Just Good Old Rock and Roll

The record

At a glance

Credited artist

The Electric Prunes

Released

June 1969

Album

Fifth studio album

Original tracks

Eleven

Label

Reprise RS 6342

Producer

Dave Hassinger

Why it matters

A replacement lineup finally records its own band album

Just Good Old Rock and Roll is the first Electric Prunes album performed as a conventional band record by the replacement musicians who had been touring under the name. None of James Lowe, Ken Williams, Mark Tulin, Michael Weakley or the other original 1967 members performs on it. Richard Whetstone, Mark Kincaid and Brett Wade connect the album to the touring lineup assembled before Release of an Oath, although Whetstone alone had appeared on that studio project. Ron Morgan joins during the sessions after John Herron's departure; the finished LP nevertheless credits Herron on organ and Morgan on guitar.

Dave Hassinger remains producer, but David Axelrod's complete compositions, choir and orchestral liturgy disappear. The eleven-song programme favors hard rock, soul-derived material, vocal harmony and concise band arrangements, with flute and organ widening the guitar core. Ten tracks carry writing credits involving members or associates of the new group; Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers is the sole wholly external cover. Its importance lies less in restoring the original Prunes sound than in documenting how thoroughly a marketable band name could survive changes in authorship, personnel and style.

Hollywood, 1969

After Axelrod, the Prunes name returns to a touring group

The original Electric Prunes had lost control during Mass in F Minor and were absent from Release of an Oath. Managerial ownership of the name allowed a new quartet - Whetstone, Kincaid, Wade and Herron - to tour as the Electric Prunes during 1968. That quartet did not make Release of an Oath as a unit; its instrumental body came from Los Angeles session musicians. The replacement band then recorded Hey Mr. President before beginning a full album at the Sound Factory in Hollywood.

Herron left during the album sessions, and Ron Morgan entered the group; both men appear in the LP credits in different instrumental roles. Reprise released Just Good Old Rock and Roll as stereo RS 6342 in June 1969. The cover added the phrase New Improved before the established band name, presenting personnel replacement as both joke and selling point. The group continued touring, but the Reprise studio sequence ended here; a revived lineup of early members did not make another studio album until Artifact in 2001.

A replacement band

Whetstone, Kincaid, Wade, Morgan and Herron

Whetstone combines lead singing with drumming, giving the record a single vocal-rhythmic centre unlike James Lowe's frontman role in the first lineup. Kincaid supplies guitar and backing voice, helping harmony remain audible inside the harder arrangements. Wade anchors the group on bass but also contributes flute and several compositions, including both of the album's final two songs. Morgan's guitar adds a different lineage through his work around the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band; it must not be mistaken for Ken Williams' return.

Herron's organ belongs to the recording even though he left before the completed group was photographed for the rear sleeve. Hassinger connects all five Reprise albums as a production and business figure while the actual musicians change completely. The band arrangement credit marks a decisive contrast with Axelrod's authored architecture on the preceding two records. Because the lineup changed during recording, the five credited players describe the album personnel more accurately than any single four-man publicity photograph.

Direct electric rock

Hard rock, organ, harmony and a trace of psychedelia

Sell begins with clipped hard-rock insistence and organ-guitar weight rather than the electronic disorientation of the 1967 debut. 14 Year Old Funk uses a blunt riff and rhythmic stop-starts to make the title's hybrid claim audible. Love Grows opens more space for group singing and melodic contrast. So Many People to Tell lets Wade's writing move from crowd pressure toward a broad, sustained refrain.

Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers converts a soul composition into the original first side's firmest cover performance. Giant Sunhorse stretches beyond the compact songs, joining heavy guitar, flute colour and a more expansive psychedelic horizon. Violent Rose compresses menace and attraction into a sharp Whetstone-Herron piece. Thorjon is a short instrumental, using group interplay rather than a lead-vocal narrative.

Silver Passion Mine turns metallic imagery into a concise heavy-rock fantasy. Tracks drives on repetition and forward motion, with organ and guitar thickening its path. Sing to Me closes through Wade's melodic appeal, reducing aggression without pretending the original lineup has returned.

Track guide

Eleven songs across a five/six sequence

Commerce and movement

Selling, desire, crowds, possession and escape

The album is not a continuous concept, but commerce repeatedly enters through selling, keeping, losing and mining. Communication changes scale between So Many People to Tell and the direct request of Sing to Me. Love Grows and Violent Rose present desire as development and danger rather than one stable emotion. Giant Sunhorse and Thorjon use invented names to open imaginative space without establishing recurring characters.

Tracks converts movement into evidence left behind, while the side-opening Giant Sunhorse makes movement expansive. The writing voice is collective and uneven because credits extend across several members and associates rather than one central author. The cover's improvement claim creates an unavoidable second theme: replacement is advertised as novelty. The music answers that claim by establishing its own direct hard-rock identity instead of imitating either the 1967 hits or Axelrod's religious works.

Reprise RS 6342

The New Improved Electric Prunes and Reprise RS 6342

Reprise issued the album in stereo as RS 6342. The front sleeve identifies the act as the New Improved Electric Prunes, but the formal artist remains the Electric Prunes. The phrase jokes about replacement and contemporary product advertising; it is not evidence of a permanently renamed band.

Tommy Mitchell photographed the cover and Ed Thrasher directed the package. The rear photograph shows Kincaid, Morgan, Wade and Whetstone; credited organist Herron had departed and is not pictured. Five tracks fill side one and six side two, with the external soul cover and Wade's Sing to Me serving as the respective endings.

June 1969

June 1969: a reset without a commercial revival

Just Good Old Rock and Roll appeared in June 1969 as the fifth studio album credited to the Electric Prunes. Its direct band sound broke with the orchestral-liturgical design of the preceding two LPs. Neither the album nor its associated singles restored the national chart success of I Had Too Much to Dream.

Contemporary continuity rested on the name and Hassinger's production rather than any original performer. Later criticism often treats the music as competent hard rock while measuring it against a celebrated garage-psych identity made by different musicians. The commercial failure brought the first Reprise studio run to a close even though replacement versions of the touring act continued.

The fifth album

The disputed last chapter of the first Reprise run

The record is most useful when heard as the album of a real replacement band, not as an inexplicable stylistic collapse by absent musicians. Whetstone, Kincaid and Wade finally receive a full ensemble document after their touring lineup was mostly excluded from Release of an Oath. Morgan gives the sessions a distinct West Coast guitar connection without restoring the early Prunes lineup. Giant Sunhorse preserves more psychedelic breadth than the deliberately plain title suggests.

Thorjon provides the programme's concise instrumental exception; the remaining ten tracks contain vocals. The album anticipates the harder, boogie-oriented American rock that became common in the early 1970s without requiring a claim of direct invention. Its 2006 reissue helped separate the eleven-song album from the more famous first three records. The decisive legacy issue is attribution: the Electric Prunes name is accurate as a 1969 legal and touring identity, but not as shorthand for the original band.

Original programme

Keep the eleven-track album separate from adjacent singles

The original album contains eleven tracks. Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers closes side one. Sing to Me is the original album ending. Thorjon is the only instrumental in the programme.

Hey Mr. President is not part of the original LP. No original 1967 Electric Prunes member performs here. Herron is credited on organ but absent from the completed group's rear photograph. New Improved is a cover phrase, not a separate permanent artist name.

A listening path

Hear the lineup change through the original sides

1. Start with Sell as the new lineup's blunt introduction.
2. Hear funk, melody and crowd address as three separate approaches.
3. Let the soul cover close the original first side.
4. Restart with Giant Sunhorse's wider landscape.
5. Use Thorjon as an instrumental hinge.
6. Follow mine and tracks toward the closing appeal.
7. Stop after Sing to Me before adding adjacent singles.

Research trail

Sources and further reading

• Original album programme and credits — Electric Prunes archive
• Electric Prunes lineup and album chronology — AllMusic
• Album review and writing credits — AllMusic
• 1968-70 lineup archive and reissue context — Damp Rock
• Original RS 6342 catalogue record — Recordsale archive
• Institutional band discography — MusicBrainz
• Original eleven-track LP record — RareVinyl archive