- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- Paul Revere and the Raiders had a series of hits from the mid-1960’s on and, for a time, outsold just about everyone in the U.S. except the Beatles and the Stones.
Paul Revere and the Raiders – Paul Revere and the Raiders’ Greatest Hits (1967): Long before the grunge scene of Nirvana and Pearl Jam and others and the riot grrrl movement of Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill and others really put the Northwest on the musical map in the 1990’s, Paul Revere and the Raiders were one of the stalwarts of the burgeoning rock and roll scene in Washington State and Oregon that included some of the best American rock bands of all time, such as the Sonics and the Wailers (not Bob Marley’s band). Paul Revere and the Raiders took its name from one of the bandmembers, whose real name is Paul Revere Dick. They had a series of hits from the mid-1960’s to the early 1970’s and, for a time, outsold just about everyone in the U.S. except the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
Paul Revere and the Raiders were the house band for one of Dick Clark’s television shows Where the Action Is that ran in the afternoons from 1965 to 1967 when I was growing up. Eventually their lead singer Mark Lindsay wanted more exposure, so they began to record under the ungainly name of Paul Revere and the Raiders Featuring Mark Lindsay. (That name is actually even longer than that of the 1990’s grunge band called the Presidents of the United States of America, a name that was deliberately chosen because it was the longest name that the bandmembers could think of). Once their hits began to dry up, they returned with the truncated name Raiders. Paul Revere and the Raiders’ Greatest Hits is the band’s first retrospective album and covers the core of their career. The opening track is the venerable “Louie Louie”, one of the first rock and roll treatments of Richard Berry’s Latin-flavored R&B song from 1956. Another big step toward rock and roll immortality was taken by the version of “Louie Louie” released in 1960 by Rockin’ Robin Roberts backed by the Wailers, a rock band from Tacoma, Washington that is often cited as being the first garage rock band in history. It was in this recording that the famous call was introduced: “Let’s give it to ’em, right now!” The Kingsmen, from Portland, Oregon, released their version of “Louie Louie” in 1963; and that is the one that became such a hit. I remember hearing the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” on the radio regularly every summer when I was growing up. The beat meter was accidentally changed, as was the style of the song; lead singer Jack Ely is the man who stumbled through the lyrics. Those lyrics for “Louie Louie” were rumored to be dirty, but that is a story for another day! As might be expected, most of Paul Revere and the Raiders’ Greatest Hits is composed of the band’s hit songs: “Steppin’ Out”, “Just Like Me”, “Kicks”, “Hungry”, “The Great Airplane Strike”, ”Good Thing”, and “Ups and Downs”. Also included are a follow-up to “Louie Louie” called “Louie Go Home”, and “Legend of Paul Revere”, a song telling the band’s story.