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Paul Revere & The Raiders

Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, March 1973

IF THERE ARE still any doubts in your mind about the deterioration of AM radio (pop music's most immediate barometer) since, say, 1966, a glance at an old "tune-dex" or survey should quickly dispel them. Incredible music was in the air and on it as well, as established groups like the Beatles, Stones, Byrds, Yardbirds, Kinks, and Hollies vied with memorable one and two shots like the Left Banke, Standells, 13th Floor Elevators, Syndicate of Sound, Love, and countless more. And through it all there was a constant string of hits from a group whose photographs and album covers alone were enough to raise the hackles of any nascent protohipster over the age of 17, a group whose incessant radio airplay triggered instant button-punching and whose equally incessant TV appearances served as the signal for a hasty icebox-foraging expedition – and, a group whose vast recording output turns out to be, on (almost) sober re-examination, as solid a legacy of straight-forward, exciting mid-sixties rock 'n' roll as America produced in that illustrious era. The group spinning on our prolix panegyroscope is, if you haven't bothered to look atop the page, none other than Paul Revere & The Raiders, featuring Mark Lindsay, "Fang", "Drake", "Smitty", "Harpo", country star Freddy Weller, McCartney look-alike Keith Allison, and many more.

Total word count of piece: 3477

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