I had a real tough time coming up with some cute yet informative introduction for The Rationals. They kind of speak for themselves with the high quality of their recorded output and the longevity of lead singer Scott Morgan's career. He has a new album out, "Rock Action" and was filming a video in a few days from when I talked with him for the song "Detroit".
My interview with Scott was primarily on The Rationals and A-Square records. So, here we go!
KB- How were The Rationals formed?
SM- I formed the band with Steve Correll, the other guitar player in 1962. We added Terry Trabandt on bass and Bill Figg on drums a year later. Steve and I went to the same high school in Ann Arbor. He called me up and asked if we could get together. I played some sort of instrumental on the phone for him and he liked it. We had several different guys with like different parts of drum sets that played with us for a little while and then we finally got Bill Figg. Steve left for about a year to go to military school. So by the time Steve got back I had met Terry and that's when we became a four piece.
KB: Did you start out as The Rationals?
SM: We picked that name up after about a year.
KB: Where did the name come from?
SM: Steve's older brother gave it to us. He got it from rational numbers in mathematics.
KB: How did you meet up with jeep Holland?
SM: He was the manager of Discount Records in Ann Arbor and he was doing a weekend record hop sort of thing at the local YMCA. We asked him to be our manager.
KB: How did A-Square records come about?
SM: It came from the need to record. We just decided that we needed to do some recording. So, we went into this little studio at the U of M radio complex. We thought it turned out pretty well so we went to a real studio in Detroit and did our first record. It was a little four track studio and I can't remember the name of it.
KB: Where did the songs for the first record come from.
SM: We wrote them in 1965. We were influenced by the British sound a lot. I wrote "Look What You're Doing To Me Baby", and "Gave My Love" I wrote with Steve. He wrote most of the music and I wrote most of the lyrics. The record came out in the summer of 1965. It was a big hit on the local radio stations. It was number one for several weeks and when we went back to school in the fall
KB: there are two labels for the first record, one purple and one yellow. Why?
SM: The Purple label is the first issue, the yellow is a re-issue.
KB: "Feelin' Lost" was next, right?
SM: Yes we recorded that shortly after the first one. That one was very British sounding. The flip side, "Little Girls Cry" was written by Dean Jackson. He went to high school with us, and he had a big hit with a song called "Love Makes The World Go Round". He used to come and watch us play at the YMCA. I wrote the lyrics to "Feelin' Lost" and Steve wrote the music. That was our first session at United Sound, and like all our recordings it was produced by Jeep. Bob Seger came into the studio and helped us produce it. Jim Osterberg (alias Iggy Pop) came in and played the bass drum part because Bill was having trouble with it. He came in and over-dubbed it. We didn't get very far with that record. The Detroit radio stations wouldn't play it because it sounded too much like The Beatles. Our next record, "Respect" took off, though.
KB: What's the story behind that record?
SM: That was when we first started getting away from The British sound and into the rhythm and blues type stuff. I don't know why it took off, but I guess it was the right thing at the right time.
KB: I like the flip side a lot, "Leavin' Here".
SM: Jeep was really into that song for some reason. He really thought it was going to be a big hit. We just put it on the flip side of "Respect'. Deon Jackson plays bongos and organ on the first version. Anyway, "Respect" started to take off out-state and then in Detroit. It really took off when Detroit radio picked it up. After that it was being played in Chicago, Cleveland, and other places. At that point it was still on A-Square, and then Cameo Parkway bought it and released it all over the country. They had scattered regional success with it outside the Midwest. KB: Then what happened?
SM: After that we did "Hold On Baby", which was an old rhythm and blues tune by Sam "The Man" Hawkins. Bob Seger sings the high harmony on that record. We also moved to a different studio to record it. A guy named Robert Scheff who played in an Ann Arbor band called The Prime Movers played on it, too.
KB: What year was all this happening?
SM: "Respect" came out in the winter of 1966, the cameo version of "Leavin' Here" , in the summer of 1967, and then "I Need You" was the winter of 1967-68. It was right after that we left Jeep Holland.
KB: Where did the Danby's record idea come from?
SM: That all happened after 'Respect" was a hit. The people from Danby's Department store approached Jeep with the idea because they were looking for a way to attract younger people to the store. We just recorded it and they did everything else.
KB: The Rationals and The Scot' Richard Case both left A-Square right about the same time. Then Jeep put out a record with each of you on one side. Where did the "I Need You" from that originate?
SM: That was recorded at one of our earliest sessions. We were never going to release it, but he put it out after we had quit working with him.
KB: I hope this doesn't go against protocol, but that cut is one of my all time faves I
SM: We used to do that song a lot back in 1965. He put that record out in 1968 after we had already left.
KB: Why are there two versions of "Out In the Streets"?
SM: The one with the vocal is called "Sing". We recorded "Out In The Streets" and Jeep didn't like the words we had for it so we put it out as an instrumental. We went back in later and recorded it with different lyrics.
KB: What were your live sets like?
SM: in 1965 we were doing a lot of the British stuff. Things like Them, Pretty Things, Yardbirds plus we did a lot of rock and roll tunes. Then Jeep kind of persuaded us to start getting into, the rhythm and blues type stuff. Jeep had a huge R and B collection. We played a lot of obscure stuff. Things like Freddie Scott's "Am I Groovin' You", James Ray's "If You Gotta Make A Fool Of somebody". We did "Ramblin, Rose," right around the Same time The MC5 was doing it. Then after "I Need You" we started getting away from that after doing it for three years. We started writing more and doing more west coast type things. Then we did the "Guitar Army" record and then we did the album on Crewe.
KB: How did that come about?
SM: We recorded it on spec at Artie Fields studio and we shopped it around and they bought it.
KB: Did it do anything for you?
SM: No. Actually the band broke up while it was still out. It was released in the early part of 1970, and we were broke up by summer.
KB: Why did you break up?
SM: Well by that tine we had a different manager and he left us and things weren't going real great so we just broke up. We had no organization, really. There was no focus and we were really frazzled out by then. Music wise we were ok but financially it was a fiasco.
KB: Where eIse besides Michigan did The Rationals play?
SM: We covered pretty much the entire Midwest and we played out on the East Coast. We played in Florida too on a package tour with The Young Rascals.
KB: Just from the different posters and things I have seen, I imagine you guys played with some pretty famous acts.
SM: Oh yeah. We played with Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and others. We opened a lot of shows at the Grande Ballroom. The Grande was the real important scene in Detroit. The MC5 were the main band, but there were others like The Stooges, SRC, Third Power; there were a lot of groups working that scene, and a lot of record people came in and signed those bands. About the only people who didn't play the Grande were Mitch Ryder and Bob Seger. They had pretty much established themselves before then. We did play with Seger once at a revue type thing. The MC5 were there, and a bunch of other bands.
KB: Back then Bob wasn't quite the household word that he is today.
SM: No. He had some big singles, like Heavy Music, and Ramblin Gamblin Man, but he didn't really take off until the seventies.
KB: So what happened to you after The Rationals broke up?
SM: I put my own band together called "Guardian Angel'. After about a year we changed the name to Lightnin'. The original line-up was Terry Trabandt, my brother Dave on drums, and Wayne Gabriel from Mitch Ryder's Detroit on guitar. Wayne's nickname was Tex. He eventually went to New York and joined Elephant's Memory and got to play with John Lennon. We changed the line-up a couple times then we did a forty five called "Hijackin' Love" on the Rainbow label. I got sick of that band and left.
KB: What next?
SM; After that I hooked up with Fred "Sonic" Smith and played with Sonics Rendezvous Band for pretty much the whole rest of the seventies. We did one single, "City Slang". I started a band after that called "Brothers of The Road" and did that for about a year, then I decided I really wanted my own band.
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