Members of Paul Revere and The Raiders in a contractually necessary 'mystery' guise
Label: Marlin
Year of Release: 1967
When bands emerged in the sixties with names like "The Guess Who" or "The You Know Who Group", the management and label responsible were usually hoping radio programmers and the general public would be suckered by the idea that it was The Beatles or The Stones in disguise. Usually, the story was blander and simpler, and behind those vague monikers lay hungry musicians or producers desperate for a hit.
On very rare occasions, though, there would be famous people behind the record, and lo and behold, here we have a bona-fide example of that. The Unknowns consist of Mark Lindsay and Keith Allison of Paul Revere and The Raiders collaborating with friend and non-top 40 recording artist Steve Alaimo. The individuals all met while Alaimo was musical director on the television series "Where The Action Is", and began to scheme about the possibility of putting some of The Raiders' lesser known LP tracks across to a wider audience.
The slightly blandly named The Unknowns were the resulting mystery band, with the individuals in question lying low in order to avoid being caught breaking their respective recording contracts. This had the obvious disadvantage of causing the group to be unable to promote their own releases. The first, "Melody for an Unknown Girl", got to number 74 in the Billboard charts despite this, but the second single "Tighter" seemed to totally fail to capture anyone's attention.
