paul revere RIP

1967 Image: Associated Press/Associated Press.

So long to one of the names of 60's US beat groups, Paul Revere, who passed away on Saturday 4th October.
Hugely succesful in the States during the mid 60's beat boom, 'Paul Revere and the Raiders' first made their early R&B garage sound to their own home audience on the back of the British beat groups invasion in the previous year or so. Unusually given Revere was the headline name for the group he was the organist not the lead singer.
They appeared a flamboyant act on TV at the time dressed in uniforms of American Revolutionary War (presumably it was the British beat invasion being comically repelled)

"Playing on Revere's name, the group wore American Revolutionary War soldier uniforms and performed slapstick comedy and synchronized dance steps while the ponytailed Lindsay lip synced to their music. This farcical, cartoon-like image obscured the proto-hard rock sound their music often displayed.." WIKI ARTICLE

Apart from a couple of years in the mid seventies they played on to the present with a long list of musicians who came and went over the years. Revere himself still performing into his last year.

Here's one of the tracks "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone" from their first album "Midnight Ride."
With their visual puns and clowning they could easily have been the template for The Monkees and their manufactured production for the mainstream with this very song a year later. Otherwise not to be confused with 'Paul Revere and the Raiders' garage rock version.