Indian Reservation

AMG Review of Indian Reservation

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

John D. Loudermilk's composition "Indian Reservation (Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)," a Native American protest song, doesn't have much to do with The Raiders' earlier music or image. But a hit is a hit is a hit, and the song went to number one in the summer of 1971, briefly resurrecting what had been a nearly moribund recording career for The Raiders. The inevitable cash-in album was an oddly thrown-together affair, including Raiders versions of songs like "The Shape of Things to Come" (from the movie Wild in the Streets, for which singer Mark Lindsay had been short-listed as the lead) and "Eve of Destruction" (guess it was the protest angle that got it on). Then there was Leon Russell's "Prince of Peace" (Russell once subbed for Revere on a tour, so maybe there was some payback here) and the recent Stevie Wonder hit "Heaven Help Us All." None of this sounded like Raiders material, but it did resemble the kind of stuff Lindsay was covering under his own name.