Let’s be honest: While the band played up the name of their leader, the undisputed focal point of Paul Revere and the Raiders was singer Mark Lindsay. Obviously, he was blessed with the smoldering good looks that made him the object of millions of teenage girls’ fantasies but, he also had an intangible savagery – in his vocal delivery and his stage presence – that made him cool enough for the guys to like; both of those things were enough for some parents to ban the group’s records from their homes and pin-up pages from TIGERBEAT, 16 and FLIP magazines from their daughters’ walls but, the songs Mark and the Raiders performed, at least until 1967 (or thereabouts), was pure pop confection (Lindsay’s growl aside) that most parents found rather innocuous and non-threatening to their impressionable offspring.
After winning a talent contest at fifteen, Mark was offered a spot in a band called the Idaho Playboys; however, the group’s leader (one Freddy Chapman) relocated shortly after, leaving the Playboys (minus Lindsay) to soldier on, playing the local bar circuit with their new organist, a guy called Paul Revere. Mark caught the band’s act one fateful night, asking them if he could join in for a few numbers. The next day, a chance meeting with Revere, who walked into the bakery where the youngster was working led to Mark joining Revere’s nascent group of musicians. As the group’s sound began to gel into a rough Rhythm and Blues, Lindsay suggested they adopt the name, the Downbeats, after the influential Jazz magazine of the same name. That was in 1958 and the two went on to perform together for nearly two decades.
The two prime movers of the band soon decided to exploit Paul’s name, changing their moniker to Paul Revere and the Raiders and adopting the dress of the Revolutionary War’s Colonial Army. It wasn’t long before Columbia Records began adding “featuring Mark Lindsay” to the group’s name on album covers and single labels. By 1966’s THE SPIRIT OF ‘67 (released under the title GOOD THING in the United Kingdom), Mark was not only singing and playing sax with the group, he was also writing many of the Raiders’ tunes – occasionally with Revere and various other Raiders but, usually with his friend, producer Terry Melcher. He was also the ONLY band member to appear on a majority of those tunes, including the hits; in fact, more than a few of those singles were originally recorded as Mark Lindsay solo records. When Lindsay finally left the Raiders in 1975, he had already forged a fairly impressive solo career. Somewhere along the way, disillusionment crept in and Mark decided to call it a career but, the pull of the studio and the stage brought him back… only to retire again a few years later. The man, however, has music stamped into those little genomial strands of DNA, so he is continually drawn back to his first love (sorry, Deborah). With recent stints on Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan’s HAPPY TOGETHER package tours and the occasional solo show under his belt (and a new album in the offing), he remains a solid live commodity to promoters and venues across the country.
This summer, Lindsay has joined his old friend, the Monkees’ Micky Dolenz, for the 50 SUMMERS OF LOVE TOUR, a night of Dean-and-Jerry-like frivolity and music. I had the chance to speak with Mark recently about his career, working with Dolenz and the new tour.
THE MULE: You’ve been performing, making music since you were like sixteen, seventeen years old.
MARK LINDSAY: Well, more like thirteen to fifteen. I was a kid.
THE MULE: Okay. Did you ever, in your wildest dreams, think that you’d still be doing… that you’d be doing this nearly sixty years on?
MARK: Believe me, I never thought I would LIVE to be this old. I mean, I thought… When I was starting out, I thought, “What is there after thirty?” You know? What future would anybody have after thirty? I really thought that was the end of it but, obviously, I would’ve been very surprised. However, I’m very gratified that I’m still doin’ it.
THE MULE: Very nice. Yeah, you know… it always amazes me that there are a lot of guys (and ladies) that were big… uh… mid-sixties, early seventies and so on that still just have this incredible drive and desire to do what you do and it…
MARK: It was… It’s so much fun to do and so gratifying and, as long as I can do it, have fun doing it and do it well… hopefully!… and if people still keep coming… I mean, Rock and Roll, which Mitch Miller predicted would die in the ‘60s, of course, never died and it’s still out there and as long as… It’s still alive, man. I mean, it’s the only genre of music that I get to give that’s lasted fifty years. So, more power to it!
THE MULE: Exactly. And, you know, just to touch on a couple of points through your career before we jump into the 50 SUMMERS OF LOVE TOUR. Uh… you worked with Paul Revere and various versions of the Raiders for a very long time and, I know that you kinda had like a… an up-and-down relationship – if you want to call it that – with Paul and… I’m just curious to know if you were in contact with him or he with you during the latter years of his life. Or, really, any of the old Raiders guys.
MARK: Well… Yeah, I was with the Raiders, as you said, throughout the whole recording career, basically. I was on every song that the Raiders had that was a hit. In the later years, I… it was an up-and-down relationship but, in the later years, I did try to stay in touch with Paul but, he was… he had a lot of problems, as you know, and unfortunately, we never got that last conversation that I would like to have had. But, you know… That’s the way life goes sometimes.
THE MULE: Yeah… yeah. Another big, driving force, possibly in your career… certainly the career of the Raiders was Dick Clark. I mean, he really kinda stepped up and said, “Hey, I want you guys for this,” and he pushed you to the forefront…
MARK: Well, he gave us a platform and we just kinda took over and, you know… He actually hired the Raiders, he confessed later, for a thirteen week period and he thought that if the show – WHERE THE ACTION IS – took off, he’d be able to hire a real band. At the end of the thirteen week period, luckily, the… it was kinda like a precursor to MTV… the whole nation got to see us and the whole nation… I guess, most of them liked us because, by the end of that thirteen week period, we had become that real band he was looking for.
THE MULE: How much… You know, every band goes through it… there’s a period, mid-’60s kind of stuff, where it was more of a Pop feel and you’re kinda… even though you wrote a majority of the songs, a majority of the hits, there were other people involved in songwriting and, probably, there were other people coming and performing the parts that – generally speaking – the band should be playing… I mean, how much of that actually happened, how much was actually the Raiders in the studio, doing it the right way?
MARK: Well, the Raiders… the guys… everybody played on the records up until and through “Good Thing” and then, after that, we were touring so much – we were on the road, like 250 nights a year – and Columbia had a three album schedule… you know, they wanted three albums a year – and, of course, they wanted singles. So, Terry (Melcher) and I would write, or we’d get Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, who wrote… “Kicks” and “Hungry” were a couple of their songs. But, we would record… we would start the songs and go into the studio and, of course, if you listen to… I would say ninety percent of the music that was cut in the mid-’60s in Los Angeles, the Wrecking Crew was either THE band or part of the band, however supplemental. We just didn’t have enough time to “can” everything, so Terry would work on the tracks while we were gone and then, I’d come in and put the lead vocal on and we’d spin it there to the background. I mean, we’d… But, that was the formula we used and some of us… From time to time, some of the guys would be on the record but, it wasn’t a thing with a whole band type of luxury of being in the studio at the same time. We just didn’t have time to do that.
THE MULE: That had to be like, really just exhausting for you because… yeah, you can replace a guitar player, you can replace a drummer, you can replace a keyboard player but, you cannot replace the recognizable voice of a band.
MARK: You know, it was… Looking back on it, it should have been more exhausting but, quite frankly, there was no place I would have rather been. I mean, I liked performing on the road but, I really liked the studio, so, when I came back from a tour, I would drop my bag and head for the studio. And, basically stay there until we had to be on the road again. But, I enjoyed it so much that it didn’t seem… there was no question. You know, when you’re in your twenties, you can kill yourself several times and still bounce back from the dead. It didn’t seem to be that much of a hardship at the time. I really enjoyed it.
THE MULE: Right, right. We’re just not quite so resilient nowadays.
MARK: Yeah. I enjoyed making music so much, that it was certainly a lot more of a positive thing than it was a negative thing for me, so… I had a lot of fun.
THE MULE: Cool. So, let’s move into… uh… today.
MARK: Sure.
THE MULE: So, what can we expect on the thirteenth in Saint Louis – the Saint Charles Family Arena – with the 50 SUMMERS OF LOVE TOUR? And… I guess, how has this tour differed from the HAPPY TOGETHER shows you were involved with?
MARK: Well, HAPPY TOGETHER, of course, has each artist… It’s more… it’s kinda like the formula that Dick Clark… CAVALCADE OF STARS. You had one band come on and one act, then another and then another until everybody had played. The difference with 50 SUMMERS OF LOVE is, Micky and I are together but, instead of one performer doing his songs and then… you know, opening up for the other guy or vice-versa, were both onstage, basically, together all the time and, we’re doing Monkees songs and Raiders songs, of course, but… he’s singing on some of the Raiders songs, I’m singing on some of the Monkees songs… we goof around. It’s just more of a partnership or a duo onstage so, I really don’t know what you can expect. Basically, we’re both onstage from the time the curtain goes up to the time the curtain goes down.
THE MULE: Awesome! Now, you… Obviously, both of you guys were on TIGERBEAT covers and, you know, everything throughout the ‘60s but, how and when did you and Micky actually meet?
MARK: Oh, we met WAY back. He was… I lived a the top of the hill, Lookout Mountain over Laurel Canyon and he lived in the Canyon. We got together from time to time but, we both were so busy at the time, we didn’t have much time to hang out. There wasn’t much hang out time that was happening. So, I’ve known Micky for a long time. I mean, we’ve gotten together over the years but, not to the extent that we’re together now. But, it’s just a lot of fun, a fun show. I’ve heard comments from people who see the show, it’s really different than anything else because it’s not just one guy coming out and doing his hits and then another guy coming out and doing his hits. It’s more of a joint effort, for sure.
THE MULE: So, this is a chance for Saint Louis to hear, probably, the two most famous versions of “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” then.
MARK: Oh, yeah. You bet! We do it together.
THE MULE: Cool! That’s awesome. That was one of the things that I was wondering… how you guys were going to handle that song, in particular. Uh… the Fab Four, the Beatles tribute… they are opening the show but, they’re also acting as the house band, right?
MARK: Yeah. They open the show. They have an incredible act. If you… I mean, I swear, they sound so much like the original guys, the Beatles and, they look like ‘em. You know, they have the costumes and everything. So, if you close your eyes… you don’t have to close your eyes even… it’s almost like hearing SERGEANT PEPPER… live. If you could hear SERGEANT PEPPER… live. But, since the Beatles will never be together… that’s impossible ‘cause a couple of those guys are… uh… we’ll never see it again. But, it takes you right back to the sixties and between… you know, the Beatles had so… Oh, my gosh, they pretty much performed the soundtrack of our lives. And, of course, the Monkees had a lot of hits and the Raiders had a lot of hits so, if you like that period of time – the mid-’60s – which I think is one of the richest and most prolific times of Rock and Roll… so many great songs were being written and so many great acts were out there. If you like that period of time, you’re gonna be taken right back there and, of course, with Micky and I doing… you know, singing part of each other’s songs and being together, you get a different take of a song… at least, ours, as well.
THE MULE: How do the musicians kind of fit in with what you’re doing and how do you guys… Micky and you… Do you kind of attempt some Beatles stuff throughout your set?
MARK: We leave most of… Well, we do a couple of songs toward the end that… Most of the Beatles songs are done by the Fab Four. We have… Luckily, the Raiders and the Monkees both had enough hits that we have plenty of material for our own show. But, it’s just… It’s just a lot of fun. That’s all I can tell ya. I mean, you never know exactly what’s gonna happen.
THE MULE: So… let’s get into your new album, your new project. Tell us about that a little bit and how everyone can get a copy of it.
MARK: Well, it’s not quite out yet but, it will be. It’s songs I started two or three years ago. I started… Brian Wilson was looking for songs for a solo album so, I started writing some songs that I thought were kind of like evocative of the period and that I could kind of hear the Beach Boys doing in that kind of style and… I presented them to him and he liked a lot of them but, then, I don’t know what happened… Maybe his producer didn’t care for the tunes. One thing led to another and nothing happened. The songs were just laying there, so I went, “Well, what the heck?” So, I went ahead and finished them myself and… uh… So, it’s like… it’s just kind of a slice of that time, that much… a kind of a… I don’t want to say softer edges… Well, yeah… A slightly different style of music than people probably expect from me. But, I think the songs are great and I had a lot of fun doing it and it’s going to be out soon. It’s called… It was started long before this 50 SUMMERS OF LOVE TOUR was proposed but, that’s the title of the project. It’s called SUMMER OF LOVE. I wrote a couple of songs with that title so, it kind of fits in but, it’ll be available quickly.
THE MULE: Alright. We’ll be looking for it. Definitely. So, I guess we can wrap this up. With all of your solo stuff, the stuff you did with the Raiders, the various package tours that you’ve been on over the years… uh… Everything – soundtracks, movie roles… What are you most proud of in your life and in your career?
MARK: Well, probably, I think “Indian Reservation” is certainly an iconic record and production. I’m very proud of that. For a lot of reasons – lyrically and performance-wise but, it was just such a statement for the time that needed to be… a story that needed to be told. The song was written by John D Loudermilk and one of the reasons that it sold almost six million copies is the fact that it was just something that, you know, was very timely and… uh… There it is. I’m proud of a lot of stuff but, if I had to pick one… one thing – and, that’s very hard to do… because it’s not as much Rock and Roll as, for example, “Good Thing,” but, just for a song that made a statement that probably impacted more people than any other, I’d pick that.
THE MULE: Okay… awesome. I would tend to agree. I mean, I can think of a lot of songs that I really, really like but… I was born in ‘58 so, you know, by the time that came around, I was really just kinda starting to get into music and stuff and I remember the first time I heard that… it was just like, “Uumph!” You know? It hit me like… It meant something, you know?
MARK: Yeah. It was… Well, all the musicians on the record, it was… It’s funny… it was basically going to be a Mark Lindsay single and we cut it as that but, I was… Since I produced it, I thought it was great but, I wasn’t sure whether I thought it was great because I produced it or because it was really great. So, I was very ambivalent about releasing it under my name and so, finally, the… Jack Gold, the head of A and R for CBS said, “Look, if you don’t wanna release this as Mark Lindsay, I’m gonna put it out as the Raiders.” I said, “Okay. Fine.” And, he did. So, it’s the biggest record the Raiders never played on!
THE MULE: That’s funny! How big… You know, another question occurs to me. I mean, we talked about Dick Clark and we talked about Paul… How big of – I guess I can’t say “influence,” because it would be more the business side of things, but… How much did Clive Davis play into the career of the Raiders and Mark Lindsay?
MARK: Well, he was on our side through most things. Whenever I asked him for something, I usually got it. But, there’s one thing that he asked me to do that I didn’t do and, I don’t know what would have happened had I done it. But, I don’t regret it. In the middle of the Raiders’ career, like in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, he came to me with an idea and he said, “Look, I want you to leave the group and become a solo artist.” And he played me some songs and he said, “I think you could… ” He’d heard some of the solo stuff and he said, “I think you can be, you know, like a… ” He didn’t say but, he kinda intimated… like Johnny Mathis. “Wow… well, that’s pretty ambitious!” You know? I mean, nobody can be a Johnny Mathis. Except Johnny Mathis. I like… Basically, it came down to, I just like Rock and Roll so much that I said, “I’ll continue to do my solo stuff but, I don’t wanna leave the group.” So, that’s where that one… And, that’s the only thing that he asked me to do that I didn’t do but, you know, it all worked out in the end!
THE MULE: Yeah, absolutely! I’d say it did. You’ve had a great career… ‘60s stuff, ‘70s stuff still sounds crisp and enjoyable today and, I’m just lookin’ forward to seeing you on the thirteenth and maybe hang out a little bit and we can maybe discuss some stuff a little bit further.
MARK: Okay, Darren, I look forward to it and… uh… like I say, I can’t guarantee what’s gonna happen but, it’ll all be fun. Looking forward to it.
THE MULE: Alright, man. Thank you so much.
MARK: Alright, Darren. Thank you. We’ll see you on the thirteenth.
Mark Lindsay and Micky Dolenz, along with the Fab Four: The Ultimate Tribute brings the 50 SUMMERS OF LOVE show to the stage of the Family Arena in Saint Charles, Missouri on Friday, October 13th for what promises to be a fun time for the entire family. For ticket information and additional tour dates, visit the tour’s Facebook page.
