The Electric Prunes are an American rock band who first achieved international attention as an experimental psychedelic group in the late 1960’s. The band performed its 1966 hit song “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” on American Bandstand. The band is also recognized for the song “Kyrie Eleison”, which was featured on the soundtrack of Easy Rider. In 1999 the band reformed. By 2001 the members had resumed recording and touring and remained active until 2011. (More from Wikipedia)
The Electric Prunes had two glorious psychedelic rock songs, with the first being “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)”; the title is a takeoff on having “too much to drink”. Their producer Dave Hassinger considered their songwriting to be weak, so much of their material was written by others. This song was written by two female songwriters, interestingly enough, Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz. Tucker and Mantz also co-wrote five other songs on their debut album, The Electric Prunes, also known as I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night); one is based on a cigarette commercial, “Are You Lovin’ Me More (But Enjoying It Less)”. Annette Tucker co-wrote their follow-up hit that had similarly unusual wording in the title, “Get Me to the World on Time” with yet another female songwriter, Jill Jones. “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” made it to #11 on the Billboard Hot 100, while their second hit was at #27; both songs just missed the Top 40 in the UK.
“I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” too was blessed with some amazing effects; as described in Wikipedia: “At the time, the Electric Prunes comprised singer James Lowe, lead guitarist Ken Williams, rhythm guitarist James ‘Weasel’ Spagnola, bassist Mark Tulin, and drummer Preston Ritter. The oscillating, reversed guitar which opens the song originated from the rehearsals at [Leon] Russell’s house, where Williams recorded with a 1958 Gibson Les Paul guitar with a Bigsby vibrato unit. According to Lowe, ‘We were recording on a four-track, and just flipping the tape over and re-recording when we got to the end. Dave [Hassinger] cued up a tape and didn’t hit “record”, and the playback in the studio was way up: ear-shattering vibrating jet guitar. Ken had been shaking his Bigsby wiggle stick with some fuzztone and tremolo at the end of the tape. Forward it was cool. Backward it was amazing. I ran into the control room and said, “What was that?” They didn’t have the monitors on so they hadn’t heard it. I made Dave cut it off and save it for later.’”
“I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” by the Electric Prunes was brought to a larger audience when it became the opening track on the classic 1972 compilation album Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968. The early psychedelic rock track “You’re Gonna Miss Me” by the 13th Floor Elevators that I mentioned earlier is also on that album.
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The debut single by the Electric Prunes is another winner called “Ain’t it Hard”; I don’t have their version, but the original version of “Ain’t it Hard” by the Gypsy Trips is on Highs in the Mid-Sixties, Volume 1 and also the Pebbles, Volume 9 CD.
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At about the same time as “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” by the Electric Prunes but on the opposite coast, a Bronx, New York band called Blues Magoos had a hit single with “(We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet” that reached #5 on the Billboard charts.
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I wound up ordering both Psychedelic Lollipop and the Electric Prunes’ first album, The Electric Prunes in the same order from Columbia Record Club, so that was my introduction to psychedelic rock.
Despite the high profile of their two hit songs, the Electric Prunes had considerable turnover in their line-up and broke up by the end of the 1960’s; they remain somewhat mysterious to this day.
