“Hollywood put the group farther than anyone intended,” notes Hart. To fans of a certain age, Paul Revere & The Raiders provided the template of what a rock ’n’ roll band should look, act and sound like.


The Raiders were considered for another TV project, but when that idea was fully developed it became The Monkees. “There was a feature that I had written and had given to ABC-TV,” Hart recalls. “It found its way to the folks that put The Monkees together. ABC wasn’t able to use my treatment – about five crazy guys – but the next thing you know, this little treatise called Madness became an ad in the Hollywood papers under the title ‘Madness – looking for actor-musicians.’” Lindsay notes that The Monkees and the Raiders and The Beatles all drew from the same well, hearkening back to Marx Brothers-style slapstick comedy.


With Lindsay and producer Terry Melcher


helming the studio, the group’s sound was pushed in what was then a more pop-rock direction. Lindsay notes that “On the Complete Columbia Singles set, you can really hear the R&B influence on the early cuts. Then you can hear Terry kind of bending us into commercialism” with tracks like the hit ‘Just Like Me’. Lindsay observes that “Right about that period, we were rocking pretty hard,” and he notes that the song has been cited as an example of proto- punk. Hart says, “We had to make major adjustments from being a really tough band – more like a Rolling Stones – to really reach out to an entire nation. And with television, obviously our focus would be the teen fans. We had no great messages other than entertaining.”


Speaking of The Rolling Stones, the Raiders shared a bill with them a number of times. In markets where the Raiders were more popular – Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco


and other cities – they were top-billed. “And this was around the time of ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’,” Volk emphasizes. “The Stones were pretty hot then, too.”


If there was a formula to the singles – many written by Lindsay and Melcher, several by outside composers – it involved a driving arrangement that often used Volk’s bass lines as what he calls “The hook of a lead instrument.” Placed forward in the mix, the bass parts often provided a strong melodic (or sometimes counter melodic) element. That musical prominence, coupled with Volk’s crowd-pleasing demeanour, made the bassist a focal point of the band. Hart recalls that by ’66, “Fang” was getting as much fan mail at 16 magazine as fellow heart-throb Mark Lindsay.


PEAKANDVALLEY


The gruelling schedule of TV taping and live concerts left little time for studio work. Yet the group managed to record two successful albums in ’66, Just Like Us and Midnight Ride, both among the best of their recorded output. Levin was drafted and left the group in ’66 to join The National Guard. His replacement was Jim “Harpo” Valley, by this time guitarist with the up-and-coming Don & The Goodtimes. Valley initially hesitated to join, believing that the Goodtimes were on the verge of success themselves. He recalls, “Revere gave me the fatherly advice: ‘A lot of bands are this close, but most bands never get beyond that.’” Valley accepted the offer in part due to assurances that some of his songs would be included on the next Raiders album (The Spirit Of ’67). But as the time came to cut one of his tunes – the last to be recorded, Valley recalls, “Mark Lindsay came running in and said, ‘Hey, I just wrote a song in the crapper. And it’s got to be on the album!’” A frustrated Valley left after a year of touring with the group.


Levin returned briefly, but soon he too would become disenchanted. “Phil and Drake were writers, too,” observes Hart. “And they wanted to move up front a bit. But there weren’t that many opportunities.” Volk states, “We thought maybe the Raiders were losing their edge. Our focus was too much on pleasing the teenyboppers.” What’s more, future Raider Keith Allison says that because the group was often on tour, “Terry would start tracking songs without the entire band. That was a matter of contention, especially for Phil and Smitty.” In ’67 Levin, Volk and Smith left the Raiders to form Brotherhood. “It probably wasn’t a wise business decision” for them, says Hart, recalling CBS’ forcing a delay in release of the first Brotherhood LP. Revere sued the departing trio for breach of contract as well.


Bass player and heart-throb Phil “Fang” Volk enjoys a break on set. 48


The division of labour within Paul Revere & The Raiders had by this time been well- established. Lindsay handled song writing and production (originally with Melcher, and eventually without him). Revere, always the businessman, concentrated on live shows and commercial exposure. While Revere’s manic boogie-woogie piano playing had been an early hallmark of the group’s R&B-derived sound, as the Raiders moved


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