In 1966 Ric Seaberg was attending an orientation event at Salem's Willamette University, where he met Gene Heliker, a fellow freshman who had a guitar. Seaberg and Heliker were soon bonding over music, and they made plans to form a band with Seaberg on lead vocals and guitar, and Heliker on lead guitar. They recruited two fellow students, rhythm guitarist Craig Chastain and bassist Doug Heatherington, and later added Bob Baker on keyboards and Bill Thomas on drums, and Morning Reign made their public debut playing a dance at the Willamette University gymnasium. A few months later, they were playing regularly in and around Salem, branching out throughout the Pacific Northwest. Drummer Thomas left the band, and a second drummer, Tom Hallman, worked with them for a while before Howard Holland took his place behind the drum kit. As this line-up established itself as one of the most popular rock bands in the Northwest, they released their first single , with the Heliker/Seaberg original 'Please Stop' appearing on the 3S Record label in 1968. Later that year the band appeared on the TV series Happening '68, in a battle of the bands segment, and although they didn't win, it did put them in touch with music industry figures who saw promise in the group. In the meantime, they struck a deal with Garland Records, an Oregon-based label who in 1969 issued two singles, with the band tackling covers, 'Everybody' b/w 'But It's Alright' and 'Any Way You Want Me' b/w 'Reach Out I'll Be There'.
As their popularity rose, the group shared stages with some of the best known acts of the day, including the Doors, Three Dog Night, Vanilla Fudge, and The Guess Who. In 1970 they had a brush with the major labels with T-A Records, distributed by Bell Records, who issued their single 'Can I Believe In You', but by this time Baker and Holland had dropped out of the act, and two members of another Salem band, Tyme, stepped in to replace them, with Larry Sieber taking over the keyboards and Jay Steven Tate the drums. They continued to play regularly and wrote and recorded many demo tapes of original material, but the cost of putting out an album on their own was too expensive, and they couldn't find a label interested in producing an LP of their music. In time, the band had run their course, and they split up in 1972. Two archival releases have appeared since the split, with 'Can't Get Enough Of It' being a collection of seventeen previously unreleased performances from the group's archives, while 'Taking Cover' was drawn from recordings they made during their association with Garland Records. Neither of these records purports to be the album that they wanted to release in 1969, and as the Garland disc can't include the 3S and T-A singles then it's up to me to piece together an album from the available material that they'd recorded by 1970, which includes the best of their single sides, some of their demos, and a recording of the 10-minute tour-de-force 'I Love', that they often used to close their shows.
Track listing
01 I Can Believe In You
02 Belinda
03 Everybody
04 Just A Friend
05 Tambourine Lady
06 Tomorrow Morning's Love
07 Please Stop
08 Any Way That You Want Me
09 But It's Alright
10 Say It Once Again
11 Even Is It Me
12 I Love
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