Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere
–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
No, not that Paul Revere. The Paul Revere of whom we write today is the Paul Revere of “Paul Revere and the Raiders,” the pop group of the 1960s and 70s. He died on October 4th at age 76.
Paul Revere — his actual name — formed the group in the early 60s, coming on strong in the mid-60s and having a number of pop hits into the mid-70’s. Titles such as Good Thing, Kicks, and Indian Reservation will be familiar to persons of, um, a certain age.
The group still performed around the country at county fairs, and the like, through earlier this year. Quite by accident we crossed paths with the band in a hotel in Michigan a few years back.
But not known to most people is that Paul Revere and the Raiders were hired by General Motors to record promotional records in the 1960s. Corvair Baby was the first of these, a special release to Chevy dealers only, around 1966. The flip side was SS 396. Later copies of SS 396 had on the other side a tune by another 60s group, the Cyrcle, titled Camaro. The Cyrcle is otherwise remembered only for Red Rubber Ball. These were following by a Raiders recording for Pontiac, Judge GTO Breakaway.
While the 45 rpm single of Corvair Baby and the others can be found from time to time on eBay, remarkably several CD releases of Raiders’ songs have included these car-themed compositions. None of these pieces were ever going to be Grammy winners, but as 60s pop they aren’t bad.
Paul Revere, by the way, was not the group’s lead singer. That distinction fell to Mark Lindsay, who had a post-Raiders solo career that produced the song Arizona.