GA Russell Posted July 7, 2009 Report Share Posted July 7, 2009 (edited) Those of us who were born at the right time watched Where the Action Is upon our return from school each weekday in the mid-60s. This was a Dick Clark show which featured a repertory cast of singers with (as I recall) one guest act per day, all lip-synching their songs. One of the regulars was Paul Revere and the Raiders, and the show catapulted them to popularity. Clark did what he could to make household names of each of the members. Their lead guitarist was Drake. His most famous solo, such as it was, was on their hit Just Like Me, which had the same feel as Louie, Louie. Here's his LA Times obituary. http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...0,2699826.story Drake Levin, guitarist, dies at 62 Email Picture Drake Levin, far right, died Saturday at his home in San Francisco after a long battle with cancer. Levin was lead guitarist in the '60s for Paul Revere & the Raiders but left to form his own bands and establish himself as a top blues player in the Bay Area. By Randy Lewis July 7, 2009 Drake Levin, lead guitarist for Paul Revere & the Raiders during the quintet's hit-making prime in the mid-1960s, died Saturday at his home in San Francisco after a long battle with cancer, according to his longtime friend and former Raiders bandmate Phil Volk. He was 62. Levin's four-year stint with the Raiders, known for its campy Revolutionary War uniforms, thigh-high black riding boots and tri-corner hats, coincided with a string of top 10 hits including "Kicks," "Hungry" and "Good Thing." For a time he was one of the most recognizable American rock guitarists through the group's weekly appearances on the Dick Clark-produced music series "Where the Action Is." The band's 1965 hit "Just Like Me," prominently featuring Levin's double-tracked lead guitar, is on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll." "I've lost my dear friend, my Raider buddy, and the music world has lost a guitar icon," Volk said in a note posted on his website. Drake Maxwell Levinshefski was born Aug. 17, 1946, in Chicago, and after his family moved to Boise, Idaho, he began to gain recognition as a musician with bassist Volk in the Surfers. Nebraska-born Revere also had moved to Boise, where he formed the first incarnation of the Raiders in the late 1950s. That edition of the group charted a top 40 single with "Like, Long Hair" in 1961, making it Boise's best-known rock band. Revere invited the Surfers to open a Raiders show outside Boise in 1963, with Raiders drummer Mike "Smitty" Smith sitting in. This put the group on Revere's radar screen, and when his guitarist left, he offered the job to Levin. Volk soon followed him into the Raiders. The group relocated to Portland, Ore., looking to build on its regional following. Revere and the Raiders recorded Richard Berry's "Louie Louie" a week before it was put on tape by another Portland band, the Kingsmen, whose version became the national hit and established it as one of the quintessential songs of what came to be known as "garage rock." Levin's guitar work came to the fore in "Just Like Me," a gloriously sloppy number with a chord progression and overall sound similar to "Louie Louie" that reached No. 11 in early 1966. Levin, Volk and Smith left the Raiders in 1967, leaving behind Revere and lead singer Mark Lindsay, and formed the Brotherhood. By the time the Raiders landed their only No. 1 hit, "Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)" in 1971, Levin was long gone. Levin's prominence as a guitarist helped him land subsequent work playing with organist Lee Michaels, singer-songwriter Emitt Rhodes and others. After settling in the Bay Area, he became one of the region's top blues players and formed groups of his own, including Billy Dunn and Bluesway. He last played with his Raiders cohorts at a 1997 reunion in Portland that featured all the mid-'60s band members except Revere, who has continued touring with his own lineup. Levin is survived by his wife of 37 years, Sandra; sons David and Darby; his mother, Charle; his brother Jeff and his sister Lori. A memorial service is planned for July 18, but details have not been settled. When finalized, arrangements will be posted on Volk's website, philfangvolk.com. Edited July 7, 2009 by GA Russell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFrank Posted July 7, 2009 Report Share Posted July 7, 2009 "Just Like Me" and "Kicks" were a couple of the first songs that got me into listening to music. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted July 7, 2009 Report Share Posted July 7, 2009 I had a random thought cycle about the Raiders a few weeks ago...they were a damn good singles band..."Just Like Me" (not at all similar to "Louie, Louie" imo, if only because it has four chords instead of three ), "Hungry", "Kicks"...one or two more...tight, edgy sound...as the 60s wore on, they got a rep as a bubblegum fan, mostly because Mark Linday pimped like a he-ho to the teen mags (oh yeah, "Him Or Me. What's It Gonna Be", that was another good one HELL yeah!)), and at the time it seemed like it mattered, but today, hell, it was pop and it was good pop, pop that rocked, so what the hell, ya' know? If I could find a wedding band that would cover "Hungry" instead of the same old tired/endless bullshit, I'd be happy about that. But I don't think people wanna put out like that in a wedding band, so there you go, that's what's wrong with all that right there, yes sir. "Good Thing", that's the other one, yeah! I can't really find any fault with that...it's good garage band playing a really good garage band song taken to a very high level. Humanity has had far worse musical fates inflicted on it than this. And check this shit out! forget the stupidass costumes and "antics", just listen... BACK TO THE GARAGE!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted July 7, 2009 Report Share Posted July 7, 2009 "Good Thing", that's the other one, yeah! DAMN! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted July 7, 2009 Report Share Posted July 7, 2009 Goldie Hawn? For real? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjzee Posted July 7, 2009 Report Share Posted July 7, 2009 "Just Like Me" and "Kicks" were a couple of the first songs that got me into listening to music. Me too. "Kicks" was the first record I ever bought, and "Midnight Ride" was the first album. It was only when I was in my twenties did I realize "Kicks" was about drugs. I thought Drake Levin left before the others. On the cover of "Greatest Hits," he was replaced by some short guy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeweil Posted July 7, 2009 Report Share Posted July 7, 2009 (edited) Believe it or not, The Raiders' LP "The Spirit of 1967" was my first longplayer .... Edited July 7, 2009 by mikeweil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rpklich Posted July 7, 2009 Report Share Posted July 7, 2009 Believe it or not, The Raiders' LP "The Spirit of 1967" was my first longplayer .... The first lp I ever bought was "Midnight Ride". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GA Russell Posted July 7, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 7, 2009 It is my recollection, could be wrong, that Paul Revere and the Raiders were the first rock act on Columbia Records. Mitch Miller was Columbia's a&r man, and he disliked rock 'n' roll, so all of the company's rock acts were signed to the Epic label. Shortly after that came The Byrds. That's how I recall it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trane123 Posted July 7, 2009 Report Share Posted July 7, 2009 Just finished a book that looked at music in L.A. from the 40s through the 90s (sorry, the title escapes me right now). The author's take on the Raiders was that they were really one of the first 60s garage/punk bands (along with the Seeds and the Standells) until they signed on to be the house band for Dick Clark's "Where The Action Is" TV show. Then he put them in those outfits... And, yes, I remember watching that show when I got out of school -- about the fourth or fifth grade. I also remember the song "Kicks" getting banned on the local radio station. Even though it was really an anti-drug song ("You better find out before it's too late, girl, you better get straight"). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted July 7, 2009 Report Share Posted July 7, 2009 I still think they had a pretty good band name. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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