HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK LINDSAY AND LLOYD PRICE!

Happy Birthday Mark Lindsay!

The lead singer and writer of some of the biggest hits of Paul Revere & The Raiders - "Madman" Mark Lindsay turns 68 today!

What's often obscured by their colonial costumes, (which some rock & roll knucklehead critics deemed as goofy but which millions of us teens thought of as cool), zany antics, and teenybopper following is the fact that Paul Revere & The Raiders were one of the great American rock & roll bands not only of the '60s, but in rock & roll history: period.

The group was started in 1959 in Boise,Idaho when piano-playing madman Paul Revere first met up with vocalist/saxman Mark Lindsay and was known as the Downbeats. In 1960 they changed their name to Paul Revere & The Raiders with other members Mike "Smitty" Smith on drums, Drake "The Kid" Levin on bass,vocals and Doc Holliday bass,vocals.

The group actually had a small instrumental hit, "Like Long Hair" which peaked at #38.

Revere was drafted and the band soon disbanded, but when he got out of service, he reunited with Lindsay and relocated to Portland,Oregon.

Paul Revere & The Raiders became a fixture on the the teen scene in Oregon & Washington playing their inherent Northwest R&B stomp-epitomized by Mark Lindsay's raunchy, shouted vocals and complimented by Revere's Vox organ sound which paid homage to the crunchy R&B British Invasion such as The Rolling Stones and especially The Animals.

They became the first ever rock & roll signed to Columbia Records in '63 and though they recorded a raucous version of "Louie,Louie," it was The Kingsmen's sloppy but glorious version of this Northwest staple that became the hit.

At this point Doc Holliday had to leave the band and Phil "Fang" Volk took his place on the bass and vocals.

By '65, they were discovered by Dick Clark who signed them up as the house band on his new afternoon rock & roll TV show Where The Action Is.

"Steppin' Out" became their first chart hit (Aug/65- #46) for Columbia.

And it wasn't much later that their biggest hits came to follow.

Fueled by their wild behavior on Action, Paul Revere & The Raiders fired the first volley to stop the impeding British Invasion with million- selling records and sold-out concerts everywhere they went.

15 straight hit songs followed including :"Just Like Me," ( #11), "Kicks",('#4), "Hungry" ( #6), "Great Airplane Strike" (#20), "Him Or Me-What's In Gonna Be"( #5).

They had three Gold selling albums alone in '66 with Just Like Us (#5), Midnight Ride (#9), and Spirit of '67 (#9) and during their career they sold 50 million records.

Hits started to dry up somewhat in '68 when the the groups Revolutionary War costumes hurt their image with the Summer of Love generation.

Despite shortening their name to The Raiders (minus the Paul Revere moniker) and ditching the costumes, the group didn't make any inroads to score with the flower-power crowd. Still, The Raiders got to host their own afternoon TV show - It's Happening on ABC, and combined with all of their other TV appearances on Where The Action Is, as well as a couple of appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, Hullabaloo, Shindig!, and others, the group holds the record being the most televised group of all time with 720 appearances!

And just when you thought the group's hits had dried up, they would score their biggest hit of all time in 1971 with "Indian Reservation" a single that would sell over three million copies and become Columbia's biggest selling single of the previous ten years.

It would also become The Raiders only #1.

Lindsay would also score some solo smashes with "Silverbird" and "Arizona."

Today, he resides in Hawaii and hosts some rock & roll ocean cruises.

The burning question remains is why aren't Paul Revere & The Raiders in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?

You can email Mark Lindsay a a birthday greeting at mark@marklindsay.com or go to his Facebook page which he personally runs.

And to see a fab live version of Paul Revere & the Raiders perfroming one of their biggest hit singles - the anti-drug ode - "Kicks," hit the video link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtOE3Cy-FJI


Happy Birthday Lloyd Price!

The New Orleans R&B singer and member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame - Llodd Price - turns 77 today!

Mr. Price was one the first architects of rock & roll, who also was a big fixture on the R&B scene as well.

Between 1952-1960 he scored 16 Top 20 R&B smashes, including four #1's.

He crossed over on the Pop charts as well accumulating six Top 20 Hits including one #1.

the hit list of Mr. Price is a staggering collection of bona fide R&B and rock & roll classics: "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" (#1 R&B '52), "Oooh, Oooh, Oooh" (#4- R&B), "Restless Heart" (#5- R&B), "Just Because (#3 R&B, #29 Pop), "Stagger Lee" (#1 R&B, #1 Pop), "Personality" (#1 R&B, #2 Pop), "I'm Gonna Get Married" (#1 R&B, #3 Pop).

Lloyd Price was elected to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.

In his home town of Kenner, Lousiaina there is a Lloyd Price Street and they celebrate LLoyd Price day there every year.

To watch LLoyd Price perform his biggest hit single "Stagger Lee", (a song that based on a true story of a St. Louis Christmas day murder), hit the link below.
Beatle Bob

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC2XG0tVsxM