America's Rock & Roll Band!

---

One of the main products of Idaho has been Paul Revere. Not the Revolutionary War hero - though that person's name and the style of dress of those days provide important bits of showmanship for the present-day namesake - but the teen-age rock idol. Among many young people, the modern Paul Revere has become at least as well known as the original. He surely became much wealthier. The western Revere was born and raised in Idaho, where he found his first work in his teens as a barber. Later, showing considerable business sense for his age, Paul became owner of a drive-in restaurant in his hometown. He had learned to play piano and organ in his boyhood, and he supplemented his income by leading a small pop group at local clubs. In the early '60s an important addi- tion to the band came in the form of a delivery boy. This was Mark Lindsay, who met Revere while delivering bread to Paul's drive-in and who went home and learned the saxophone because Revere said he could join the band if he could play an instrument.

Paul began to look for more outlets for his group's musical talents. The band recorded a number of singles, the most successful of which was "Like Long Hair," released on the Gardena label in April 1961. In November 1962, he gained an engagement in Portland, Oregon, and coined the name Paul Revere and the Raiders for his band. By then Lindsay was handling lead vocals as well as saxophone. Also an original member was a former nightclub owner, Michael Smith. Two months later Revere met one of the better-known disc jockeys in the Northwest, Roger Hart, and the two began collaborating on promoting dances featuring the Raiders. In the spring of 1963 Hart paid for a recording session to make some demonstration tapes of the band. The tapes were sent to several recording companies, and Columbia Records responded with a contract. Columbia issued the Raiders' single, "Louie, Louie," in June 1963. The record became a regional hit, but was beaten out for national honors by another group's recording of the same song.

During 1964 the group became one of the hottest attractions in the Northwest. Its lineup for much of this period did not include Mark Lindsay, who parted company with the rest of the group for a time. After setting attendance records for club and campus dates in Washington and Oregon, the band moved south in the summer of 1964 to open a new club, the Peppermint Tree, in San Francisco. The group played to standing-room-only crowds and began to build up a strong following in California. In January 1965, Philip Volk joined as bass guitarist, and, soon after, the base for the Raiders shifted to Los Angeles, where Mark Lindsay re- joined. In early '65 the reorganized group gained its first hit single, "Steppin' Out." The group also came to the attention of Dick Clark, then preparing a show called "Where the Action Is" for ABC-TV. When the show was accepted in April of that year, the Raiders became regulars. Within a short time, the performers' dynamic rock beat and their Revolutionary-style outfits -

complete with high boots, lace cuffs, frilled shirt fronts and George Washington-type hairdos - entered the consciousness of most of the nation's teenagers. At year- end the band had the hit single "Just Like Me," which reached number II in '66; they followed it with the even more successful "Kicks," a top-five hit in '66. The band began to hit the single and LP charts regularly, a pattern that continued through most of the decade and into the 1970s. Many of the band's songs were compositions by Mark Lindsay, in- cluding "Oh! To Be a Man," "Louie, Go Home," "Undecided Man," "Steppin' Out" and "Melody for an Unknown Girl." The group's hit singles from 1966-'69, besides "Kicks," included "Hungry," "The Great Airplane Strike" and "Good Thing" in 1966; "Ups and Downs," "Him or Me-What's It Gonna Be," "I Had a Dream" and "Peace of Mind" in '67; "Too Much Talk," "Don't Take It So Hard" and "Cinderella Sunshine" in '68; and "Mr. Sun, Mr. Moon," "Let Me" and "We Gotta Get Together" in 1969.

America's Rock & Roll Band!
Part II

ABOUT THIS WEB SITE...