{"id":259,"date":"2010-07-05T05:52:54","date_gmt":"2010-07-05T10:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=259"},"modified":"2010-07-05T05:52:54","modified_gmt":"2010-07-05T10:52:54","slug":"feature-paul-revere-the-raiders-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2010\/07\/05\/feature-paul-revere-the-raiders-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature: Paul Revere &#038; the Raiders (part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>In connection with the 2010 Collectors\u2019 Choice Music release of the 3CD compilation <\/em>The Complete Columbia Singles<em> [<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=177\">review here<\/a>], I arranged a series of extensive, in-depth interviews with former members of 60s hitmakers Paul Revere and the Raiders. I was fortunate to gain insights from vocalist Mark Lindsay; bassist Phil \u201cFang\u201d Volk; guitarists Jim \u201cHarpo\u201d Valley and Keith Allison; and Raiders manager Roger Hart. In a modest tribute to Raiders guitarist Drake Levin \u2013 he passed away on July 4, 2009 \u2013 I\u2019d like to present this five-part Raiders feature. &#8212; bk<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/raiders\/early_seattle.jpg\" align=\"right\" height=\"300\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"10\" width=\"300\" \/>\u201cIn a little town in Idaho, way back in \u201961\u2026\u201d So began the lyrics to the wryly autobiographical 1967 b-side \u201cThe Legend of Paul Revere.\u201d The song tells the story of how keyboardist-leader <strong>Paul Revere<\/strong> (his birth certificate reads Paul Revere Dick) found vocalist\/sax player <strong>Mark Lindsay<\/strong> and recruited him into his group. Revere\u2019s group got its start a few years earlier, and Mark Lindsay actually joined in 1960. But unlike \u201csixty-one,\u201d that year doesn\u2019t rhyme with \u201cfun.\u201d And ultimately, fun was the <em>raison d\u2019\u00eatre<\/em> for this group from the Pacific Northwest. Fun, delivered with kick-ass energy, and a bit of danger. As Revere told <strong>Ed Osborne<\/strong> (producer of the 2010 Raiders compilation <em>The Complete Columbia Singles<\/em>), \u201cMy band was <em>bad<\/em>. We had long-ass greasy hair and I wanted parents to say, \u2018My daughter\u2019s not going out with <em>that <\/em>guy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"float: right; padding: 10px; width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ss&#038;ref=ss_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=musoscribe-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=B004MD4CDW&#038;asins=B004MD4CDW&#038;linkId=PT6DFPDJIHKXZUOK&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>An early single, \u201cLike, Long Hair,\u201d charted, but whatever momentum that instrumental cut might have afforded the band stalled when Revere was drafted for military service. Revere claimed conscientious objector status and was instead assigned to a job as a cook in a mental institution.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/raiders\/vox_gear.jpg\" align=\"left\" height=\"227\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"10\" width=\"300\" \/><strong>Northwest Nights<\/strong><br \/>\nWhen Revere\u2019s service was up, he rejoined the band, now based in Oregon. Word of the group\u2019s lively stage show caught the attention of Portland KISN-AM disc jockey <strong>Roger Hart<\/strong>. Hart recalls, \u201cI was pretty much the Pied Piper of the town, doing the teen dances at the armories, skating rinks, anywhere we could find a floor to dance on. We started having live groups; we were inspired by the <strong>Wailers<\/strong>, out of Tacoma, Washington. My bank teller told me about Paul Revere and the Raiders, and I hired them to do a teen dance.\u201d Hart observes that though they were young, the group was already \u201cmature; they had a little experience.\u201d He soon became the group\u2019s manager, and the \u201cfirst order of business was to go into the studio and record a song that was driving the kids to the dance floor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/raiders\/hart_and_revere.jpg\" align=\"right\" height=\"191\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"10\" width=\"300\" \/>The group released a version of that song &#8212; <strong>Richard Berry<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cLouie, Louie\u201d \u2013 recorded within days of, and at the same studio as, the version by another regional group, the <strong>Kingsmen<\/strong>. The latter group, with access to better distribution than the self-released Raiders version, got the hit. By 1963 the Raiders\u2019 lineup included <strong>Mike \u201cSmitty\u201d Smith<\/strong> on drums, and <strong>Drake Levin<\/strong> on guitar. During this period the group\u2019s raw and largely R&amp;B-flavored set list consisted mostly of covers. The Raiders\u2019 reputation grew on the strength of their raucous, high-energy live performances.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Lindsay says that onstage, the Raiders had been \u201cwearing collarless blazers, like any number of groups, quite frankly. Paul Revere and I were walking in downtown Portland one day, to pick up our dry cleaning. We happened to pass a costume shop, and in the window was a mannequin dressed in a three-cornered hat, Revolutionary coat and tights. I turned to Paul and said, \u2018You know, that\u2019s the way Paul Revere and the Raiders should dress!\u2019\u201d They rented the costumes and wore them for the second act of that evening\u2019s show at the Lake Oswego Armory. It was a one-night rental, \u201cjust for a gag,\u201d Lindsay says. But once onstage, \u201cthe whole tenor of the band changed. We were always crazy, but we became\u2026insane.\u201d The next time they played in Lake Oswego, sans costume, \u201cthe kids crowded around us and asked, \u2018where are the outfits?\u2019\u201d From that point until the late sixties, the band always performed in costume.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/raiders\/65_office.jpg\" align=\"left\" height=\"219\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"10\" width=\"300\" \/><strong>Jim Valley<\/strong> \u2013 then of the <strong>Viceroys <\/strong>&#8212; recalls first hearing of the group. &#8220;In &#8217;64 we played in a place in seaside Oregon. We were supposed to have eight hundred kids, and instead we had eighty. And we wondered what had happened, because our record &#8216;Granny&#8217;s Pad&#8217; was a big hit down there. Someone told us, &#8216;there&#8217;s this group out of Portland; they&#8217;re called Paul Revere and the Raiders. They wear three-cornered hats, they&#8217;re wild and crazy, and the kids love &#8217;em.&#8217; They had a thousand kids at the club up the street.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/raiders\/action_fang.jpg\" align=\"right\" height=\"240\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"10\" width=\"300\" \/>Asked if the band ever worried that Revolutionary garb would keep them from being taken seriously, Lindsay says that in those pre-hit days, \u201cour main stock in trade was our live shows. Whatever worked in a live show is what we wanted to do.\u201d He does note that \u201cI don\u2019t think the Raiders will ever be voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, because people don\u2019t take the music seriously. They forget that we had some pretty good rock and roll records.\u201d<br \/>\n<em><br \/>\nIn <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=260\">Part Two<\/a> we\u2019ll take a look at the group\u2019s move to Los Angeles for their big break on television and record.<\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/the_musoscribe\" class=\"body\">Follow   \u201cthe_musoscribe\u201d on <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/icon_twitter_small.jpg\" valign=\"middle\" border=\"0\" height=\"18\" hspace=\"1\" vspace=\"0\" width=\"18\" \/>   Twitter<\/a> and get notified<br \/>\nwhen new features, reviews and essays are published.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In connection with the 2010 Collectors\u2019 Choice Music release of the 3CD compilation The Complete Columbia Singles [review here], I arranged a series of extensive, in-depth interviews with former members [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","cat-41-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}