James Lowe, who fronted the psych-garage-pop group the Electrical Prunes within the late Nineteen Sixties, finest recognized for his or her high 10 hit “I Had Too A lot to Dream (Final Evening),” died Might 22 at age 82 his household reported.

Following the breakup of the Electrical Prunes, Lowe grew to become an engineer and producer working with such artists as Sparks and Todd Rundgren, earlier than leaving music behind within the early ’70s and ultimately discovering a second profession on the planet of commercial filmmaking. After a quarter-century of not doing music, he reunited the Prunes within the late ’90s and continued to carry out by way of the tip of his life.

The household didn’t give a reason for demise, saying that Lowe “handed away on Might 22, 2025, from pure causes — out of the blue, but peacefully — surrounded by household and music.”

The musician had fortunately acceded to a wave of nostalgia for his band that solely appeared to intensify lately, from performing to an adoring crowd in Los Angeles at a “Nuggets” tribute present in 2023 (“I Had Too A lot to Dream Final Evening” was the kickoff track to that traditional garage-rock compilation) to just lately giving retrospective interviews for a collection of rock podcasts.

“James left this world peacefully — his coronary heart giving one remaining electrical beat, surrounded by the loving embrace of his household and enveloped by the sounds of his favourite music,” his youngsters Lisa, Cameron, and Skylar stated in an announcement. “He was a artistic drive, a rock star with out pretense, and somebody who lived and cherished totally. However an important ingredient to James’ life was his 62-year marriage to Pamela, his guiding star and enduring muse for all issues. … James was a visionary, a dreamer, a doer who by no means stopped creating, exploring, lifting others up — or believing in what’s attainable.”

One among Lowe’s largest followers was David Katznelson, an A&R government for Warner Bros. Information within the ’90s who was chargeable for placing out a compilation that revived curiosity within the Electrical Prunes and helped spur the reunion that few — least of all Lowe himself — thought would ever occur.

“As quickly as I heard the Electrical Prunes, I knew it seemed like nothing I’d ever heard of,” says Katznelson. “, they had been utilizing backwards guitars, and main the way in which in utilizing fuzz guitar and the wah-wah pedal” — to the purpose that the producers of the Fox wah-wah pedal really used the Prunes to push their product in promoting within the late ’60s. “And Jim was a pure engineer, which is why he went on to do different nice data — once we discuss experimenting within the ’60s, he was a type of guys who was actually doing it, which is why ‘I Had Too A lot to Dream Final Evening’ had such an iconic sound…

“If you happen to just like the psychedelic motion,” continued, Katznelson, “the Electrical Prunes, with their identify and their sound, actually outline the psychedelic motion in ways in which solely a few different bands actually did, exemplifying that for the the 2 principal data that they did.” (After Lowe give up in 1968, the band briefly continued with out him; then their supervisor fashioned an all-new lineup with none of the unique members that proved short-lived.)

The oldest of 9 youngsters, Lowe grew up in southern California, making occasional browsing journeys to Hawaii and coming of age musically beneath the sway of surf guitarist Dick Dale, whom he usually would see carry out at Newport Seashore’s Rendezvous Ballroom. In 1965, he and a number of other Taft Excessive college students fashioned the Sanctions and had been found by report producer and engineer David Hassinger, whose claims to fame included engineering the Rolling Stone’s mid-’60s data. Hassinger grew to become their supervisor and helped get them signed to Warner Bros. Information’ Reprise imprint. Upon getting signed, Lowe and his bandmates Ken Williams, James “Weasel” Spagnola, Mark Tulin and Preston Ritter had been referred to as Jim and the Lords, a tag they had been desirous to shed earlier than releasing their first single.

The origin of their final identify concerned a joke just like the one which prompted one other group of the time, Moby Grape. “Anyone stated, ‘What’s purple and goes buzz buzz?’ And the reply was an electrical prune,” Lowe recalled. “Our bass participant advised us that silly joke and I stated, ‘That’s gotta be the identify.’ In fact all of them didn’t reply to it, however Dave Hassinger took that identify to Warner Bros. He hated it too, however he got here again to me and stated, ‘Guess what? Warner Bros. cherished the identify…. I do know it’s a goofy one, however you remembered it.”

A primary single, “Ain’t It Laborious,” did not stir a lot motion, however “I Had Too A lot to Dream” rose to No. 11 on the Scorching 100, regardless of doubts that it was appropriate for AM airplay. A 3rd single, “Get Me to the World on Time,” peaked at No. 27 earlier than the Prunes’ transient run as radio favorites got here to an finish. Their self-titled debut solely made it so far as No. 113 on the Billboard chart, little belying simply how enduring their largest hit would stay on the planet of well-remembered oldies over time.

The track was not written by the group however slightly the feminine writing group of Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz. “Annette gave us a demo of it, and it was like sort of like a country-Western ballad or one thing,” Lowe stated. “Dave was actual adamant about altering issues. He stated, ‘You gotta put your individual association to it. Do one thing bizarre, have some breaks, do some stuff,’ no matter’” — an encouragement that Lowe put right down to Hassinger having been concerned with the Rolling Stones and strange hits like “Paint It Black.” “We took it and took it so far as we might, playing around with it, and it fully modified all the pieces, for us and for the track… We checked out it as a building. We did it in items. We didn’t all get within the studio and collect round and play ‘Too A lot to Dream.’ We really mapped it out, how we had been gonna do it, with breaks right here and breaks there… We by no means actually acquired to listen to the track the way in which we did it in full till we completed it.”

As for the memorable opening to the smash. Lowe stated, “From the start, no person knew what that sound was initially. Ken Williams had been enjoying round along with his guitar and we recorded going ahead on a four-track after which we’d flip the tape over and report going the opposite strategy to simply to economize, as a result of we didn’t have cash to purchase rolls of tape. And one of many engineers at Leon Russell’s home didn’t push the report button, and so we acquired left with the tail finish of one thing backward… As soon as I heard that sound, which got here within the studio by chance… it overwhelmed us. And I went within the management room and I stated, ‘No matter that was, minimize that off. We’re gonna use it for one thing!’ … And once we got here to do ‘Too A lot to Dream,’ I stated, ‘Now we’ve acquired a spot to make use of that sound.’”

The second and remaining album with the unique lineup, “Underground,” got here out in 1967. It was included on an NME checklist of the “100 biggest albums you’ve by no means heard.” The leadoff track, cowritten by Lowe, was “The Nice Banana Hoax.” “If you happen to bear in mind again in 1967, I believe it was, there was a rumor going round that if you happen to fried banana peels and scraped that stuff off the within of the banana peel, that you possibly can get excessive from it,” he stated. “I believed it was a fantastic thought for a world joke, or a minimum of for an American joke.”

On the second album, they’d extra of their very own unique materials, however not as a result of it was inspired by their manager-producer, Lowesaid. “Dave go a take care of Warner Brothers to supply the Grateful Lifeless’s album, so he went to San Francisco, which that made it good for us to report the issues we wished. He by no means appreciated any of our songs, so we couldn’t put any of our materials on there. So we’d misinform him and use my spouse’s maiden identify and my dad and mom’ maiden names and stuff to have the ability to put our songs on the report. So when he left city, that was good for us.”

Lowe give up the group in 1968, with Hassinger trying to maintain the group alive with concepts that included odd diversions into non secular rock and lineups that decreasingly resembled the unique. In the meantime, Lowe, much less excited about performing, took to engineering — together with a name to work with Todd Rundgren’s unique group, the Nazz, on their second album (which prolonged to a 3rd).

“They had been on the lookout for a spot to report and somebody to report with. I assume Todd stated their engineer had fallen asleep of their recordings they did again in Philly. So he simply requested if I might keep awake — and I stated, ‘Properly, if the music’s good, I’ll keep awake.’ So that was the primary standards and we began recording collectively.”

Rundgren’s requirements are notoriously larger than that, and so he clearly had religion in Lowe when he had him engineer certainly one of his early manufacturing efforts, the debut album by Sparks, recognized on the time as Halfnelson. When it got here time to do Sparks’ second album (now beneath their remaining identify), “A Woofer in Tweeter’s Clothes,” Rundgren was already booked however requested Lowe to take over for them as producer. The way in which Lowe remembered it, he was so enamored of what he was doing with Sparks that he determined to give up the enterprise if the album didn’t take off. It didn’t, and so he did.

Lowe pivoted into directing youngsters’s reveals and TV commercials. Across the time that he and his spouse Pamela had been welcomed a 3rd baby, he started constructing what his household described as his mountaintop dream dwelling within the hills of Santa Ynez. Additionally they constructed a second dwelling in Cabarete, a bay within the Dominican Republic.

Within the ’90s, Katznelson was trying to put collectively an Electrical Prunes compilation for Warner Bros,, the place he was in A&R. In the end the label handed, considering there wasn’t sufficient curiosity — however gave him the inexperienced mild to license the fabric to himself at a small unbiased label he ran, Birdman Information. Collectively, they got here up with some unreleased tracks and new mixes, amongst different treats for followers of the unique stuff. It ended up sparking a Prunes revival.

“We went into the studio to to hearken to all that stuff,” says Katznelson, “and we ended up including the jamming endings to a number of the songs that had been sort of edited earlier than they had been placed on the primary data… Then Jim put the band again along with just about nearly all the unique gamers, and so they performed numerous dates. It was really fairly unbelievable. We additionally did the primary actual launch of the ‘Dwell in Stockholm’ report that had been recorded when the band was first touring the world after they had been having preliminary success with ‘Too A lot to Dream Final Evening.’ And the Prunes began making new data — and I’d stored in contact with Jim ever since.

“When that new report got here out in 2000, they did a pair reside reveals round that, and that’s after they began packing them in. They might do these excursions with bands just like the Seeds and even toured with some semblance of Love. That lasted for most likely over a decade. That’s when he realized that folks nonetheless cherished him. However you already know, even when did a reissue of the ‘Dwell in Stockholm’ album, years after we’d performed the primary one, even then he was like, ‘Why would you do this? Who’s gonna need that?’

“Jim was residing in Santa Ynez on the time, and he was shut with Peter from the Moby Grape, and the 2 of them got here to a Halloween get together that I had in Beverly Hills and ended up doing a single that was concerning the get together that that got here out.” He additionally proudly welcomed his son Cameron, who adopted within the path of music, on stage for a lot of look. Extra just lately, “Jim had not been enjoying for some time, however they did this present that Lenny Kaye put collectively for Wild Honey as a tribute to ‘Nuggets’ in Los Angeles and Jim stole the present, supposedly, approaching the stage with all people to do ‘Too A lot to Dream.’”

This marked a turnaround from the Seventies, when the Kaye-curated “Nuggets” compilation got here out in 1972, and led off with “Too A lot to Dream,” serving because the very exemplar of the garage-psych ethos that Kaye was making an attempt as an example with the impactful two-LP set. As main because it grew to become for rock hounds, Lowe was to this point out of the music scene on the time that he didn’t even know the track led the compilation until his son pointed it out seven years later.

The household’s assertion known as their father “an elder statesman of rock ‘n’ roll — not only a witness to music historical past, however certainly one of its architects. And but he remained humble, at all times making time for followers, answering questions, sharing tales, and inspiring youthful artists to observe their unusual, experimental muses.”

“The factor that I cherished about Jim,” says Katznelson, “is that for him, so far as artwork was involved, something is at all times attainable. And the concept is to strive to determine a method of getting as far out as you possibly can, whereas sustaining true artistry, you already know? And that’s sort of how he lived his life. And he was only a nice man. He was actually a fantastic encapsulation of what you’d consider while you consider a ’60s artist and thinker — comfortable to go in opposition to the grain, comfortable to push issues, comfortable to strive issues, comfortable to be uncovered to new concepts, each in music and past, and actually reside life by itself path. The truth is, there’s an Electrical Prunes track known as ‘I Received a Approach Of My Personal,’ and that basically matches Jim to a tee.”

Lowe is survived by his spouse, Pamela; his youngsters Lisa, Cameron, and Skylar; and his grandchildren Hana, Blue, Isla and Goldie, who affectionately known as him “Dude.”