Paul Revere And The Raiders - Evolution to Revolution: 5 Classic Albums (1965-67/2013)

They may have looked like a thrown-together cartoon band with their Revolutionary War outfits and various slapstick gimmicks, but Paul Revere & the Raiders were actually a veteran R&B cover band out of the Northwest, and when fame found them working as a house cover band on the teen television show Where the Action Is in the mid-'60s, they were ready to run with the spotlight, and charted several solid singles like "Steppin' Out," "Just Like Me," "Kicks," "Hungry," "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone," and "Good Thing" that were sharp, well sung and played, and full of a kind of sassy, garage punk attitude that eventually rendered the prop uniforms they wore obsolete. This double-disc set compiles five albums the band released for Columbia Records between 1965 and 1967, and it essentially captures the core of the Raiders' legacy, containing all of the above hit singles plus innumerable covers of frat house classics like "Louie, Louie," but for this band, covers weren't exactly filler, since they handled them so well. When all was said and done, for a couple of years Paul Revere & the Raiders managed to walk that difficult line between the pop teen magazines and actual musical relevancy, and if the group's albums weren't exactly scene changers, the singles they released during the band's prime still shine pretty well and brightly.