Mark Lindsay explains “Indian Reservation”
Dec 2nd, 2009 by admin
The story goes that Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders did NOT sing on “Indian Reservation,” their biggest chart success. Back in ‘93 when I was doing mid-days at Oldies 106.7 in Portland, I mentioned that ‘fact’ on the air. I was reading from The Billboard Book of Number One Hits, so I presumed it was right.
I’d mentioned the story several times before during the three years I spent at KISN-FM down the street. But this time I got a call from a gal who called herself the President of the Mark Lindsay Fan Club. She corrected me and asked if I wanted Mark to actually call and correct it. I said “Sure!”
Awhile later (days? weeks? I don’t recall), Mark in fact did call and we had the following conversation:
A few years later when I was working weekends at KISN-FM, I had a random meeting with Mark that still cracks me up. You gotta understand that as a kid in the mid-60s, my favorite bands were The Beatles, Paul Revere and the Raiders and the Rolling Stones, in that order. I’m sure I had posters of them all in my room. I thought Mark was cool for two reasons: In my mind he was as good a rock singer as John Lennon, and he had a cool ponytail. Plus the Raiders played some might fine rock and roll.
So there I was working weekends at KISN-FM when Roger Hart walked into the control room. The place was deserted. Roger – KISN sales guy and former manager of the Raiders – said, “Hey I’d like to introduce you to Mark Lindsay!”
I was a little awestruck. I shook his hand, said about three words and noticed that my song was about to end. I said “Hang on!” and pulled my cans (headphones) on, did a brief break, and punched up a commercial set. Roger and Mark had meanwhile exited the room during my break to let me do my on-air business.
This was in the days where nothing was digital; you had to start each cart/commercial individually. And the break was about five minutes long. I waited through the seemingly endless break, fired up the next song and rushed out to chat a bit more with Mark and Roger.
They were gone. Vanished. Poof. As if they hadn’t existed.
Total bummer. I didn’t even get an autograph. Guess they were in a hurry!
But I did get to meet one of my childhood idols. For about 5 seconds. And exchange about five words.
But hey, now we’re Facebook friends!







And of course if you read a lot like I do that means you have dozens if not hundreds of books you can put in your list. I haven’t added more than than about three dozen, but give me time.











