As lead singer of The Scot Richard Case and SRC, Scott Richardson was a major figure in Ann Arbor’s late-'60s and early '70s cultural zeitgeist. He died at home in New Mexico on December 7, 2025, at age 77.

Richardson's passing represents a sad milestone for lovers of classic Michigan rock 'n' roll. He possessed a clear, plaintive voice that toughened over the years, but remained youthful in tone and quality. After SRC's breakup in 1973, Richardson moved to California and worked in the film industry as a screenwriter and set designer, including for two Lord of the Rings films.

Over the course of seven years and three albums, SRC moved from mod-inspired pop to garage band psychedelia, finally maturing into a hard-edged progressive rock sound. The band was a fixture at legendary venues like the Grande Ballroom and The Hideout, played major Michigan rock events like the Goose Lake International Music Festival, and shared stages with some of the biggest names in rock 'n' roll. They were also a band that valued its independence and artistic integrity, which sometimes created friction with managers and record companies, but that stubborn streak is responsible for a lot of great music.

THE SCOT RICHARD CASE (1967)
Brought together by local rock impresario Jeep Holland, the predecessor to SRC combined members of two popular A2 teen groups, The Fugitives and The Chosen Few. Brothers Glenn (organ) and Gary Quackenbush (guitar), Steve Lyman (guitar), Robin Dale (bass), and E.G. Clawson (drums) teamed up with Scott Richardson on vocals. By early 196,7 the band was christened the Scot Richard Case—a combination of Richardson’s short-lived stage pseudonym and Lyman’s middle name—and started living in a house at 1127 Broadway Street, Ann Arbor.

Holland immediately released a 7-inch single by the Case on his own A-Square Records, a recording of the band’s version of Cream’s take on Skip James’ “I’m So Glad.” The record was a hit on Detroit and Flint radio, and the Case became one of the top bands in the area, knocking them dead at teen clubs and frat parties with covers of The Who, The Pretty Things, and other mod rockers of the era.

Once the Case started writing their own songs, however, a much stranger muse emerged, one that didn’t mesh with Holland’s business strategy. The musicians bristled at being told what to do, rebelling against their manager and demanding the right to play music their way. Before the end of 1967, the Case left Holland and A-Square, determined to create something that hadn’t been heard before. 

SRC album (1968)
After the split with Holland, the Case attracted the attention of Capitol Records, who offered a contract in early 1968. True to their stubborn nature, the musicians refused to sign without retaining artistic control, holding up negotiations for weeks before triumphantly signing with integrity intact. By the end of that summer, the Scot Richard Case had changed its name to SRC and recorded a self-titled debut LP of lysergic dimensions.

Rarely is psychedelic music procured in such pure quantities as the eight spacey gems on SRC. The tunes drip with non-sequitur poetics, jagged shifts in time, and meandering melodies executed with raw garage-band energy and verve. Rainbow fire scorches the land, tarnished halos light the gloom, the space between two points within the boundary of time is only numbers on a clock, but SRC plays too rough for the tunes to float into the ether.

Clawson, Dale, and Lyman make for a scrappy, hard-hitting rhythm section, and Gary Quackenbush’s lead guitar pulsates with distorted colors never before heard by human ears—he demands attention every time he steps out with another flurry of flaming notes. Meanwhile, Glenn Quackenbush’s organ oscillates between ethereal and haunting, and Richardson sings like a choirboy lost in a psychedelic forest, in awe of all he sees as he stumbles through the dreamscape.

The cover art is a hallucinogenic nightmare of hookah smoke and hourglasses so of its time that it might have rolled eyes even back in the day, but it’s utterly appropriate. With the benefit of time, SRC’s debut betrays an innocence that probably wasn’t evident upon release. It’s the soundtrack of dorm-room epiphanies, important meadow walks, and late-night rap sessions. Like the hardcore punk bands of the early 1980s, late ‘60s psychedelia was a fundamentally youthful music—kids playing a new style in alternative venues with utopian ideals. It’s as adorable as a mohawk.

SRC’s signature song and the most cohesive number from the band's initial repertoire, “Black Sheep” is a stately declaration of purpose. An abbreviated version was released as a single and got significant local airplay. Glenn Quackenbush’s woozy organ melody provides an ample frame for Richardson’s trippy, elliptical lyricism, until Gary Quackenbush’s startling lead guitar changes the tone from elegy to tempest. “Black sheep, outcast, misfit, Ishmael/Every stranger, each his own tale/Waking faced with dreaming, thinking/Laughing, crying, being, winking.” So true.

After the gloom of “Black Sheep” comes the sunny exhilarations of "Daystar," which conjures images of ecstatic flower children leaping through sunbeams. Occasionally, the band loses the train of thought and falls into contemplative reverie, but Gary Quackenbush is always there to wake everyone up with a jolt of electric vibrations.

MILESTONES album (1969)
The SRC album didn’t hit big, but the band gained stature in the Michigan rock scene, gigging frequently with fellow local legends MC5, The Stooges, and Bob Seger, as well as with nationally famous names, including a show in Chicago that featured both The Velvet Underground and The Grateful Dead. Bassist Dale was replaced by Al Wilmot in late 1968, and guitarist Lyman left the band shortly after SRC began recording what would become its second album, Milestones.

SRC wisely spent its advance money on studio equipment to record basic tracks in its rehearsal space (overdubs and mixing were done at a studio in Detroit). This freedom focused the band, and as a result, Milestones is a great musical leap beyond the debut and their fiercest collection. It’s an unsung masterpiece of Detroit rock, and it was mostly made in the dilapidated band house on Broadway Street.

The songs are more conventional than their acid-stained material, but they boast a new velocity and swagger that reflects the band's time sharing stages with the likes of Ted Nugent and Iggy Pop. Richardson’s voice has developed into a stronger instrument, with a soulful grit and commanding presence that the callow youth of one year before simply lacked. Gary Quackenbush’s incendiary guitar tone remains saturated with mind-bending distortion, and his unpredictable sense of melody still takes the listener to unusual places.

A few trippy touches remain on Milestones, notably the languid sunshine pop ballad “Show Me” and the epic album closer “The Angel Song,” which features a lengthy spoken word section about a lonely angel who chooses humanity over eternity. But overall, it’s a glorious, hard-charging monster that deserves its place among other high-energy Michigan rock classics of the day.

Opening Milestones is the galloping hard-psych salvo “No Secret Destination," a searing blast of swirling organ, slashing fuzz chords, and serpentine soloing. No longer a glassy-eyed urchin, Richardson slings some hard-won truths about fate and destiny—the tone is one of disillusion, and SRC sound determined to leave their crystalline dreams behind them.

A joyous eruption of Detroit bamalam, “Up All Night” was the A-side of the only single taken from Milestones. It would be imprudent to make assumptions about the SRC members’ consumption habits all those years ago, but the difference between this and “Black Sheep” suggests that the refreshments of choice have changed. Richardson is running in every direction, chasing his shadow through time, grinning like a Cheshire Cat and blushing like a lady of scandal—these guys are at a very different kind of party, and I’ll have what they’re having. 

The flipside of the “Up All Night” single finds Richardson letting loose in the studio like never before or since. A pummeling rhythm and blues workout, “Turn Into Love” features an uninhibited vocal performance of howls and stutters, crossed with an angelic chorus that suggests the object of his ardor is mankind itself. Both sides are album highlights and either would sound amazing blasting out of an AM car radio, but they aren’t the best representation of Milestones’ overall tone, which is closer to the cynicism of “No Secret Destination” than the gleeful hedonism of this bracing 45.

SRC already showcased its instrumental prowess on the B-side of the “Black Sheep” single with a day-glo version of Edvard Grieg’s “Morning Mood,” but the band outdid itself with this show-stopper. Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King” works perfectly with SRC’s newfound bombast, and the musicians handle the dynamic piece with aplomb, pairing it with a fuzz-busting take on Jeff Beck’s version of “Bolero.” The studio microphones barely contain the cacophony, and everything explodes at the end.

TRAVELER’S TALE album (1970)
Milestones sold better than SRC, cracking the Billboard Top 200 and getting airplay overseas. Still, the band could not break nationally, despite a brief West Coast tour. Gary Quackenbush was replaced by Ray Goodman on guitar, and within months, the new lineup recorded its third collection.

Traveler’s Tale turned down the aggression of Milestones in favor of more sophisticated arrangements—song lengths are up, jazz influences reveal themselves, and French horns and strings augment the proceedings. It’s another steep stylistic leap for the band, the third in as many years, as SRC sought wider acclaim.

“A New Crusader," the opening track from Traveler’s Tale, illustrates the changes in the SRC sound. With his brother’s bold solo voice removed from the lineup, Glenn Quackenbush’s organ takes the lead on this expansive composition. Richardson sings the tale of a gallant knight who takes Lady Destiny’s hand and ventures off into glory, savoring the excitement of an adventure’s first few steps.  

Richardson’s best vocal on the album, “By Way of You," is an impassioned rock ballad that benefits from Clawson’s muscular drum rolls and a dramatic arrangement. The organ and guitar work in unison to bludgeon the riff into submission, and Goodman provides a juicy Quackenbush-esque solo that almost makes one forget.

BLUE SCEPTER AND FINAL RECORDINGS (1971-1972)
Goodman’s tenure was brief, and Gary Quackenbush returned to the fold after Traveler’s Tale was released, but the band’s fortunes did not improve. SRC moved operations to Ypsilanti, where they opened Morgan Sound Theater, a recording and rehearsal studio that hosted such local talent as The Up, 24-Carat Black, Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, and even The Stooges. Sessions for a new SRC album went unreleased until the 1993 CD retrospective Lost Masters, but in 1971, SRC changed its name to Blue Scepter and signed to Motown’s rock subsidiary label, Rare Earth.

The renamed group chose The Pretty Things song “Out in the Night” as the A-side of its sole Rare Earth single and tried on yet another new style for size, adding a horn section and taking a jaunty bubblegum-pop approach. While SRC may have been good at a lot of things, the 1910 Fruitgum Company it was not. More successful is the self-penned flip side, “Gypsy Eyes,” which shoots for raunchy Stones swagger and scores, laced with plenty of sorely missed Quackenbush guitar heroics.

The association with Rare Earth was short-lived, and SRC dropped the pseudonym (most promotors stubbornly used their original name anyway). The band's final 7-inch single was released by local indie label Big Casino Records, and as before, the meat is on the flip. While the A-side, “Born to Love,” is a credible Detroit boogie written by the record’s producers, the instrumental B-Side, “The Badazz Shuffle,” is all SRC and serves as a sly French exit to the rock 'n' roll world. An unassuming, elemental guitar riff gradually accumulates flutes until overcome by the weight of gravity, exploding into shards of amplifier fuzz and organ fire. Every instrument takes a bow during the solo section, then SRC casually riffs off into the sunset.

SRC broke up in January 1973, and while some members joined local bands or gave lessons, none of them made a bigger splash in the music business than SRC. A few reunions were organized for the faithful in 2011 and 2012, but Gary Quackenbush’s death in 2015 closed that book.

Fred Beldin is a writer and musician living in Ann Arbor. His work can be found at thesearetheendtimes.com. 

RELATED:
➥ An amazing day-by-day diary of The Fugitives and SRC, including live, studio, broadcasting, etc. [Bruno Ceriotti]
➥ Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Internet Hall of Fame: SRC [Michigan Rock and Roll Legends]
➥ Live and rare SRC recordings, including some reunion shows [YouTube.com/@SRCintervals]
➥ The Scott Richardson Interview [Review, June 30, 2011]
➥ The Who and SRC - 1967 [Michigan Rock and Roll Legends]
➥ MC5 vs SRC? And the 1969 Detroit Pop Festival [Solid State Sounds, July 6, 2025]
➥ SRC discography [Discogs]