Music Review: Paul Revere and the Raiders, Revolution! (Reissue)

By Melissa Bratcher

Paul Revere and the Raiders were weirder than they got credit for. In 1967, during the making of their Revolution! album, lead singer Mark Lindsay was living at 10050 Cielo Drive with producer/musician Terry Melcher, making music and doing the sorts of things that young rock stars do. Paul Revere, the band’s namesake, wasn’t in the studio much, having been relegated to playing chords on the organ and taking a backseat to Lindsay’s musical ambition and insane charisma. This left Lindsay and Melcher free to make Revolution! more experimental and freewheeling than other Raiders outings, with a host of the finest session musicians (Ry Cooder! Taj Mahal! Hal Blaine! Glen Campbell!). And Revolution! has some excellently weird moments.

Cherry Red Records has reissued Revolution! in its original mono mix (previously unavailable since the original release) with bonus tracks and outtakes. There are copious liner notes from Mike Stax, who interviewed Mark Lindsay. Lindsay gives great insight into the politics of the band at the time and is quite candid with his recollections.

Revolution! boasts the single “Him Or Me – What’s It Gonna Be?” in both mono and stereo. The mono mix is lovely, and Lindsay says in the liner notes that he and Melcher put more care into the mono versions of the tracks. It’s apparent in the execution; three drummers and warm layers of guitar make it sound better than I expected it to on headphones. Lindsay has a classic rock voice, and uses a peculiar English inflection (to keep the song from sounding like a Buck Owens song, according to Lindsay, though, c’mon. There’s nothing better sounding than a Buck Owens song).

“Reno” has a bluesy burlesque feeling to it, and both Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal play gritty slide guitar on the track. “Mo’reen” features a fuzzed out bass and Lindsay’s fantastic raw vocals. The song is about a girl who has to go away to give birth and the lyrics are a little creepy : “Girl, you look so clean” and “You’re not what you seem.” (Though, of course, consider the time and place. Lyrics can’t be judged with the same criteria as they are now.)

On “Wanting You,” Lindsay wanted to do an Otis Redding styled “testifying” ballad, and he certainly accomplishes that. His performance, with Beach Boys-styled harmonies backing him, is delicious, and the fadeout becomes delirious. “I Had A Dream” is richly layered with bleats of horn and a splash of organ. It’s controlled but barely contained psychedelia, wild and odd, yet charming.

With “Tighter,” Lindsay’s vocals are put through a rotating Leslie speaker, which adds to the otherworldly vibe. It does bear a striking resemblance to “CTA-102” from The Byrds’ Younger Than Yesterday. “Make It With Me” has a distinctly odd sound. It begins with HEAVY guitar, then pulls back to a pinched, hushed verse, before going heavy again on the chorus. It’s a bit too quiet on the verses.

With a lack of Paul Revere in the studio, he was left with a lone track to take the lead on. “Ain’t Nobody Who Can Do It Like Leslie Can” is an ode to a maid. It’s a silly track, in which Revere uses an affected voice, and it seems like the only song on the record that matches the not-so-great album cover.

The final track on Revolution! proper, “I Hear A Voice,” has beautiful, echoey harmonies, and is gorgeous. With veiled lyrics about suicide, it is appropriately elegiac and criminally overlooked in the band’s oeuvre.

The bonus track, “Try Some Of Mine,” is an outtake from the Revolution! sessions. Lindsay’s vocals are so seductive on the slinky track that it’s like he’s whispering a secret directly in your ear. I suppose they left it off in fear of impregnating women who heard it. It’s torrid.

Besides stereo versions of many of the Revolution! songs and another track called “Ups and Downs,” the reissue also includes a longer version of “Legend Of Paul Revere.” It’s an origin story in song, and with that track, it becomes clearer than ever that perhaps Lindsay and Revere were in two different bands. Lindsay was busting out, broadening his musical reach and experimenting. Revere . . . wasn’t.

Revolution! is an amazingly solid album. If you can overlook their Revolutionary War costumes and just focus on the excellent songs, Paul Revere and The Raiders were a fantastic band with an astoundingly great lead singer in Mark Lindsay.

Revolution! was reissued by Cherry Red Records on April 20.