~ RIP Paul Revere (1938 - 2014) ~ Paul Revere & the Raiders, is an American rock band that saw considerable U.S. mainstream success in the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s. Among their hits were the songs Kicks (1966; ranked number 400 on Rolling Stone magazines list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time), Hungry (1966), Him Or Me - Whats It Gonna Be? (1967) and the Platinum-certified classic #1 single Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian). Early years Initially based in Boise, Idaho, the Raiders began as an instrumental rock band led by organist and founder Paul Revere Dick (January 7, 1938 in Harvard, Nebraska – October 4, 2014 in Caldwell, Idaho). In his early 20s, Revere owned several restaurants in Caldwell, Idaho and first met singer Mark Lindsay (born March 9, 1942, Eugene, Oregon) while picking up hamburger buns from the bakery where Lindsay worked The circumstance of their meeting was later referred to in the tongue-in-cheek song Legend of Paul Revere, recorded by the group. Lindsay joined Reveres band in 1958. Originally called The Downbeats, they changed their name to Paul Revere & The Raiders in 1960 on the eve of their first record release for Gardena Records. The band garnered their first hit in the Pacific Northwest in 1961, with the instrumental Like, Long Hair. The record had enough national appeal that it peaked at No. 38 on the Billboard chart on April 17, 1961. When Revere was drafted for military service, he became a conscientious objector and worked as a cook at a mental institution for a year and a half of deferred service. During the same time period, Lindsay pumped gas in Wilsonville, Oregon. On the strength of their Top 40 single, Lindsay toured the U.S. in the summer of 1961 with a band that featured Leon Russell taking Reveres place on piano. By summer 1962, Revere and Lindsay were working together again in Oregon with a version of The Raiders that featured Mike Smitty Smith, a drummer who would spend two extended periods with the band. Around this time, KISN DJ Roger Hart, who was producing teen dances, was looking for a band to hire. Hart had a casual conversation with a bank teller who told him about a band called Paul Revere-something. Hart obtained Reveres phone number and they met for lunch. Hart hired the band for one of his teen dances. Soon afterward, Hart became the groups personal manager. It was Hart who suggested they record Louie Louie, for which Hart paid them about $50, producing the song and placing it on his Sandē label, ultimately attracting the attention of Columbia Records. According to Lindsay, the Raiders were a bunch of white-bread kids doing their best to sound black. We got signed to Columbia on the strength of sounding like this. Whether the Raiders or The Kingsmen recorded Louie Louie first is not certain; however, both groups recorded it in the same studio in Portland, Oregon in April 1963. By then, the Raiders included Revere, Lindsay, Smith, guitarist Drake Levin, and bassist Mike Doc Holliday, who was replaced in early 1965 by Phil Volk. Hits and promotion in the Action era In 1965, The Raiders began recording a string of garage rock classics. Under the guidance of producer Terry Melcher, the group relocated to Los Angeles and increasingly emulated the sounds of British Invasion bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Dave Clark Five, and The Animals, while adding an American, R&B feel. Their first major national hit, Just Like Me (No. 11, 1965) was one of the first rock records to feature a distinctive, double-tracked guitar solo, performed by guitarist Drake Levin. The band appeared regularly in the U.S. on national television, most notably on Dick Clarks Where the Action Is, Happening 68, and Its Happening, the latter two co-hosted by Revere and Lindsay. In their television appearances, they were presented as an American response to the British Invasion. Playing on Reveres name, the group wore American Revolutionary War soldier uniforms and performed slapstick comedy and synchronized dance steps while the ponytailed Lindsay lip synced to their music. This farcical, cartoon-like image obscured the proto-hard rock sound their music often displayed. In November 1966, the band appeared as themselves performing a song on the popular Batman television series in the episode Hizzonner the Penguin. The Raiders were endorsed by the Vox Amplifier Company while Reveres keyboards were played on the Vox Continental combo organ and Volk occasionally played the Vox Phantom IV bass. When performing, the entire band was plugged into Vox Super Beatle amplifiers. When Levin left the group in 1966 to join the National Guard he was replaced by Jim Valley, another Northwest musician the Raiders had met during their days playing the Portland and Seattle music circuits. Valley was dubbed Harpo by the other Raiders due to a vague resemblance to the famous Marx brother. Their hits from the this period included Kicks (Billboard Pop Chart No. 4), Hungry (No. 6), The Great Airplane Strike (No. 20), Good Thing (No. 4), and Him or Me - Whats It Gonna Be? (No. 5). Of these, Kicks became their best-known song, an anti-drug message written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil that was originally earmarked for The Animals. (Mann later revealed in interviews that the song was written about their friend, fellow 1960s songwriter Gerry Goffin, whose ongoing drug problems were interfering with his career with then-wife Carole King.) In mid-1967, with three gold albums to their credit, The Raiders were Columbias top-selling rock group; their Greatest Hits was one of two releases selected by Clive Davis to test a higher list price for albums expected to be particularly popular (along with Bob Dylans Greatest Hits). Major lineup change At the height of the bands popularity, the trio of Valley, Volk and Smith left, disenchanted that the group was prevented from evolving into a more egalitarian creative team, miffed at being replaced by studio musicians on recordings, and unhappy with a continued teen-oriented direction while a more serious rock n roll style was emerging. The first to leave was Valley, who embarked on a solo career. Drake Levin rejoined the band on guitar to finish the spring 1967 tour. Levin, Volk, and Smith flew to New York together and the Raiders were set to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show. However, Revere was upset about the trio leaving the group and blamed Levin for influencing Volk and Smiths pending departure. Levin showed up at the Ed Sullivan Theater to perform with Volk and Smith for the very last time, but Revere refused to allow Levin to play. Unbeknownst to the group, Revere had hired a new guitar player, Freddy Weller, to perform that night. Levin graciously stepped aside and even showed Weller the chords to the songs. Levin was forced to watch the performance from the wings as the Raiders made their one and only appearance on Sullivans show, on April 30, 1967. It was the only time that the lineup of Revere, Lindsay, Smith, Volk and Weller performed together. The following month, Volk and Smith left, subsequently rejoining Levin to form a band called Brotherhood. Charlie Coe, who had played guitar for The Raiders in 1963, rejoined the group on bass and Joe Correro, Jr. became the new drummer. The Happening era Changing tastes in the late 1960s rendered the group unfashionable, but they still continued to have modest hits through the rest of the decade, including Ups And Downs, I Had A Dream, Too Much Talk, Dont Take it So Hard, Cinderella Sunshine, Mr. Sun, Mr. Moon, and Let Me. On January 6, 1968, just four months after the cancellation of Where The Action Is, Revere and Lindsay returned to the air as hosts of a new Dick Clark-produced show in which the Raiders made several appearances, Happening 68 (later shortened to Happening). This weekly series was joined from July to September that year by a Clark-produced daily series Its Happening, also hosted by Revere and Lindsay. In August 1968, bassist Coe left the group again and was replaced by former Action heartthrob Keith Allison. According to author Derek Taylor, the Raiders were seen as irrelevances. . . . Nervous citizens felt reassured that some good safe things never changed. Mark Lindsay took more control of the band during this time. He produced all records beginning with Too Much Talk in 1968 and the psychedelic album Something Happening. Lindsays vision was represented on songs such as Let Me and the albums Hard N Heavy (with marshmallow) and Alias Pink Puzz. (According to allmusic, Pink Puzz was the identity under which the Raiders first tried to get the album played on FM radio, a gambit that failed though the band kept the joke name for the album title.) The success of Let Me allowed Paul Revere and the Raiders to tour Europe with the Beach Boys in the summer of 1969 (they also recorded two songs for the long running German music program Beat-Club at this time). Happening ended its run that autumn. Also in 1969, the band performed a specially written song, and appeared on camera, in a television commercial for Pontiacs GTO sports car The Raiders: early 1970s In an effort to change the bands sound and image, the name was officially shortened to The Raiders, while the 1970 album Collage was an attempt to move in another musical direction. It drew a glowing review from Rolling Stone magazine, with critic Lenny Kaye praising the albums production and remarking that Mark Lindsay never fails to give the impression that he knows what hes doing. Almost single-handedly, hes brought the Raiders to a stronger position than theyve occupied in years. Collage proved to be a commercial failure, however, and Lindsay began to turn toward solo projects. Joe Correro departed after their spring tour ended, to be replaced by his predecessor Mike Smith. Freeborn Man, a song written by Lindsay and Allison, has since gone on to be a country rock standard, covered by Jimmy Martin, Outlaws, Junior Brown, and Glen Campbell, among others. The Raiderss biggest hit of the period, Indian Reservation, was recorded as a Mark Lindsay solo session youtu.be/84L7wRSg2Vk
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 02:28:04 +0000