Crabb Bits: Mel McDaniel, Paul Revere & The Raiders, CCM Music

Observations From The Forefront:

Mel McDaniel was part of the 80s country movement and had hits with Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On and Stand Up and a few others.  It has been reported that McDaniel passed away from complications of cancer and was 68.  I remember a country covers band I was playing in played about three of Mel's songs including Stand On It and Stand Up.  Don't know if we did the songs justice, after all I more interested in trying to Keith Moon the songs with plenty of drum rolls and cymbal hits but later I found his Mel's Greatest Hits in the budget bin at Borders and picked it up and actually liked the majority of songs on it. Nevertheless, we lost another musician to the great gig in the sky.  More to follow I'm sure.

Collector's Choice Music:

If you're into mail order catalog, this was the place to get your musical fix on cd's that Best Buy didn't have.  And throughout the past 15 years, Gordon Anderson would reissue certain albums from bands and artists that the majors wouldn't bother.  Without him, The Rascals later period would be out of print vinyl.  Gordon managed to reissue a lot from the Warner Music Group, Sony Music and sometimes EMI and Universal and managed to reissue complete hit single box sets from the likes of Gary Lewis and The Playboys, Jay & The Americans and Paul Revere & The Raiders (more about them later in blog).  Sometime around November of last year, Collector's Choice along with Critic's Choice, Heartland Music, Serenade Music and Deep Discount DVDs was sold to some outfit called Super D, a California Media Wholesaler to which I never heard of.  In the time of that, Gordon Anderson decided that it was time to move on and that the new guy would take his place.  Since Anderson's departure, Collector's Choice Music has pulled new releases off the shelf and the sad thinking is that whatever is in catalog will be a thing of the past.  You can probably bet on that.

Although I have never had any problems ordering cd's from Collector's Choice, the new guy Joe Van Horn doesn't seem to be too interested in returning emails from people since some of the CD R Tartare Series got canceled and people complained to him about it.  If this is the case of the future holds for CCM then it's been a good ride and perhaps we're better off ordering from Amazon or Import CDs.  Nevertheless, they still send me out the monthly catalog, and I pore over them to see what I need or want and eventually fire off a check and usually get something back within two weeks, they were pretty good about that under the old guard.  But now I seem to get a bit leery about placing an order.  There's a matter of a new Sam The Sham singles collection out on Sundazed that they have or the Dennis Coffey best of.  As we all know, mergers and acquisitions never seem to help nobody except ones who have money or stockholders.  If that's the case, then we'll plan accordingly.

Paul Revere & The Raiders:

With the new Essential Paul Revere & The Raiders 2 CD now out, we're once again stuck with yet another compilation that comes up a disappointment rather than definitive.    I grew up being a big fan of theirs and although they were lumped in with The Monkees in terms of their pop music, I found them to be a bit more harder rocking than the TV Fab Four.  Can't say if their Louie Louie was better than The Kingsmen, but I'm Not Your Stepping Stone was more punk rock than The Monkees and that one got left off the new Essential CD.  The way Sony Music continues to halfassed their treatment of the PR & Raiders catalog is beyond belief so here we are again.  Perhaps I was spoiled rotten by The All Time Greatest Hits 2 record set that had the album version of Cinderella Sunshine (better than the single 2 minute version IMO) and Do Unto Others which had a vocal fadeout unlike the single version.  But at least technology improved so we got an extra 15 seconds to Him Or Me and longer versions of the hits Kicks or Hungry.  But then again, with improved technology we ended up losing the echo and tape hiss of the singles that made the songs stand out better.

Paul Revere would tell you that the early R and B stuff is his favorite and he's half right.  Revere remained one of the best piano players of the early years although Louie Louie and Over You tend to be more goofy than entertaining.  I never heard the Sundazed 2 CD Mojo Workout which showcased some of their outrageous live performances back then so I'll just take Revere at his word that they could outrock anybody from the West Coast.  But you had to be there in person rather than listen to the results.  When Columbia signed them, they had no clue on how to promote them, remember at that time Mitch Miller was A and R head and he hated their type of music which was why The Kingsmen won out over PR & The Raiders on Louie Louie. Even Here They Come, they couldn't decide where to go or what to do, be a R and B cover band or a pop band till finally Terry Melcher took them to the latter and gave them a hit with Steppin Out.

There was a band democracy on song writer on the next two  Just Like Us and especially Midnight Ride, where the former was them still dicking around with Motown and R and B, the latter showed more pop and rock with Stepping Stone or Kicks.  And Spirit Of 67, the last featuring the band of Smitty, Fang and Jim Valley did not disappoint with Great Airplane Strike and Good Thing, but at that point, Mark Lindsay begin to take over the songwriting (along with Melcher) which may have led to the other guys leaving.  Hard to tell but even with session players on Revolution! The Raiders never sounded heavier than on that masterpiece.  When I listen to that album, I somewhat question why the imbalance of some songs going from stereo to plain old mono, Make It With Me is the example of why the fuck did they went with a mono mix when the previous ones were in stereo?  In fact, Lindsay's vocals are so buried in the mix and the backing vocals more up in front that one wonders if they were on some kind of drugs when they mix the song.  With that it ended up being a throwaway song.  And I thought for years that Bob Irwin, who did the CD mastering decided to go with a mono mix, that the stereo mix got ruined, till I found the vinyl album and it was the same mix that Melcher committed to record.

After that, Mark Lindsay took over production and they went more Pop on each album.  While Lindsay complained that Don't Take It So Hard would benefited from Terry Melcher production work, I still come to find it to be the best song after Melcher left.  If anything Lindsay may have polished it too well.  By then, The new Raiders were a lot better accomplished than the previous, Joe Corjero Jr was the best drummer they ever had and Freddy Weller and Keith Allison were better songwriters if Lindsay would let them write and not dominate so much.  Something Happening and Hard And Heavy (With Marshmellow) were lot more teen pop and bored me when I had the albums and Goin To Memphis, was basically a Mark Lindsay solo album.  Alias Pink Puzz, is their underrated classic, with Freeborn Man, one of the more country rock songs Lindsay wrote, with help from Keith Allison.   In fact, when it was released without the PR & Raiders moniker FM radio actually gave it a chance, till the brass found out it was Paul Revere and Raiders and they threw it in the garbage can.   Still holds up very well, and to a lesser extent, Collage, although I have to say I have not heard the album except for the fun We Gotta All Get Together (written by Freddy Weller), the lackluster Just Seventeen and a remake of Gone Movin On. But after hearing Collage it's not that great.

Then after that, they took a break, Mark Lindsay made two forgettable MOR albums Arizona and Silverbird before convincing the guys to shorten their name and make more of a effort for FM airplay.  And then scored a number 1 hit with Indian Reservation a remake of the Don Fardon song for GNP Crescendo.  That turned out to be the highlight of the album of the same name, though they did get Birds Of A Feather into the top 20 here on KCRG in 1971.  But the album was too poppy for FM radio and I'll give them credit for covering The Easybeats' Come In You'll Get Phenomena, the album was just as bland as Hard And Heavy.  The last gasp was Country Wine, a catchy song in a way but not as memorable.  Their last charted song here was Love Music (written by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter of Rhinestone Cowboy fame) and would have been the perfect way to end the new Essential Paul Revere Collection.  But Sony Music stopped after Song Seller and if you think about it,  you're not missing much.

So what is the Essential Paul Revere And The Raiders Collection?  The new one?  Not really, it's too scatter-shot to be considered the one to get.  The world really doesn't need Shake It Up on this when they could have used Stepping Stone instead.  The Louie Louie era songs tend be overindulgent and Lindsay screaming he's going to kill his love interest on Over You is creepy.  The unreleased My Wife Can't Cook is actually funny and entertaining although it doesn't belong on a greatest hits package, probably better suited for bonus tracks for the Sundazed reissues.  The Legend Of Paul Revere, the 1990 2 CD set is way too much for the casual fan to sit through although Beatnik Sticks was actually used for the theme of a children's cartoon show here but done by locals.  The other problem is that some of the songs got remixed to 1990s standards which pissed a lot of the purists off.  The only time Sony Music got it somewhat right was 1995's Essential Ride 63-67 to which it focuses on Louie Louie up to the last of the Terry Melcher recordings (Him or Me).  In the final process, All Time Greatest Hits remains the first and only album that I can identify of what made Paul Revere And The Raiders great and Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame worthy.  Even though Mark Lindsay left Paul around 1975 thereabouts, Revere has managed to get replacements that been there longer than the actual members who recorded for Columbia and even at age 73 the man still puts on a great show although you don't need the remakes (nor Mark Lindsay's for that matter).  If Paul Revere and his hired hands ever get up to a casino near me, I'll make the effort to go see them.  But till then, if I want to hear an complete overview of the hits, The Legend is on the shelf, if I want just the hits, I'll pull out The Essenial Ride Mix CD that I threw together before selling off the lesser of the cd's that I wouldn't play again.  The Essential Paul Revere & The Raiders falls somewhere in the middle of the two, it gives a new perspective on a band that was much more than just pop stars with Mark Lindsay 17 pictures for the teen girls back then.  But it also doesn't do justice of some of the songs left off and still doesn't deliver on what could have been the definite  Paul Revere & The Raiders.

And it's kind of a shame.

Grades:
Here They Come (Columbia 1964) B+
Just Like Us (Sundazed Reissue) B 
Midnight Ride (Columbia 1966) B+
Spirit Of 67 (Columbia 1967) A-
Revolution! (Columbia 1967) A-
Gone To Memphis (Columbia 1968) C+
Something Happening (Columbia 1968) C+
Hard And Heavy (With Marshmellow-Columbia 1968) C+
Alias Pink Puzz (Columbia 1969) B+
Collage (Columbia 1970) B-
Indian Reservation (Columbia 1971) C+
Country Wine Plus (Raven 2011) C+
All Time Greatest Hits (Columbia 1972) A-
A Christmas Past...And Present (Koch Reissue 2007) B
The Legend Of Paul Revere (Columbia 1990) B
The Essential Ride 63-67) (Columbia 1996) A-
Mojo Workout (Sundazed 2000) B
The Essential Paul Revere & The Raiders (Columbia 2011) B+

Mark Lindsay-Arizona/Sliverbird (Collectibles 2 on 1-1971) C
The Complete Columbia Singles of Mark Lindsay (Real Gone 2012) B