POP CULTURE

A Little Backstory on Paul Revere & the Raiders’ “Kicks”

How do you keep the music playing? How do you make it last?

Paul Revere and the Raiders, 1967. (Public domain)

Pandora is a free internet music site that enables you to choose music of nearly any genre which they supplement with additional tracks of the same style. If you pick the Beatles, they do not play just Beatles music but rather contemporaries to the Beatles as well. It’s a good way to become acquainted with other artists, or re-acquainted. And it isn’t just pop or rock, but includes jazz and even classical.

While listening to some Sixties group my Pandora channel played a song by Paul Revere and the Raiders, a group I’d utterly forgotten about but which had produced a sound I liked at the time, as well as a number of hits.

What’s interesting is that while your online listening to the music you can flip over to Wikipedia and read about the groups you once listened to on Top 40 radio. (Don’t do this if you’re listening to Pandora at work.) What you learn will often surprise you.

Illustration by the author.

For example, Paul Revere & the Raiders were not from Boston like I imagined. Yes, they…