True, I didn’t get to speak to later-period Raider Freddy Weller and a few others, but other than missing out on speaking with Revere, I felt that what I got allowed me to paint a balanced picture for my readers. The resulting feature was one of my most-read pieces ever, and the entire project was a most fulfilling one.
The feature would get the cover of an upcoming issue, and ranks among the most popular features ever to appear in the magazine. This was arguably bigger, and they agreed. I had written several pieces for them before, including a short piece on Green Fuz, a long feature on ? and the Mysterians and a cover story on Barry and The Remains. I contacted the editors of Shindig!, a London-based magazine that focuses on sixties music and related forms. At the time, my blog got a decent amount of exposure, but I felt that this developing story deserved a wider audience. So now I had lined up a lot of conversations. Still active in music (as are Valley and Volk), Allison had been a Raiders co-star on Dick Clark’s Where the Action Is and joined the Raiders in ’68, remaining for several years. But I did some checking on my own – not through publicists or agents – and easily located Jim “Harpo” Valley, guitarist from 1967, and Keith Allison. So who else might be available? Well, drummer Michael “Smitty” Smith had passed away at the beginning of the last decade, and ace guitarist Drake Levin had lost his battle with cancer mere months before I started this project. And if that wasn’t enough, Roger Hart - the band’s manager during the sixties – was also available. What’s more, the bassist from the band’s most popular era (1965-67), Phil “Fang” Volk, was also keen on speaking to me. Mark Lindsay, however, was willing to do an interview. Revere wouldn’t be available – at least in the near-term – since he was attending to family medical issues. What happened then exceeded my greatest hopes for the project. So I was quite surprised when the reply came back from the publicist: “Not sure. An answer in the affirmative would be highly unusual: sixties artists are only very rarely involved in the reissue of their material. So I replied, And just for the heck of it – never expecting a positive response – I inquired whether Revere or lead singer Mark Lindsay would be available for interviews. As a huge fan of them (and that sort of straight-ahead sixties pop/rock in general) I knew right away that I would want to review the set. Collectors’ Choice Music (as of mid 2011, a defunct label) was putting together a 3cd compilation of all the A- and B-sides from Paul Revere and the Raiders. In early 2010 I got a press release from a publicist with whom I often work.
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