Paul Revere & the Raiders
Listen – Paul Revere and the Raiders – Too Much Talk – MP3
Greetings all.
Time to bring another week to a close, and since Monday’s selection may have fallen a tad too much on the twee side for some, what better way to balance out the equation than with a fuzzed out, vaguely freakbeat-y side by the mighty Paul Revere & the Raiders.
I’ve been a Paul Revere & the Raiders fan since I started hearing tunes like ‘Kicks’, ‘Good Thing’ and ‘Indian Reservation’ back on WCBS-FM, when I was but a lad.
During my garage punk years in the mid-80s, though the Raiders may have looked a little bit manufactured and aimed at 12 year old girls (though what rock group back then wasn’t marketed that way?), the high quality of their music – pure pop with a hard, punkish edge – always managed to clear the air.
I have to admit that since about the mid-80s, the extent of my Paul Revere & the Raiders collection was the original single disc CD issue of their Greatest Hits, which when you break it down pretty much has all the essentials anyway.
However…in the last few years I’ve started to pick up their OG vinyl whenever I find it and as you can imagine the sounds I heard on those records certainly redefined the meaning of the word “essential”.
One of the records I found in the field was the 45 of ‘Happening 68’, which, though the a-side didn’t do much for me, had a flip that blew my mind.
‘Too Much Talk’ – written and produced by Raiders vocalist Mark Lindsay is a blazing bit of psyched-up, US freakbeat that owes (especially the verse) a significant debt to the Beatles’ ‘Paperback Writer’. Dig if you will the prominent fuzz (and tremeloed) guitar, organ and trippy vocal effects in the second half of the record.
A very groovy tune, and proof that the Revere & the Raiders still had it going on in 1968.
I hope you dig the tune and if I can squeeze it in (I’ll be on the road for a family trip from Friday afternoon until Sunday night) I’ll be back on Monday with something interesting.
Peace
Larry
PS Head over to Funky16Corners for a funky LaBelle cover en francais!
Iron Leg 
“Too Much Talk” was actually the A side in the U.S., barely reaching the Top 20 on Billboard.
There are two versions of this song, the quicker single version and an album version that is much elongated.
It’s funny, there was a band here in town that came out in the early 80s, essentially a cover band and one of their claims to fame was an ALL AMERICAN MUSIC set where they did medleys of the greatest hit makers of the 60s & 70s. There was CCR, Tommy James & The Shondells, The Byrds, The Lovin’ Spoonful, plus several more but NO Paul Revere & The Raiders! I remember asking why and they really couldn’t explain it. I think I know. The Raiders were one of the quintessential 1960s bands that brought excitement and fun and new sounds to American AM radio. They consistently provided GREAT tunes for local bands to cover, always a good sign of who’s hitting with the public…but when ‘Underground” music began to be the flavor of the month for the hip, The Raiders were in the midst of their greatest commercial success, on weekly TV and finally doing very well, thank you. Suddenly those matching coats seemed so very quaint and ‘old school’ (until a few years later when the Beatles did the Sgt Pepper military outfit thing) and decidedly unhip. The Raiders THEN had the biggest hit of their career (Indian Reservation), a record SO unlike anything they had done before that sold scads of records to little kids and their fate was sealed. I think this is the crime, that they and their legacy got summarily wrongfully dumped into a teenybo[[er bag. They ALWAYS deserved better.
Just passing by.Btw, you website have great content!
In the UK the only Paul Revere & the Raiders single was Like Long Hair.Their version of Louie Louie was not issued here as was nothing really till Steppin’ Out.
The reinvented band’s brief was to copy just about everything British-which they made a great job of.
But if they hadn’t been “rediscovered” as teenybopper material there would have been very little.
Of that you have to be thankful.
Various ex members of the band became country singers especially Paul Weller.Today’s edition is Paul Revere & the Raiders whoever’s available.Its the name that counts and the fact that Paul Revere is still the Guvenor
One thing that I noticed is that the Raiders “Good Thing” sounds like a reworked version of “Under My Thumb” by the Stones. You can hear a xylophone sound in the background of Good Thing, which almost mimics the xylophone in Under My Thumb. Lindsay’s voice sounds like Jagger with the snarl and the “uh, uhs” featured at the end. I’d be curious to see which song came out first.
Being a product of the 1960’s I have fond memories of Paul Revere and the Raider.
It might interest you to know that when “Too Much Talk” first came out it was banned in much of the United States. There was a lot of racial tension here at that time and “the powers that be” thought the song was too much a call to action (translation: riot) and tried very hard to kill the song. On of the few places you could actually hear it on the radio was in Pittsburg, PA, but not anywhere in the New York City area.
Glenn
I didn’t know that. Thanks for the info Glenn!