Racing Cars are a Welsh pop band, formed in the Rhondda Valleys, Wales in 1973.
1977, and a South Wales band called Racing Cars appears on primetime TV show Top Of The Pops for the first and last time, playing their unexpected minor hit single, the maudlin ballad “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”, inspired by Sydney Pollack’s 1969 film on the marathon jitterbug dance contests of the thirties’ depression. The lead vocalist and principal songwriter is a stubby, bearded Welshman called Morty, or Gareth Mortimer to give him his full moniker. Aside from Morty the most notable name amongst these assorted sons of the Rhondda is that of Ray Ennis, sometime trad jazz banjoist and member of the celebrated sixties Merseybeat ensemble, the Swinging Blue Jeans.
Racing Cars came together in 1973 and belatedly joined the London Pub Rock circuit early in ‘76, playing with a degree of sophistication and instrumental virtuosity that marked them out above most of their contemporaries. Landing a contract with Chrysalis Records, they cut their first album Downtown Tonight just in time to see it swept away by the punk explosion. Very much the right product at the wrong time, it deserved better treatment: the single was briefly in vogue a year on, but the album predictably failed to set the record shop tills alight. Residual popularity on the college circuit kept the band going for four further years and two further albums, but the one-hit-wonders tag would stick till the end.
Apart from the atypical, string-quintet-laden “Horses”, Downtown Tonight features the honest, solidly-constructed sort of electric guitar-based music that the Pub Rock genre is still regarded with affection for: rocking mid-tempo songs mixing blues, country, soul and funk inflections, a powerful twin-lead attack, solid rhythm section, occasional guest piano, and warm rough-cut vocal harmonies. Ennis in particular plays mean slide and crafts some fine harmony runs with partner Graham Hedley Williams on “Pass The Bottle”, as well as exhuming his banjo for some rapid three-finger picking against Williams’s Albert Lee-style Telecastering on the unashamedly honkytonk “Get Out And Get It”. The stirring opener “Calling The Tune” offers some fine pentatonic widdling over its simple riff structure, whilst “Four Wheel Drive” is a butt-kickin’ funk instrumental right out of the Average White Band’s fakebook. Add in the languid ballads of the title track and “Horses” and the unassuming, lo-fi production and all in all it’s a set that would have been a modest pleasure heard live and loud one evening in some smoky tavern.
01. Calling the Tune (4:17)
Written-By - Gareth Mortimer
02. Hard Working Woman (4:13)
03. Ladee-Lo )4:32'
04. Downtown Tonight (5:55)
Written-By - Gareth Mortimer
05. Pass the Bottle (4:41)
Written-By - Gareth Mortimer
06. Moonshine Fandango (3:51)
Written-By - Gareth Mortimer
07. Four Wheel Drive (3:10)
08. Get Out and Get It (3:04)
Written-By - Gareth Mortimer
09. They Shoot Horses Don't They? (3:40)
Written-By - Gareth Mortimer
10. They Shoot Horses Don't They? (6:12)
Written-By - Gareth Mortimer
Companies, etc.
Credits
Genre: Soft Rock
Length: 43:35
Label - Chrysalis Records
Racing Cars came together in 1973 and belatedly joined the London Pub Rock circuit early in ‘76, playing with a degree of sophistication and instrumental virtuosity that marked them out above most of their contemporaries. Landing a contract with Chrysalis Records, they cut their first album Downtown Tonight just in time to see it swept away by the punk explosion. Very much the right product at the wrong time, it deserved better treatment: the single was briefly in vogue a year on, but the album predictably failed to set the record shop tills alight. Residual popularity on the college circuit kept the band going for four further years and two further albums, but the one-hit-wonders tag would stick till the end.
Apart from the atypical, string-quintet-laden “Horses”, Downtown Tonight features the honest, solidly-constructed sort of electric guitar-based music that the Pub Rock genre is still regarded with affection for: rocking mid-tempo songs mixing blues, country, soul and funk inflections, a powerful twin-lead attack, solid rhythm section, occasional guest piano, and warm rough-cut vocal harmonies. Ennis in particular plays mean slide and crafts some fine harmony runs with partner Graham Hedley Williams on “Pass The Bottle”, as well as exhuming his banjo for some rapid three-finger picking against Williams’s Albert Lee-style Telecastering on the unashamedly honkytonk “Get Out And Get It”. The stirring opener “Calling The Tune” offers some fine pentatonic widdling over its simple riff structure, whilst “Four Wheel Drive” is a butt-kickin’ funk instrumental right out of the Average White Band’s fakebook. Add in the languid ballads of the title track and “Horses” and the unassuming, lo-fi production and all in all it’s a set that would have been a modest pleasure heard live and loud one evening in some smoky tavern.
01. Calling the Tune (4:17)
Written-By - Gareth Mortimer
02. Hard Working Woman (4:13)
03. Ladee-Lo )4:32'
04. Downtown Tonight (5:55)
Written-By - Gareth Mortimer
05. Pass the Bottle (4:41)
Written-By - Gareth Mortimer
06. Moonshine Fandango (3:51)
Written-By - Gareth Mortimer
07. Four Wheel Drive (3:10)
08. Get Out and Get It (3:04)
Written-By - Gareth Mortimer
09. They Shoot Horses Don't They? (3:40)
Written-By - Gareth Mortimer
10. They Shoot Horses Don't They? (6:12)
Written-By - Gareth Mortimer
Companies, etc.
- Engineered At – Wessex Sound Studios
- Phonographic Copyright (p) – Chrysalis Records Ltd.
- Published By – Chrysalis Music Ltd.
Credits
- Acoustic Guitar – Morty, Graham Hedley Williams
- Backing Vocals [Additional] – Bowles Bros. Band
- Banjo – Ray "Alice" Ennis
- Bass – David Land
- Drums – Robert James Wilding
- Electric Guitar – Graham Hedley Williams, Ray "Alice" Ennis
- Engineer – Bill Price, Ric Stokes
- Keyboards – Rod Edwards, Roger Hand
- Lead Vocals – Morty
- Mastered By – HTM
- Mastered By [Metalwork] – EG
- Percussion – Robert James Wilding, Tony Carr
- Producer – Bill Price, Racing Cars
- Slide Guitar – Ray "Alice" Ennis
- Vocals – David Land, Ray "Alice" Ennis
- Written-By – G. Mortimer
Genre: Soft Rock
Length: 43:35
Label - Chrysalis Records
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