{"id":777,"date":"2012-05-09T04:53:33","date_gmt":"2012-05-09T09:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=777"},"modified":"2012-05-09T04:53:33","modified_gmt":"2012-05-09T09:53:33","slug":"the-solo-raid-of-mark-lindsay-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2012\/05\/09\/the-solo-raid-of-mark-lindsay-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"The Solo Raid of Mark Lindsay, Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One…<\/a><\/p>\n

Around the time of Mark Lindsay<\/strong>‘s solo LPs, there were rumors that he started a solo career because he was going to leave Paul Revere and the Raiders<\/strong>, or had already left the Raiders. \u201cIt wasn’t true; I was always with the Raiders,\u201d Lindsay insists. \u201cBut the start of all that just coincided with a lull in the Raiders’ career. One, there was time to do it. And two, the Raiders weren’t front-and-center out in the public eye, and I was more. So I can understand why people might think that I had gone off on my own. But it just happened to work out that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a break in the Raiders’ schedule \u2013 by 1970 they were not the in-demand act they had once been \u2013 Lindsay fronted a band called Instant Joy<\/strong>. \u201cThat was a group put together by [guitarist] Tony Peluso<\/strong>,\u201d Lindsay says. \u201cWe were pretty rockin’, and we opened on tour for the Carpenters<\/strong>. It lasted a very short time; I think we were on the tour two or three weeks, and I started getting standing ovations before the Carpenters came on. And,\u201d Mark chuckles at the recollection, \u201cRichard Carpenter<\/strong> didn’t like that! So they booted me off the tour and got Mac Davis<\/strong>; he came out with just an acoustic guitar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Instant Joy did perform Lindsay’s hit singles \u201cSilverbird\u201d and Arizona,\u201d but stayed away from most of the more ballad-oriented material. \u201cWe were playing hard, kick-ass rock’n’roll,\u201d Lindsay says, noting that they even played \u201csome of the songs that ended up on <\/span>Collage<\/span><\/em> [1970]. We left ’em panting.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When the heavier, rocking <\/span>Collage<\/span><\/em> came out, Raiders fans didn’t know what to think of it: it wasn’t bubblegum, and it wasn’t a collection of ballads like Lindsay’s solo work. Plus, \u201cRevere <\/span>hated<\/span><\/em> it. And he didn’t help by <\/span>telling<\/span><\/em> <\/span>people<\/span><\/em> he hated it. So it died, and my heart died with it.\u201d In retrospect Lindsay believes that he should have stayed the course and cut two more albums following the direction laid out on <\/span>Collage<\/span><\/em>, bit instead he more or less gave up. As a recording entity, the Raiders would limp toward the end of their contract, though some tracks on their final two LPs are worthwhile.<\/span><\/p>\n

After 1971’s You’ve Got a Friend<\/em>, there would be no further new solo albums from Mark Lindsay on Columbia. \u201cWe didn’t have any single hits that Columbia deemed strong enough to build an album around,\u201d says Mark. \u201cAt least that was my understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

One solo project of Mark’s was indeed strong enough to support an album, and it provided a major shot in the arm to the Raiders’ flagging career. Though originally planned as a Mark Lindsay solo single, \u201cIndian Reservation\u201d (#1 Billboard in 1970) would instead become the biggest hit Paul Revere and the Raiders ever had.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were several reasons why it was a hit,\u201d Mark observes. \u201cIt was timely: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee<\/em> was #1 on the New York Times<\/em> best seller list, and the whole way we had shabbily treated Native Americans was also front and center. Everybody was wearing fringe jackets and Indian beads. But part of the success of that tune was that Paul Revere and his friend Mike Allen<\/strong> jumped on their motorcycles, and did a trip across the United States. They went to all the little five-hundred-watt teapot stations and said, ‘Here’s my record. Play it!’ And they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the strength of those stations wasn’t going to get the single over the top. \u201cWhat it did,\u201d Lindsay continues, \u201cwas galvanize the Columbia sales force. They gave it another look. You know that when you sell a product to a thousand people, the way to get it out there is to get those thousand people to really believe in it, to push it. And Paul Revere’s ride did that.\u201d<\/p>\n

So in retrospect, would the vocalist rather have \u201cIndian Reservation\u201d as a Mark Lindsay single than a Paul Revere and the Raiders single? He pauses to think, and answers noncommittally. \u201cYeah, I suppose so. I mean, there were no Raiders on it,\u201d he laughs. \u201cIt was<\/em> a Mark Lindsay single, and I produced it. But I don’t think it would have been nearly as big a hit if Revere hadn’t done that promo thing. So in retrospect, I’d probably leave it like it was. Otherwise it might have ended up like The Pretty Things<\/strong>: great music that nobody knows.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Complete Columbia Singles<\/em>, featuring 24 Mark Lindsay solo tracks, is available from Real Gone Music<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Follow \u201cthe_musoscribe\u201d on Twitter<\/a> and get notified
\nwhen new features, reviews and essays are published.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… Around the time of Mark Lindsay‘s solo LPs, there were rumors that he started a solo career because he was going to leave Paul Revere and […]<\/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-777","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\/777","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=777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}