Lyrics Dancing Flower Sad O' Sad The Clock I Will See You By The Sun Alcatraz And The Rain She Sang Hymns Out Of Tune Bitter Green We Want It All  The "Time Is" Lineup Greg Masters, Dave Pritchard, Mike Hopkins, Dave Walker, Roger Spencer. |
Time
Is UK / Regal Zonophone / SLRZ1017 (stereo) 1971 Produced & Arranged by The Idle Race & Kenneth Young Associate Producer Don Arden (see lyric pages for songwriting credits) Released May 1971 Following the departure of Jeff Lynne to the Move in the month of January 1970, the Idle Race recruited Mike Hopkins (guitar/vocals) and Dave Walker (vocals/harmonica) and hired the legendary managerial talents of Don Arden. They then released their final two Liberty singles, and although being cover versions, they both echoed an earlier 'Birthday Party' sound. The singles "In The Summertime" (Mungo Jerry) and "Neanderthal Man" (Hotlegs) enjoyed moderate success in some parts of Europe. But it was in South America, in particular Argentina where they scored their first number one, scaling the top of the charts with "In The Summertime" and very soon after achieving massive sales with the Neanderolithic follow up! Despite the unexpected success of both singles, the band received not a penny, not even to this day! The excuses made to the band by the record company bordered along the lines of pollitical unstability within Argentina meant that they were unable to extract the royalties! Mmmm?! Dissolusioned by this, the band moved to Regal Zonophone through which their third and final album "Time Is" was issued. With the new label came a new direction, gone was the quirky well crafted pop. It was replaced by a progressive-bluesy, folk rock sound, far removed from anything the band had done previously. The album, penned largely by Dave Pritchard, differed vastly from the quirky pop of old. By comparing Dave's previous songs with those on this album, there is a noticable change in style towards more moody compositions. Dancing Flower (The Idle Race meet Jethro Tull!), the first track from the album was issued as a single backed with "Bitter Green". It failed to excite the record buying public... That of course is neither here nor there as there was probably a case that the record buying public probably never got the chance to hear it! Many of the album tracks leaned heavily towards 'electric folk' music, notably "Dancing Flower", "And The Rain", "I Will See You", and "Bitter Green", whereas in contrast, "By The Sun" with it's extensive heavy blues instrumental break was more reminiscent of Black Sabbath's first LP recorded the preceeding year. |
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The middle ground was covered by the Deep Purple-esque "Alcatraz" and two lovely ballads "The Clock" and "Sad O' Sad". Polished within the grooves of this album, you can hear the lads dipping their collective feet back into the pure Idle Race sound, calIing out for one last time... "She Sang Hymns Out Of Tune". Interestingly, "She Sang Hymns" had been a regular from the band's live set as early as 1967 as had Pritchard's 'B' side to the Summertime single "Told You Twice", the latter of which had been recorded live by The Idle Race on the BBC while Jeff was still in the band. After working so hard to make the Race work for so many years a despondent Dave Pritchard quit, unhappy with the management and lack of success the band had endured. The band quickly disintergrated... He was followed soon after by Dave Walker (to Fleetwood Mac then Savoy Brown), Roger Spencer and Mike Hopkins! And then there was one... Greg Masters was now the only original member left and obviously decided to give it one more try by teaming up with Bob Wilson & Dave Carroll (Both ex-Tea And Symphony), Bob Lamb (ex-Locomotive) and Steve Gibbons (ex-Balls).
The Idle Race ceased to be on February 1972 when Greg decided to call it a day. The remaining members replaced Masters with Bob Griffin and then replaced Bob Griffin with ex-Move'r Trevor Burton. As The Nightriders had become The Idle Race, so The Idle Race became The Steve Gibbons Band, but that's another web page!!! |
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 THE BIRTHDAY PARTY |
 IDLE RACE (self titled album) |
 TIME IS |
| IDLE DISCOGRAPHY | 'NIGHTRIDERS' DISCOGRAPHY | NON-ALBUM TRACKS |
| Back To The Idle Index | NEWS | A Short Story of the Idle Race Part One |
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