In the mid-1960s a teenage Ann Arbor rock band inspired such passion that girls leapt onstage to tackle them and security personnel had to cut short a performance before 10,000 screaming fans at the Michigan State Fair. Their fall 1966 pre-Aretha Franklin cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect” topped radio charts around Michigan and was heard as far away as Florida and Texas, and they had a half-dozen singles and an album before they were through. Formed by students at Forsythe and Slauson Junior High schools, the group hit its stride when they were attending Ann Arbor (now Pioneer) High. With Scott Morgan on vocals, Steve Correll on guitar, Terry Trabandt on bass, and Bill Figg on drums, the band took its name from a term Correll’s brother Richard had found in a math book. Svengali-like manager Hugh “Jeep” Holland formed A-Square Records to put out their first discs and kept them gigging steadily around the Midwest, where they shared stages with Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Cream, the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, and many other top acts. The Rationals also made frequent appearances on television shows like Robin Seymour’s Swingin’ Time in Windsor and Cleveland-based Upbeat.

In recent years their music has been compiled in a series of lavish CD and LP packages by Grammy-nominated producer Alec Palao for Ace/Big Beat in the UK, which include much previously-unreleased material. They are available at the Ann Arbor District Library.

I interviewed Scott Morgan and Bill Figg at WCBN before a much-anticipated 1991 reunion concert. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. – Frank Uhle

Frank Uhle: You guys started playing together before the Beatles came over, around 1962 or so? 

Scott Morgan: I had been taking guitar lessons and then one day Steve Correll called me and asked me to play something for him over the telephone. So I played “Walk, Don't Run” or something like that, and we got together at that point. We were in the same junior high school, Forsythe, with Bill, who was a year ahead of us, and we eventually hooked up and then we got Terry who was going to the other school in town, Slauson. Steve was gone for a year, and he came back and we all got together at that point. And that was the beginning of the Rationals, as history knows it. [laughs]  

Frank Uhle: You were doing instrumentals only, before you added vocals, correct?

Bill Figg: We did a lot of the cover tunes that we liked at the time, like “Walk, Don't Run.”

Scott Morgan: Lonnie Mack, the Ventures, that kind of thing. 

Bill Figg: And then as time progressed we decided that a lot of people were starting to sing and we had to pick a singer. I think Scott raised his hand first or something. I don't know how it came about. It's like, “Oh geez, a lot of people are singing. Who's gonna sing? You gonna sing?” “Oh, yeah. I guess so.”

Scott Morgan: It just kind of evolved. I think we were playing at parties and local dances and that sort of thing, and we were probably doing the kind of blues tunes most beginning bands play like “Hi-Heel Sneakers” and “Money” and “Johnny B. Goode” or something like that. That's what we cut our teeth on, vocally. And then the British Invasion came and all of a sudden we were off in another direction for a while. We started writing, trying to write, and it was all very derivative at first. It took us a couple years, I think, to actually get a handle on our writing.

Frank Uhle: Your first single came out in the summer of 1965 on your manager Jeep Holland’s A-Square Records label. A ballad you wrote called “Gave My Love” was the A-side. It obviously has a very British flavor.

Scott Morgan: A lot happened in that first year of the British Invasion, and we were highly affected by it. And I think that song shows it. Our second single was another British derived song called “Feelin’ Lost” and the flipside was a song by Deon Jackson, who was another Ann Arbor High alumnus. And then our third single was “Respect.” And at that point we had tapped into Jeep Holland's record collection, his fantastic R&B collection. And that was the beginning of an R&B string there that went on for a couple of years. We had like four singles in a row that were heavily R&B influenced.

Frank Uhle: The last one of those, “I Need You,” was a Goffin-King composition. Was that also recorded by somebody else first?

Scott Morgan: Chuck Jackson. We didn't have songwriter demos or anything like that. We were just covering the originals. We covered “Respect” and at that point it had been an R&B hit for Otis Redding a year earlier. But it had never been a pop hit. We tried our hand at it, and it was a big pop hit around here and in some other markets. But then Aretha took it like a year later and made it a REAL big hit. [laughs]

Frank Uhle: Well, your version is certainly a memorable one.

Scott Morgan: I think it’s an important version, but I think we were still learning to play R&B at that point. I think by the time we got to “Hold On Baby” and “Leavin’ Here” and “I Need You” we were getting better at it actually. None of them were really as big a hit as “Respect,” but I think we were actually playing R&B better later on. 

Bill Figg: Well, we were only 17 and 18. How much talent can you have at 17 or 18? 

Frank Uhle: There's a youthful enthusiasm that comes through in those early records, though.

Scott Morgan: That's true. I call it the punk version of “Respect.” [laughs]

Bill Figg: Yeah. Well, it's close. 

Frank Uhle: “Respect” was a pretty big regional hit. Did you see financial rewards from that? Or was it the same old story?

Bill Figg: Same old story, we didn't make any money off it. Actually “Leavin’ Here” was supposed to be the top side of the record. We were in the studio doing “Leavin’ Here” for what we thought would be an A-side and we recorded it 27 times as I remember, we just couldn't get a hot track on it. And Jeep came down and says, “Oh, let's do ‘Respect.’” So we did “Respect” in what, two cuts or something like that?

Scott Morgan: I just remember I screwed up one of the vocal lines at the end. I'm going like, “Reeschpect is what I want,” or something like that. I'm going, “Hey, I muffed that line” and they're going, “Well, nobody will ever know, it doesn't matter.” 

Bill Figg: “B-side. No problem.” [laughs]

Frank Uhle: Wow. So was it the first time you'd done “Respect” or had you been playing it live? 

Bill Figg: We’d arranged it as I remember.

Scott Morgan: We spent some time arranging it at Mothers in East Tawas. 

Bill Figg: Yeah. It was a job we were playing and we were doing a sound check and Jeep said, “Well, let's work on ‘Respect.’ We’ve got a couple hours before lunch here.” So we arranged it there, I believe.

Scott Morgan: Yeah. 

Frank Uhle: It does have a distinctive arrangement with the way the bass starts out and then the rhythm guitar and drums and harmonica each come in before the vocal. If you came up with that in the studio in two takes, that’s pretty amazing. 

Scott Morgan: We added the second harmonica in the studio, we overdubbed. So we had double tracked harmonicas on it. But most of it was prearranged. 

Frank Uhle: I heard that James Osterberg – Iggy Pop – played the bass drum on an early single of yours. Did you perform everything on the records yourselves or did any other guests sit in?

Bill Figg: On “Hold On Baby” Bob Seger is singing the high part for us on that tune, because back when we did these tunes everybody kind of helped everybody. We would go in the studio with Mitch Ryder and help him a little bit, and Seger would come with us. And it was more of a community effort when you went to the studios on a lot of different tunes. Me and Jeep, I think were the first two people to hear the “Heavy Music” track for Bob Seger. He brought it back and said, “Well, what do you think? I just did this thing, I'm going to call it ‘Heavy Music.’” And Jeep says, “Wow, that's the hottest thing I've ever heard.” Nobody was really afraid to play things because somebody was going to rip them off, because we were all friends. 

Scott Morgan: My mother always reminded me of the time Bob Seger came over to our house with his little reel to reel tape recorder and wanted to play me some songs. And I'm going, “Ah, Bob, we don't need any material.” [laughs]. And she's going, “If you would've recorded one of those songs…”

Bill Figg: It was a community effort, I thought, in a lot of the early stuff. People helping each other, which was really good. A lot of the local talents. Deon Jackson even helped us. What tune was that he played organ on?

Scott Morgan: He played on “Leavin’ Here,” on the first version of it. And a couple keyboard players from local bands, Glenn Quackenbush from the SRC played on the second version of “Leavin’ Here.” And another guy named Robert Sheff, who played with the Prime Movers, a great blues band from the ‘60s in Ann Arbor, played organ on “Hold On Baby.” 

Frank Uhle: I was wondering about those keyboards. Did you have keyboard players live too? 

Scott Morgan: No, we didn't. Just in the studio. We could do a lot of things in the studio with multi-tracking. 

Frank Uhle: Let’s talk about your live shows. I recently spoke to somebody who saw you backing up Sonny and Cher. They asked you to be their backup band?

Bill Figg: Yeah, they approached us somehow. Harold Battiste was their arranger, and Harold came up with his little bitty organ, and we met with him briefly before we were to do their backup music. And we're learning “I Got You Babe,” or whatever. And of course, we did our own show prior to that and we kind of knocked the kids out. I remember Sonny and Cher standing off in the wings going like, “Who are these guys?” We did pretty good in that concert. That was like our first big concert.

Scott Morgan: Yeah, I was totally at a loss. Their keyboard player just came to soundcheck to go over the songs with us, and I said, “You’ve gotta play because I don't know what I'm doing up here.”

Bill Figg: Yeah, because their music was fairly complex compared to what we were used to doing. And we didn't know their tunes that well.

Frank Uhle: They were big stars at the time. It must have been challenging for a bunch of high school kids. 

Bill Figg: Yeah. Because we didn't cover Sonny and Cher tunes, we were doing R&B stuff. It was neat though, it was fun to do. I think they were pretty pleased with what we did. But they weren't real pleased, I don't think, with the reaction that we got before we went on.

Scott Morgan: Harold actually was an old New Orleans guy. He worked with Dr. John on a lot of his stuff, and I think they'd been working together way back before Dr. John, when he was just Mac Rebennack.

Frank Uhle: That show was before “Respect” came out, but after it hit you became top headliners yourselves.

Scott Morgan: Our first big show was at Cobo Hall when we played a big benefit with Question Mark and the Mysterians and Richard and the Young Lions, who did “Open Up Your Door,” and the Shadows of Knight from Chicago that covered “Gloria.” Mitch Ryder just showed up and said hello and Bob Seger was there and played. It was a pretty big show. 

Bill Figg: It was called the ALSAC Show, for “Aiding Leukemia Stricken American Children.” Did you say Del Shannon? He was there, remember? He was the big guy when he came in and he was sitting there. There was a lot of people in that first show. “Walk Away, Renee,” the Left Banke? They were there. 

Scott Morgan: Tim Tam and the Turn-ons who had a local hit, “Wait A Minute.” Yeah, it was a good show. That was ‘66 when “Respect” was just peaking on the radio, so it was a good time for us to play in front of a big audience.

Frank Uhle: Someone else told me he saw the Rationals in 1967 at the State Fair, and you got an overwhelming response compared to the other acts.

Scott Morgan: Actually I recall that as being like a real big thing, that supposedly we drew more people to the State Fair bandshell than the Supremes, is what we were told. 

Bill Figg: They said, “Well, we know the Rationals are here” - the people that work there. “Well, why is that?” “Well, because there's nobody on any of the rides!” “How do you know?” “Well, there's only two people that draw like that, the Rationals and the Supremes” or some other big act like that. That was the year the girls drug Scott off the stage by his scarf. We weren't used to that and some girl came up and grabbed Scott by the scarf and she had him real good. Of course, we didn't have any security or anything. Somebody got her un-attached from Scott and we finished the tune somehow.

Frank Uhle: On that kind of show would you just do a short set like the Beatles did in those days, maybe half an hour?

Scott Morgan: We probably had less than that. And we didn't even get very far.

Bill Figg: Three, four songs really. We got about halfway through “Respect,” and they had to stop the show. The kids were jumping off the balconies and there was a big stage rush and the security people got kind of mashed at the front of the stage.

Scott Morgan: They just turned the lights off and told us to get out of there. 

Bill Figg: “Quit playing. Get outta here.” But we didn't know where to go.

Scott Morgan: It was all like that in Detroit actually, at the time. It was like Beatlemania kind of stuff. 

Frank Uhle: Rational-mania?

Bill Figg: Yeah, right.

Scott Morgan: Yeah. 

Frank Uhle: What was that like? Was that kind of a trip? Or did you get upset about it after a while?

Bill Figg:  Well, it was really weird to have 10,000 people trying to tear your van apart to get to you. We felt good about it, and it was really kind of a shock. Because we didn't really realize that we, not that we were that good or anything, that we were that popular. It was a shock for me. I remember standing downstairs with some security guard and we're all standing there going, “What happened?” It's like, “Ah, I guess we did it. We stopped the show!” I believe the Beatles were the only other people to ever stop a show in the Detroit area like that.

Frank Uhle: How long did that kind of fanatical adulation continue? Was that still going on when “I Need You” was on the charts in 1968, or was it mostly earlier when Beatlemania was big? Did it kind of wane a little bit as the decade wore on? 

Scott Morgan: It probably went through ’67. ’66 and ’67.  

Bill Figg: As soon as the psychedelic thing started and people started doing a lot of big improvisation and stuff. Then it was kind of uncool to not be listening, and people quit dancing and everybody became a music critic. All of the people sitting in the place you're playing were all of a sudden trying to listen to you rather than react to you.

Scott Morgan: And I think we took off in another direction after “I Need You.” We left our manager Jeep Holland and hooked up with another guy named Larry Feldman, who was heavily involved in the Grande Ballroom, and that meant that we played the Grande more than we had in the past. And at the Grande it wasn't like a mania thing, it was more like music. People would come and listen to the music, you know? And we started getting into that in ‘68 and ‘69.

Frank Uhle: I’ve heard a recording of the Rationals playing the Grande in 1968, which came out on CD. Is that pretty representative of your sound then? Because I don't even think “Respect” was on there.

Scott Morgan: Actually, we got sick of playing “Respect.” 

Bill Figg: We called it “Repeat,” because we played it so many times. 

Scott Morgan: I'm sure we made some moves that for us at the time seemed logical, but weren't really logical business moves. Probably playing “Respect” and “I Need You” over and over again would've been the thing to do to keep people coming in then adding more material. But we were so headstrong about it that we wanted to just drop all that and move off in this new direction. And that's what we did. So that's why we weren't playing “Respect” or “I Need You” in ’68. This would've been like maybe six months after “I Need You” had been released.

Bill Figg: Yep.

Frank Uhle: Getting back to your records, you moved from A-Square, which was run by Jeep Holland, to Cameo-Parkway, where you followed “Respect” with covers of Sam Hawkins’ “Hold On Baby” and Eddie Holland’s “Leavin’ Here.” But then you were suddenly back on A-Square again for the soulful ballad “I Need You.” Was that done because Cameo went under and you were still managed by Jeep, so he just put the next one out on his own label?

Bill Figg: Yeah. The way I perceive it is, in order to get a record deal we had to pretty much do everything ourselves first. If you've ever seen The Buddy Holly Story movie, it’s the same thing. You do it yourself, and then you go around and promote it, and somewhere somebody would start playing it, and then you'd get some interest up, and then all of a sudden you start getting calls from all these people at record companies wanting to meet with you. And that's pretty much what we did with it. Do it ourselves, get some airplay, and start selling some records. And all of a sudden Capitol or somebody comes by and says “Look, how about let's make a deal?”

Scott Morgan: We discovered that with my current band, that that actually works. We did the same thing. We went through like two demo periods where we just sent tapes to these record companies. And finally we just decided to put out a single, and then we got interest. But that's the same thing, if you generate some success on your own, immediately they want to buy into it. So that's what happened. Jeep had a pretty established little operation with A-Square Records, and “Respect” was our third single on A-Square. At that point we had established a relationship with local radio stations where actually I think we were getting airplay on the Detroit stations before Cameo-Parkway stepped in. And in Cleveland too, and other major markets in the Midwest. And it was starting to spread. I think at that point they were going, “Well, we have to have a piece of this.” So they stepped in and they took over the next three singles.

Frank Uhle: Until notorious Rolling Stones/Beatles business manager Allen Klein showed up.

Scott Morgan: Allen got this incredible reputation for being some sort of crazy businessman. Supposedly he was manipulating the stock or something like that for Cameo. And the thing just fell apart like a house of cards. Everybody was scrambling for a new label, including Bob Seger and ourselves, Question Mark and the Mysterians, and we went back to A-Square and did “I Need You.” And then Capitol walked in because we were doing the same thing again, getting local airplay again and selling records here. So Capitol stepped in and took it over, but that's the only thing that they put out, was that one single. 

Frank Uhle: I see. So they just leased the tune, they didn't sign you guys for a multi-record contract or anything? 

Scott Morgan: No. Right after “I Need You” is when we left Jeep Holland, who had engineered the deal. So our next manager went to Capitol and couldn't seem to establish a rapport with them, so we just started over again. Then we went back to another local label called Genesis and did “Guitar Army,” which was a big departure for us. This was maybe a year after “I Need You” and it's a totally different sound. And the radio stations are going, “Well, we can't play this. It doesn't sound anything like ‘I Need You.’” It was political and it was hard rock. So we had a problem there, and actually the owner of Genesis died in the middle of the whole thing. So nothing much happened with the single. But we went back in and recorded the album, and then instead of releasing that ourselves we shopped it and we found a label for it, Crewe. It was run by Bob Crewe, who had DynoVoice Records with Mitch Ryder.

 

Frank Uhle: The album was the last record you released other than a single from it, your version of the Chris Farlowe/Rod Stewart track “Handbags and Gladrags.” And then in 1970 you called it quits. Was it because the album didn't do as well as you had expected, or were there other factors?

Scott Morgan: There was a lot of things going on there. We had hooked up a production deal with Robin Seymour around the time that the album came out. And Robin's company was involved with our manager in getting the album placed and released. And shortly after the album came out our manager decided he didn't want to work with us anymore. So he just disappeared, basically. He didn't say, “Well, I think you guys should do something else.” He just sort of was gone, you know. One day it was like, “Where is he?”

Bill Figg: And then we started working directly with Robin.

Scott Morgan: We tried to work directly with Robin, and the record label actually sent us out a guy from New York who wanted to manage us. And we're going, “Look, we don't know you, and it's not that we don't want to work with you, it's just...” I mean, you can't just send a guy out, “This guy's gonna take over now.” So that didn't work out. And then Robin went on vacation and we couldn't get ahold of him, and we were kind of freaking out.

Bill Figg: Robin went on vacation and Bob Crewe went to Hollywood to start some other things for Crewe Records. And while he was in Hollywood doing some positive things his kids that he left in charge of the record company in New York had a hard time coordinating the national distribution of the album. So consequently people would hear the album and it hit in one market, and then another market, and then another market. And it was just uncoordinated.

Frank Uhle: That's really unfortunate. Because it was your only album and after so many years of hard work it seems like you should have been on tap for another hit. 

Scott Morgan: We probably should have done a second album, but I think at that point we were so disoriented that I don't know how it would've turned out. I mean, it might have been really good, but I don't know. I have no idea. I don't think we really had a handle on our career at that point. Everybody who was working with us was sort of disappearing rapidly.

With the album making little impact and their management in disarray, the Rationals were reduced to playing venues like the Colonial Lanes bowling alley and a hotel lounge in Windsor, Ontario. Feeling there was no way forward, in August 1970 the group disbanded. Of the four members, Scott Morgan and Terry Trabandt would have the most significant future careers in music. Initially playing together in the band Guardian Angel, Trabandt would later work with Joe Walsh, co-writing his hit “Turn to Stone,” before his passing in 2011. Morgan would carry on with local groups like Sonic’s Rendezvous Band, Scots Pirates, and Dodge Main, releasing multiple albums and winning a Detroit Music Award in 2015.

Special thanks to Scott Morgan and Bill Figg. Thanks also to Alec Palao, Frank Holland, Freddy Fortune, Greg Dahlberg, Jim Heddle, Amanda Uhle, and the Bentley Historical Library.

Check out the Rationals CDs at the Ann Arbor District Library.

More Rationals news clippings at the Ann Arbor District Library.

Video of the Rationals performing “Leavin’ Here” and “Respect” on Robin Seymour’s Swingin’ Time program in September 1966: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFjd9IQfjZg