Indian Reservation - Raiders (1971) 8/28/22

One of my all time favorite groups is Paul Revere & The Raiders. These guys spent the second half of the '60s cranking out "Great Songs" like "Kicks," "Hungry," "Good Thing" and "Just Like Me."

Their whole presentation was clever: They dressed up in Revolutionary War style clothing, including tricorn hats...and they were led by a born entertainer whose real name was Paul Revere Dick.

Formed in 1958, they actually pre-dated the "British Invasion," but their group persona came in handy after the Beatles, et al, started dominating the US Charts.

I saw them in concert three times, and they were always fun--not to mention extremely GOOD.

Their final "Great Song," and their only #1 came in 1971, with a tune written by prolific songwriter John D. Loudermilk--an eventual member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who had already written hits for The Everly Brothers, Johnny Cash, Chet Atkins and several others.

"Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)" had already been a hit for British singer Don Fardon, who had taken it to #3 on Britain's Top 40 and #20 Billboard's Hot 100.

And here's where it gets oddly interesting...

Raiders lead singer Mark Lindsay was looking for songs for a solo album, when he came across "Indian Reservation." Being part Cherokee himself, he felt it would be a perfect match for...you guessed it: The Raiders.

For some reason, Paul wasn't available...and neither were the rest of the band, so Mark hired The Wrecking Crew (Them again!) to back him up and recorded it himself under the Raiders' name And, of course, it went straight to #1.

(Trivia: The organ solo at the end of the song is the same exact ending used on Janis Ian's song "Society's Child." That's because the same organist (Artie Butler) played on both songs and thought it would fit nicely!)

And speaking of irony, here's a blurb I've stolen verbatim from songfacts.com:

"Isn't it ironic that a song brimming with simmering rage and an implied threat to retake the land for the natives, was written by a white country songwriter, and recorded by a band named after the white European patriots whose colonization of the US took the land from the Cherokees in the first place."

Definitely food for thought.

(More Trivia: The last line of the song, "The Cherokee Nation will return..." turned out to be prophetic:

The Eastern and Western bands of the Cherokee Nation became one again on April 6, 1984 when the tribes officially reunited in Tennessee.

Indian Reservation by...Mark Lindsay & The Raiders," a "Great Song of 1971!"

Don Fardon:

Janis Ian (Society's Child):