’s the only track on the album lacking any orchestral accompaniment.

By the end of ’68, the Electric Prunes had broken up, though their moniker lived on.
 

 
Dave Hassinger owned the Electric Prunes’ name and would continue to use it on subsequent LPs, despite the fact the no original members remained. Which brings us to album number four.

Continues after the jump…

 
In the late ‘60s, The Electric Prunes were riding pretty high. Their 1966 single “I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)” sold well and is still considered a classic, and their 1967 self-titled debut LP was a hit, establishing them in the public consciousness as well as in the garage-psych scene. Their tremoloed, fuzzed-out guitar attack made them as much a badge for the style as their weird name did, so it was probably a totally natural call to select them to record this amazing radio ad for the newly introduced Vox Wah-Wah pedal.
 

 
Cracks me up every time. That was made available on the second Pebbles
compilation in 1979, and later again as a hidden track on the Too Much To Dream double CD set.

I so wish the companies making guitar effects today would do such ads. I appreciate that YouTube videos are much more demonstratively effective and less expensive to make and distribute, but I’d love to hear some jobber announcer awkwardly—but breathlessly!—extolling the virtues of some of the truly weird shit that’s out there now in effects-land. Imagine an ad like that for the Rainbow Machine. The Superego. The Possessed!

The Prunes would break up under the ministrations of manager Lenny Poncher and composer David Axelrod, who, foreshadowing some of the nobody-needed-you-to-be-this-ambitious moves of ‘70s prog (lookin’ at you, ELP), tried to get the band to record an actual Catholic Mass (previously). The album, Mass in F Minor, did come out, and is regarded as a minor weirdo classic of sorts, but the band began shedding members during the recording—most accounts have it that they ALL bailed—and much of that album and all that would follow it were recorded by studio musicians under the Prunes’ name. Here’s the real deal, in a seldom seen TV appearance, performing the songs “You Never Had it Better” and yes, “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night),” looking high as fuck. (Or maybe they just had too much to advertise the night before?)