4.27.2009

I NEED YOU: THE RATIONALS


This weekend as I was digging around in the archives at my rocker pal's house I ran into a picture of MGT and Scott Morgan the lead singer/guitarist of The Rationals and many more bands to come.

Dennis Thompson/Scott Morgan

I came home and flamed up You Tube searching for my favorite Rationals song "I Need You" and I found it! I LOVE THIS SONG



As a fearless teenage girl I hitch-hiked from Ypsilanti to downtown Ann Arbor one summer day with a pal and who picked us up? THE RATIONALS! They had a van full of guys and band equipment. They were on their way home from playing somewhere and gave us dizzy girls a ride to the Diag and off we went. Really nice bunch of guys and thanks for the ride in case we were too dumbstruck to say it then..


The Rationals had a big hit singing Respect, the famous soul tune first done by Otis Redding and of course our favorite diva Aretha Franklin. But to be honest as a girl from Ypsilanti I burned up my 45 copy of The Rationals version of RESPECT Last FM Love this one too Had You Told It Like It Was Scott's vocals on Respect are fabulous and it is blasting out of my 5.1 speakers right now as I write about Scott and his music.


As I have been delving into the life of Machinegun Thompson for his blog I keep running into Scott Morgan, Tony Slug and their bandmates online. They have a really hot band now THE HYDROMATICS Scott rocks harder than ever. CITY SLANG



By KEN SHIMAMOTO Whether you're a garage fanatic, an R&B lunatic, or a Motor City maniac (I claim all of the above), Scott Morgan's got the goods to satisfy your particular jones.When you think about sixties veterans with great R&B-inflected rock voices, the one that stands the tallest, in terms of uncompromising integrity and overall quality of recorded work, has to be the estimable Mr. Morgan.

Just look at the competition. Of his Detroit/Ann Arbor contemporaries, Mitch Ryder hasn't had it (IT being the confluence of talent, material, and band) since 1971's Detroit. Bob Seger started out like he might be the best of all (those songwriting chops!), but wound up spinning his pickup truck wheels in the morass of AOR pablum. Steve Marriott (RIP)? Paul Rodgers? Rod Stewart?

All of 'em had the pipes, the tunes, the bands; all of 'em enjoyed more commercial success, but somewhere along the line, all of 'em lost the essential spark that made them great to begin with. Scott is the noble exception. He's been kicking out the righteous jams since 1962, starting out as a junior high school kid in Ann Arbor, Michigan, fronting soulful garage kings the Rationals; moving on in the seventies to hard-rocking Detroit "supergroup" Sonic's Rendezvous Band (with Fred "Sonic" Smith from the MC5, Scott "Rock Action" Asheton from the Stooges, and Gary Rasmussen from the Up); soldiering on into the eighties and nineties, well below the radar of public consciousness, with his own vehicles the Scott Morgan Band and Scots Pirates (often in tandem with the unbeatable rhythm team of Asheton and Rasmussen). And he's still sho 'nuff doin' it. As garage bands go, the Rationals were almost too good to be true.

See Scott Morgan's Website HERE

 

5 comments:

Frank in Birmingham said...

The Rationals were even better live I saw them in Detroit back in the day and they were great.

Sherrie in NY said...

The Rationals were my favorite band while I was living in Ann Arbor in college. Thank you for posting their videos and posting I Need You. It was such a soulfilled song for a man to sing to a woman. Scott needs to re-release that song now.

suzy creamcheese said...

Had such a big crush on Scott...

Retro Kimmer said...

Update:

We went to an old friend's house last night and three guys were there working on this garage. They graduated in like 1970. I mentioned doing the post on Scott Morgan and The Rationals. The in unison these 3 tough guys launched into singing "I NEED YOU" the slow version that I love. So that song remains forever cool for those guys to remember that song out of the Rationals songs.

accwest said...

I love that post.

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