Paul Revere, lead singer and organist for Paul Revere And The Raiders, has died. He was 76.
TMZ reports that Revere (real name Paul Revere Dick) had been battling cancer since last year, but no official cause of death has been announced.
Revere’s Raiders got their commercial start in 1963, when they released a successful cover of Richard Berry’s “Louie, Louie.” The group would go on to release four top 10 singles in the ’60s, including “Good Thing,” “Hungry,” and “Him Or Me, What’s It Gonna Be.” The group also had a top 10 hit with the anti-drug song “Kicks,” which found the group dabbling in psychedelia—while still dressed as Revolutionary War fighters, of course.
In 1971, the group ditched its costumes and put out “Indian Reservation (The Lament Of The Cherokee Reservation Indian,” its biggest hit. The track went to No. 1 on the Billboard charts that July and subsequently sold more than a million copies.
Paul Revere And The Raiders also served as the house band for Dick Clark’s Where The Action Is television show, and appeared as themselves on an episode of Batman.
Though the Raiders’ lead singer, Mark Lindsay, eventually left the group, and other members came and went, Revere hung in there with the Raiders for more than five decades, remaining one of rock’s true wild men until the very end.