All-Time Greatest Hits

AMG Review of All-Time Greatest Hits

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

This 20-track double-LP featured the 17 chart singles scored by Paul Revere & the Raiders featuring Mark Lindsay from 1965 to 1970, plus their debut Columbia Records single, "Louie Louie" (in electronically rechanneled stereo), the autobiographical "Legend of Paul Revere," and the B-side "Do Unto Others." In condensed form, the album demonstrated that the group had been a consistent hit machine with a lively pop/rock style, whether its course was being charted by outside songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (the Top Ten hits "Kicks" and "Hungry") or Lindsay and producer Terry Melcher (the Top Ten hits "Good Thing" and "Him or Me -- What's It Gonna Be?"). Even after Lindsay took over the reins alone, he managed a string of Top 40 successes -- "Too Much Talk," "Don't Take It So Hard," "Mr. Sun, Mr. Moon," "Let Me!," and "We Gotta All Get Together" -- that were among the more entertaining rock tracks on AM radio in 1968 and 1969. The obvious question, however, is why this album does not contain the number one 1971 hit "Indian Reservation." Nevertheless, for most of the 1970s, All-Time Greatest Hits was the only Paul Revere & the Raiders album in print, and it wasn't really superseded until the release of the double-CD/cassette The Legend of Paul Revere in 1990.