Bill Grauer and Riverside Records: Capturing the Sounds from Sports and Race Cars

It began with RLP 5001 -- "Sounds of Sebring:  The 1956 Florida International Twelve-Hour Grand Prix of Endurance."

"At Sebring, everybody has problems and for the most part all this worry and fuss is just for the fun of it. And because it's for the fun of it, Sebring is a terribly wonderfully exciting spectacle."

The most unusual sound recording's A side began with interviews of drivers, a prelude to  the listener experiencing "sounds at rest:" a 3 liter Maserati; 3.5; 3.5 liter Ferrari; a Lotus; and finally a Porsche Spyder. Driver interviews connects us to ghosts from the past:

Stirling Moss
Jean Behra and Carlos Medniteguy
Pochirio Rubirosa
Peter Collins
Bill Spear
 Juan Manuel Fangio
John Gordon Bennett
Reg Parnell
Marquis de Portago
Luigi Musso


The flip side included hour by hour reports of the 12 hour race. Who do you think would care about all of this? But this was not a one-off exercise, for over the next seven years many other vinyl discs of   racing sounds and exotic cars would follow, and amuse a generation  or two of sports car enthusiasts. A label with a reputation for jazz recording left a legacy for the automotive historian to mine and explicate.

From the dust jacket of Riverside Records RLP 5002 [1957?]

"The theme here, then is engine noise: exhaust, valve, camshaft.  The variation on the theme are endless. As long as men design and build engines, there'll be enthusiasts trying to make them perform better. When they blow up, they'll simply build engines that won't blow up. The automobile is unique in the history of civilization. It has provided man with effortless transportation -- freed him, as it were, from the bounds of his physical limitations. And to the men who own own and run these cars, it is given, more than to most men, to create as well as to savor the magic bouquet of speed."



I have often wondered how  working-class kid from Kenmore, New York became obsessed with sports cars as a teenager.  I finally realized that obsession at age 18 with the purchase of a 1959 MGA in 1966. Now, at age 69, I look back at that time in my life and am trying to understand my thinking at a time in life when I did little deliberate thinking.

It may have been that my fascination with sports cars -- ironic since my family never even considered foreign cars -- can be traced to a record that I owned as a child. Between the ages of 12 and 14 I went with my friend Steve Kelley and family to Toronto, where at the Eaton's Department store I acquired a copy of Riverside Records "Vintage Sports Cars in Stereo." On one side the record featured the sounds of a number of vintage cars I had never heard of before: a Frazer-Nash; Type 51 Bugatti; E.R.A.; P3 Alfa Romero; Alta; V16 Maserati. On the other side a vintage race was narrated by the famous David Scott-Moncrieff. I can't tell you how many times I listened to that record, but it was important enough to take it to Davidson College with me and to give this prized possession to my roommate, Paul Garrigus.

Most recently, due to a contact from David Williams, editor of the Ferrari Club magazine, "The Prancing Horse"  I ended up buying a copy of "Vintage Sports Cars in Stereo" on Ebay, and will give you my thoughts on listening  it as soon as it arrives from Great Britain.

My initial response listening to the first side of the record:

At first, I felt almost silly listening to David Scott-Moncrieff trying to narrate stories of  several of the various race cars above the din of raging engine sounds.  But by the end of my first listen to the sounds I was first enthralled with some 50 years ago, I began to understand how a blind person might experience auto racing and race cars. I was also stunned by the phenomenal sound  reproduction contained on this record: background whistles, the  faintest of gear sounds, combustion signatures -- all can be heard.  I need to listen and meditate more on this record, but I must say the experience is little different than going to cars and coffee and hearing some wise guy crank up his motor.  Except in this car we are dealing with cars of distinction and historical significance far beyond that of a recent Corvette.


The Riverside Records story is worth telling.  Well-known for its remarkable 1950s and early 1960s Jazz labels, Riverside was the result of the efforts of Bill Grauer and business partner Orrin Keepnews.

Grauer was a 1943 graduate of Columbia University (1944 MA) , and was  known as a jazz aficionado. An aggressive businessman, Grauer was driven to transform Riverside Records into a major label. By the early 1960s his accounting practices were suspect, but the issue was never resolved because of his premature death in 1963 as the result of a heart attack.
For whatever quirky reason, Grauer led an effort to capture car and aviation engine sounds, producing by 1961 some 24+ albums on race and sports cars along with fighter jet engine sounds and WWI aircraft. He brought to enthusiasts 8 LP's featuring Sebring endurance races and the sounds from Bonneville Salt Flats. Other sounds included hot rods, drag racers and vintage sports cars.

The technology used to capture these sounds improved over time.  Early on, mention was made of a mobile recording unit using a specially modified Magnacorder equipment and a Stevens "True-Sonic" microphone.

More on this and other related topics in the very near future.

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