Ron Morgan – Electric Prunes/Westcoast Popart Experimental Band/Three Dog Night – was born on June 8, 1945 in Colby, Kansas. His father, an accomplished Jazz Guitarist, brought Ron and his brother Robert into the musical fold early on. They were born with music over their heads. Ron was born to be a guitarist – he breathed, lived, walked and talked it. Yet never did he use his talents in arrogance or displayed himself as a superior player, or as a gifted artist. But he stays criminally underrated.
A contemporary musician once wrote this about him:
I was rehearsing with a group in Golden, CO sometime around 1970, when one afternoon a quiet, almost “shy” dude dropped over to sit in and jam with us.
Hooking up into a Marshall with one cabinet, he proceeded to blow away and amaze everyone within hearing range.
His superior level of competency playing was only matched by the feeling & spirit with which he played. Everyone knew there was a world-class musician in the room.
We jammed for about 2-3 hours until our ears were ringing.
When we finally stopped, I asked our drummer “who was THAT?” They told me his name was Ron Morgan, and that he had recently left 3 Dog Night.
My first thought was: “Boy, that’s THEIR loss.” I played and jammed with lots of guitarists from 1966 thru 1982, but I think it is possible that Ron was likely the best, most inspirational & exciting of all of them.
Ron and Robert were tight brothers who had many freedoms that some have only read about – like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Besides practically running wild, they did a lot of Fishing, swimming in lakes, catching – skinning rattle snake [selling skins] and trying to deal with self reliance (yes, motherless children have a hard time) – all was a big part of our younger years.
“Ron and Roger Liston co-founded Denver’s The Wild Ones in 1962, when they were only 16. While it is a given that Ron achieved stratospheric levels of excellence, what few people know is how far down he and Roger were talent-wise when they started our garage band ‘Morgan’s Marauders’ back in 1961. Since he and Roger had been kicked out of every band they were in, in that time, they made a solemn pact not to fire each other from their new band, no matter what! This first band “Morgan’s Marauders” was simply terrible. So bad that they got fired from almost every bar in the greater Denver area – sometimes during the first set! Worse yet, after they had “played through” every night club around, owners remembered way too well how bad they were and would not think of taking a chance on hiring them again.
Apparently they learned from their failures and then they did something fairly inspired; it happened to be a bold and impressive move. They completely repackaged their “act”, renamed the band, got new suits, took new pictures, learned new songs and sent in a new face to sell the club owners the “new band”. This marketing plan worked and since they were a whole lot better, they were able to keep and even thrive.
Ron started performing full time in 1963, just 18 years old.
For two years, six nights a week, four hours a night, the Wild Ones played at two great Colorado clubs; Sam’s on Lookout Mountain and Clancy’s in Fort Collins. Even playing this often, Ron put in another 2-4 hours of practicing every day. And after only a few thousand hours of practicing, he “overnight” became master of the instrument and perhaps the genre.
The Wild Ones took every opportunity to showcase Ron. For instance, they arranged a medley of Freddy King classics to feature him. As for a side note, white folks of that era had not even heard of Freddy King, and would not for another ten years, However Ron knew every lick of every Freddy King song even in 1965; talk about being ahead of his time!
Ron would establish this medley by first playing the songs just as Freddy would, then, in the subsequent bridges and turnarounds, Ron would take us to a new level of musical experience, with the medley lasting for 12-15 minutes. Typically several hundred or so patrons of the club would move to the foot of the stage to better watch him perform his magic. What they saw was simply unprecedented; They were watching a world-class guitarist performing songs that mainstream America would not hear for another ten years in a small town Colorado night club. He was simply stellar–the rest of the band would just try to keep up with him and stay “out of the way”.
In 1965 The Wild Ones with Ron opened for British Invasion band Herman’s Hermits at the DU Stadium.
A little later, Ron’s musical talents were beginning to emerge beyond the local and regional scenes. He was uniquely gifted, even though Colorado didn’t realize it at the time. However, even accomplished guitarists in other bands were quick to take notice of Ron and were increasingly amazed at what they were hearing. Two years later, even the great Frank Zappa focused his complete attention on Ron when he took center stage.
Zappa first met Ron when the Wild Ones shared the stage with his band, the Mothers of Invention – for two weeks at L.A.’s Whisky A Go Go, where they alternated hourly sets. Zappa did his best to look uninterested when they were playing, but whenever Ron cut loose with a killer lead, Frank stopped moving – not breathing, blinking or drinking (Coors, of course), until Ron finished his lead. Every member of the Wild Ones has said that performing with Ron was truly the best time of their lives.
As author of this website, I learned about Ron Morgan during his year stint with the incredible West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. It’s a long way across the ocean from California to a little town in the Dutch hillsides, but when I first heard this band in a tiny listening room in our local record store, I was blown away. The closing lead in “Tracy had a hard day Sunday” was beyond my reach as guitarist for many years.
Here it states how Ron Morgan became part of the West Coast Popart Experimental Band.
When Ron Morgan was in California he was a member of Moby Grape, and a couple of other bands. He also did the studio work for Three Dog Night with Jimmy Greenspoon, the red headed organ player. Jimmy and Ron also did the studio work for an attorney named Bob Markley who called his album The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. Ron had come back to Denver broke and when I saw him he asked if I could use him in The Leather Souls. I helped him out.
Ron asked if the band wanted to tour as the West Coast Pop Experimental Art Band. Bob Markley had called and was looking for a group to learn the album and do the Teenage Fair Tour. Ron Morgan would come into the band via Hollywood contacts and provide them with some of the finest and most innovative lead guitar work being put forth in southern California. The liner notes of the band’s long plays often give the impression that Ron wasn’t involved with the recordings. But his guitar work was present on all of their LP’s.
Ron was working around the industry in California and had just finished some work with the Standells of “Dirty Water” fame when he was brought into the WCPAEB. Ron would not only provide the lead guitar, complete with all the special effects he could muster, but he would often contribute songs and could provide vocal support.
Morgan was brought in to replace Michael Lloyd who clashed badly with Markley. Ron lasted a little over a year and 3 albums.
In 1968 Ron became a very instrumental part and founding member of Three Dog Night. Their musical direction was quite contrary to his and Ron’s preference to the recording studio, rather than live performances was only one example of why he didn’t stay with Three Dog Night. Ron was then developing into a very versatile, progressive and experimental hard rocking Guitarist.
In 1968, TDN openend for Electric Flag at Hollywoods’ top bill venue The Kaleidoscope. The audience was a blues/rock crowd and seemed not too fond of an almost “lounge singer” sound. Shortly after, Ron returned home with a binding contract before he was to go into the studio with Three Dog Night – a Family Lawyer advised Ron not to sign, which he did not due to a clause that defined the band (musicians) as secondary. Upon his return to LA he was no longer in the band.
He never mentioned any regret for leaving. After all, TDN then was a cover band and Ron wanted to create, not recreate.
Almost immediately another opportunity arose in the form of established Reprise act, the Electric Prunes, but unfortunately for Ron the group was about to hit the buffers. According to Dick Whetstone, drummer and vocalist with the final Prunes line-up, Ron became involved after John Herron quit unexpectedly during the sessions for the ‘Just Good Old Rock And Roll’ LP: “We knew Ron from a Denver band called Superband that included Jimmy Greenspoon on keyboards.
The two of them had landed a gig with the original version of Three Dog Night prior to the first album release. Ron however was anxious to play in a less structured band – he wanted more solos! He was a world-class guitar player. He joined the Prunes in time to help finish the last tracks on the album and began touring with us, along with his Harley. Ron lived to play music, but the lifestyle contributed greatly to his death.” After Three Dog Night and the Electric Prunes Ron moved back to Denver.
Ron never seemed unreasonable, just true to his mission. Early in his career, Ron ran in to Dick Clark while doing a bit on the hip show “Where The Action Is”. Ron declined an offer to join Paul Revere & the Raiders before Doug Heath joined – Ron thought the “Minuteman” garb was silly, quite uncomfortably warm and The Raiders to Ron was a commercially driven hype machine.
Later in the early 70′s, Ron declined Tommy Bolin’s request to join him in L.A. for one of his solo mid-seventy albums. Although Ron revered Tommy as an awesome Guitar Player/ Singer/ Songwriter – Ron commented, “two powerful lead guitarists might clutter things up”. Ron at that time had fallen onto some hard financial times as well and didn’t seem to warm up to an excursion to LA for a session. Ron and Tommy jammed together in Tommy’s Boulder Colorado based “Zephyr” band. Ron and Tommy on the same stage, was almost scary. Ron added later that it seemed more like a contest than an exchange of giving each other room to lay down a groove. This may explain the “clutter part” Ron had reluctance to work with Tommy, but always spoke of Tommy with utmost admiration.
According to his brother “He was disenchanted, but he wasn’t going to sell out. He did drive a cab for a while – he loved the freedom of it, there were no pressures and he was his own boss – but Ron got in a bad way. He was strung out on ‘reds’ – addictive sleeping pills – which he had been popping with Three Dog Night and he ended up on the street. He had no skills apart from music, but after he got married in ’76 he sorted his life out for a while and became a janitor. He still played and we used to jam a lot.
Then life had another tragedy in store for him when he had a motorcycle accident and things went down hill quick. He got put in a psychiatric ward for a time. His wife divorced him and kicked him out of the house. It was while he was in hospital that he was diagnosed with Hepatitis C. The worst thing you can do with that is drink, but he had a strong constitution – he could always put away the drugs and alcohol. Unfortunately he didn’t know until it was too late.
Ron Morgan died in his sleep in 1989 at 44.
Ron was a perfectionist and a bit of a loner. It was difficult for him to fit in to the California music industry way of doing things. He longed to create great music but was often shackled by over-bearing controllers.
Steve Cropper (84) – guitarist and composer for Booker T and the MGs – was born October 21, 1941 in Dora, Missouri. Cropper spent his early childhood between Dora and West Plains before his family moved to Memphis when he was nine. The move placed him in the centre of a rich musical environment, where he absorbed the sound of local churches and neighborhood groups. He bought his first guitar at fourteen and developed a style inspired by Tal Farlow, Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed, Chet Atkins, Lowman Pauling and Billy Butler. This early mix of country, jazz, blues and gospel formed the basis of a sound that became unmistakable Cropper.
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