No Other

Remembering
Gene Clark
www.caughtbytheriver.net
Remembering Gene Clark has been created to mark
the twentieth anniversary of Gene’s passing, 24 May 2011.
Edited by Jeff Barrett
Written by Mick Houghton
Designed by Sunny Park
American Dreamer
by Mick Houghton
Caught by the River would like to thank the following people
for their support and involvement in this project:
Mick Houghton, Sunny Park, Martin Kelly, Bobby Gillespie, Kris Needs, Carla Olson,
Barry Ballard, Tim Burgess, Andy Childs, Stephen Cracknell, Aaron Fletcher,
Barney Hoskyns, John York, John Tobler, Pete Frame, James Skelly, Neville Skelly,
Andy Roberts, Sarah Lowe, Danny Champ, Jim Sclavunos, Andrew Male, Kevin Pearce,
Richard Norris, Rich Machin, Gary Lucas, Craig Leon, Wendy Barrett, Danny Mitchell.
Thanks to Tommy Sheehan for the photo on page 5.
Age Engebretsen was kind enough to let us use images from
his collection. This can be found at mygeneclarkpage.com.
Suggested further reading:
John Einarson, Mr. Tambourine Man (Backbeat Books)
And a special thank you to ‘The Sound of Young Scotland’. The reason why.
“The one to watch is Gene Clark of The Byrds,
he’s got something to say and I’m listening.”
Bob Dylan, 1965
In April 1977,
three former Byrds
arrived in London to play two shows at Hammersmith
Odeon on April 30th and May 1st. Each had a new album
in tow, Roger McGuinn’s Thunderbyrd, Chris Hillman’s
Slippin’ Away and Gene Clark’s Two Sides to Every Story.
Clark opened the show, McGuinn headlined but I wasn’t
alone in thinking that if there was any justice in the
world, the billing would have been reversed. But there
was never too much justice in Gene Clark’s world. He was
always dealt a poor hand. To this day, Clark is the most
underrated and under-appreciated singer/songwriter in
music history, an artist who laid bare his soul time and
time again and deserves to be spoken of in the same
breath as Neil Young or Gram Parsons, even Bob Dylan.
You’re going to read a lot about Bob Dylan this month.
Dylan turns 70 on May 24th, the day that Gene Clark
died twenty years ago, but I suspect you’ll find few other
tributes to Gene Clark.
At the end of the Hammersmith show, Clark and
Hillman joined McGuinn’s band to perform a handful of
Byrds’ crowd-pleasers. As Clark and Hillman ambled on
stage, McGuinn asked them, “Do you wanna be a rock
’n’ roll star?” He looked at Hillman who said “Sure…”,
and then across to Gene Clark who, with some emphasis,
responded with a simple “No!”. It was an honest answer
from someone who had retreated from the limelight ten
years before when he left The Byrds. This was the man
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whose No Other album opens with a song called ‘Life’s
Greatest Fool’ and a world-weary statement that he had
been ‘Formed out of pleasure / Chiselled by pain’.
I met Gene Clark towards the end of a day of interviews ahead of the Hammersmith shows. Heavily bearded and dishevelled, he was a little worse for booze, chain
smoking Embassy’s of all things, throughout the interview. He wasn’t difficult, he certainly wasn’t unfriendly,
just vague and uncomfortable in the surroundings of a
posh Mayfair hotel room. When I asked him about No
Other, his comments were mostly about how the album
had been unceremoniously dumped by David Geffen,
the Dillard and Clark albums he had fun making but they
were too rushed, Roadmaster was half-finished and his
most ignored and, to my mind, greatest album, White
Light was a memory too far. Naturally, he didn’t want to
talk about the Byrds either. It was a strange encounter
but somehow fitting.
I’m sure Gene Clark was often a fun guy to be around
especially when he was away from the public gaze, but
listening to his songs, it’s as if he always had a broken
heart. Even his songs with the Byrds have that hearttugging, lonesome quality. When they recorded ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ the Byrds invented folk rock. It’s one of the
few rock ’n’ roll clichés that’s actually true but in 1965, as
far as anyone in this country was concerned, Roger (then
Jim) McGuinn was voice of the Byrds. Catching glimpses
of the Byrds on Top of the Pops, it was McGuinn in those
ridiculous granny glasses who appeared to be the main
man. Gene Clark was just the tall guy with chiselled features, standing at the back, beating a tambourine against
his backside.
We now realise that it’s Gene Clark’s songs that were
at the heart of the two albums he recorded with The Byrds. The yearning ‘Here Without You’ and Clark’s signature song ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’ from Mr Tambou4
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rine Man stand tall against the Dylan covers. When you
come to the Turn Turn Turn album, Clark saw a number
of his songs excluded in favour of weaker offerings by the
others, and a poor, pointless cover of Stephen Foster’s
‘Oh Susannah’. Clark still squeezes in three classics: ‘Set
You Free This Time’, the pre-power pop ‘The World Turns
All Around Her’ and melancholy ‘If You’re Gone’, even
if there isn’t room for ‘She Don’t Care About Time’, the
brilliant, cryptic b-side of ‘Turn Turn Turn’. Clark had effectively become third in line in the Byrds’ pecking order,
overshadowed not only by McGuinn but also by the more
outgoing David Crosby.
As a result, in 1966, Gene Clark became the first major star (and he was a star, certainly in America), to walk
out of a leading group at their peak. Fear of flying and his
reluctance to tour is always flagged up as the reason but
Clark was also wary of the glare of publicity and there was
a growing animosity with his fellow Byrds because he was
making more money. While his brooding songs didn’t lend
themselves to singles, he wrote the b-sides to both their US
No.1’s. When the cheerless Clark original ‘Set You Free This
Time’ was released as the Byrds’ fourth single, it stalled and
was flipped in preference to the frothier ‘It Won’t Be Wrong’.
An almost inherent lack of commerciality would dog Clark’s
career throughout his life.
Clark’s parting gift to the Byrds was in providing the
original poem for the mind blowing ‘Eight Miles High’.
Nothing the Byrds recorded till then prepared anybody for
its sheer sonic assault. Clark’s thoughtful lyric about the culture shock of the Byrds’ first UK tour set off a creative chain
reaction. David Crosby provided the ‘rain grey town’ line
and John Coltrane the musical inspiration. It’s by far the
most collaborative recording the Byrds’ ever made and apparently Clark’s and the others’ favourite Byrds’ song.
In 1966, it was impossible to launch a deep, darkly
romantic singer songwriter. Gene Clark was five years
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ahead of a trend for confessional, reflective balladeers.
Neither were his songs simplistic and direct enough once
the genre was established by the early 70s. In the two
years after Clark left the Byrds, many of his songs simply went unrecorded or ended up on abandoned recordings like the still unreleased Gene Clark Sings For You.
Clark’s only solo album for CBS was doomed from the
start. Inexplicably released in January 1967 on the same
day as his old group’s Younger Than Yesterday, it was also
confusingly titled ‘Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers’.
The poetic ‘Echoes’ was a disastrous choice as its first single: intricate, sophisticated orchestral pop which was too
daring for the pop market. The album itself was intriguing
but unfocussed, mixing sublime, stately ballads with pallid Beatles’ pastiches and Bakersfield-style country. The undoubted highlights are ‘Tried So Hard’ and ‘Keep On Pushin’
(both featuring Doug Dillard’s electric banjo) pointing the
way forward but way too forward for the time.
Clark briefly returned to the Byrds after David Crosby
left during the recording of Notorious Byrd Brothers and
his voice can be heard on ‘Goin’ Back’ but, he was never
going to be comfortable back in the nest. In any event,
in February 1968, he signed with A&M. It was at Clark’s
insistence that, instead of putting out a second solo album, his next two recordings were billed as Dillard & Clark,
The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark and Through the
Morning Through the Night, both completely out on a limb
stylistically and both as fantastic as the first title boasted.
Five years later, the puzzle became clearer whereby
Dylan, Gram Parsons, Richie Furay, The Grateful Dead,
and plenty of others besides, all had a similar notion of
integrating country music into their sound. Yet Clark’s
approach was always more ethnic, with a stronger bluegrass element befitting his partnership with Doug Dillard. Clark still managed to put his own stamp on their
unique take on country rock. His songs ground the al8
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bums, elevating them above mere instrumental workouts and including some of his finest – ‘Out on the Side’,
‘She Darked the Sun’, ‘Polly’, ‘Kansas City Southern’ and
‘Train Leaves Here This Morning’ , the latter co-written with
Bernie Leadon. When Leadon emerged as a founder member of the Eagles, they covered the song on their first album.
Leadon left after the first album when Doug Dillard
brought in Donna Washburn as vocalist. Her duet with
Clark on the Everly’s ‘So Sad’ easily equals the more renouned pairing of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris.
As ever, Clark’s all too personal and idiosyncratic songs
lacked the gut appeal of, say, Gram Parson’s songs, although Robert Plant and Allison Kraus’ recorded two of
Clarks’ exquisite expositions of lost-love from the second
Dillard & Clark album on Raising Sand, ‘Polly’ and title
track ‘Through the Morning Through the Night’.
The Dillard and Clark group collapsed by 1970, Clark
again teaming up fleetingly with the ex-Byrds, and also
recording with the Flying Burrito Brothers, these songs
eventually appearing on Roadmaster. Unfathomably released only in Holland in 1973, the bulk of Roadmaster
drew from Clark’s final sessions for A&M, an unfinished
album that’s definitely undercooked. It includes a funereal version of ‘She Don’t Care About Time’ but also some
of Clark’s most forgotten songs, the graceful, nostalgic
‘In a Misty Morning’ and more abstract ‘Shooting Star’.
If Roadmaster was a case of A&M raking up Clark’s
backlog of recordings, it followed what, in my mind, is his
true masterpiece, the harrowingly radiant White Light.
Clark began recording White Light in March 1971 with a
set of musicians he’d not recorded with before, assembled
by guitarist Jesse Ed Davis. White Light’s sparse arrangements wrap themselves around Clark’s voice, acoustic
guitar and harmonica on what is his most cultured and
intensely poetic album. Almost Dylan-like in its imagery
(reminiscent of Blonde on Blonde), it includes one of the
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great Dylan covers. Clark somehow makes ‘Tears of Rage’
his own. It fits so snugly on the record you’d be forgiven
for thinking it was a Clark original. ‘For a Spanish Guitar’
and ‘Where My Love Lies Asleep’ are blissful, haunting
acoustic ballads typical of the album’s subtle, introverted
tone. It’s a stunning album from start to finish, sustaining
its mood throughout. Up there with Neil Young’s On the
Beach, it’s the album where Gene Clark most effectively
sucks you into his contemplative, emotional world.
White Light sold abysmally and left Clark feeling disillusioned, as he did about all his major label recordings.
The problem is that you can’t easily sell Gene Clark’s kind
of philosophical, shadowy charisma. Just as John Cale
once said of Nico’s Marble Index, ‘that you can’t sell suicide’, so it was with Gene Clark. You cannot sell the kind
of almost visionary despair that was Clark’s trademark.
Well, not unless you are Neil Young.
The Byrds reunion album in 1973 may well be best
forgotten although Gene Clark’s songs and his two lead
vocals on covers of Neil Young’s ‘Cowgirl in the Sand’ and
‘See the Sky about to Rain’ are easily the strongest. It was
a strangely lacklustre affair which at least gave Clark the
chance to record another solo album, the extraordinary
No Other, this time for David Geffen’s Elektra/Asylum.
The common misconception is that No Other is a drug inspired album. The meditative ‘From a Silver Phial’, written soon after Gram Parson’s death, gives most rise to
such speculation in the line ‘we all need a fix’ although
Clark would always point out that ‘fix’ does have other
meanings. Interestingly, it has the same epic grandeur as
Dion’s, Phil Spector produced Born To Be With You, an album of very similar appeal, released a year later in 1975.
No Other almost buckles under the weight of its erudite lyricism, almost Biblical at times, a feature enhanced
by soaring gospel choruses and operatic intent. When
David Geffen heard the over budget album, he was exas12
perated by the length of the songs, none of which were
remotely FM radio friendly. Geffen does have a point, the
dense arrangements swamp Clark’s most profoundly articulate of lyrics. And in keeping with such a grandiose
album, No Other came wrapped in an ornate, iconoclastic
(some say ludicrous) sleeve with Gene Clark living out an
art deco/Rudolph Valentino fantasy. The photo of farm
boy Clark in drag sent out mixed signals and Clark’s most
conceptually arty album was buried by David Geffen.
At risk of being branded a philistine, I find No Other a little too overwrought compared to the elegance of
White Light. In any event, Clark immediately went to the
other extreme and it’s fascinating to hear some of the No
Other songs redefined by Clark with a two man back up
band, usually referred to as the Silverados. This stripped
down band never recorded but fortunately, on February
19, 1975, Clark played a Denver club called Ebbets Field,
where he shared the bill with Tom Waits. Recorded by
the local radio station, the show was released through
Collector’s Choice in 2008. Silverado ’75: Live & Unreleased finds Clark relaxed and good humoured, backed
by Roger White on guitar and Duke Bardwell on bass
and acoustic guitar and it’s up there with the best of his
official albums. He plays ‘Silver Raven’ and ‘No Other’,
both benefiting from having the space to breathe, along
side a career cross section of songs stretching back to an
aching ‘Here Without You’ and ‘Set You Free This Time’.
Even these might be surpassed by Clark’s renditions of
‘Long Black Veil’ and ‘In the Pines’ which reveal just how
great a country singer he was.
Sadly, the Silverado band had been ditched by 1977’s
Two Sides to Every Story which found an unlikely home on
the RSO label and proved to be Clark’s last major label release. It was a curate’s egg of a record, rescued by the expected poignant sad songs ‘Past Addresses’, ‘Sister Moon’
and ‘Silent Crusade’ – all reflecting his recent marital
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breakdown. The reunion of sorts in 1977, with McGuinn
and Hillman, led to three albums for Capitol though only
the first featured Clark to any degree. There is little to recommend them, even Clark’s songs are undistinguished.
In truth, he was spiralling downhill physically and mentally and had little to offer the ill-advised proceedings.
Having been a hardened drinker since leaving the Byrds in 1966, Clark had since added hard drugs to his excessive alcohol intake although he had cleaned up by the
time he recorded the passable Firebyrd album in 1984 for
the small Takomah label. ‘Rain Song’, ‘Rodeo Rider’, and
‘Something About You’ were all good if not great Clark
songs, if a little too formulaic, and the album had to be
reinforced by retreads of ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ and ‘I’ll
Feel a Whole Lot Better’. The success of R.E.M. and LA’s
paisley underground scene threw the spotlight back on
the Byrds, and Clark in particular. He appeared on an album by The Long Ryders whose Sid Griffin did much to
champion and revive Clark’s career in the 90s.
In 1985 (marking the 20th anniversary of the Byrds),
Clark rather unwisely formed the first in a series of Byrds’ tribute bands that involved the likes of Rick Roberts,
Rick Danko, Michael Clarke, John York and Skip Battin,
among the usual suspects. Recorded evidence suggests
they were pretty ropey and the episode drew Clark into
a nasty legal battle with McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman
over use of the group’s name.
In between touring with his ragged ‘all-stars’, Clark recorded an album with Carla Olson of the Textones in 1986,
So Rebellious a Lover. It’s blessed with the usual handful of
compelling new songs. ‘Gypsy Rider’ is the most heartfelt with almost autobiographical lyrics, but ‘Del Gato’
and ‘Why Did You Leave Me Today’ are eclipsed by Clark’s
treatment and pleasing harmonies with Olsen on the traditional ‘Fair and Tender Ladies’. The album ironically sold
better than any of his classic solo albums. The wheel had
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turned again, and So Rebellious a Lover’s country-folkroots style positioned Clark at the heart of the Americana/
alt country movement of the day. The pair continued to
perform together, taping Silhouetted In Light at McCabes in Santa Monica just over a year before his death. His
voice is shot but this only makes his fractured singing on
‘Set You Free This Time’ and ‘She Don’t Care About Time’
all the more moving and laced with resignation.
By now, Clark had begun to develop serious health
problems: he had ulcers, aggravated by years of heavy
drinking, and in 1988 underwent intestinal surgery. To cap
it all, he was diagnosed with throat cancer early in 1991
and died, on May 24th 1991, of ‘natural causes’ brought
on by another burst ulcer.
They say the devil has all the best tunes, who am I to
argue with that? Well, Gene Clark had more than his share
of the best sad ones and plenty more that were simply
breathtakingly beautiful, captivating and uplifting. Chris
Hillman probably understood Gene Clark better than
most, and in John Einarson’s highly recommended book
on Clark, Mr Tambourine Man, Hillman says Clark should
have just packed up in 1967, gone back to Missouri, settled down and raised a family: “It wasn’t supposed to be
for him. It killed him, it really killed him. Of all the people I
know, a sweet soul was just stomped on. It’s a brutal place
for many people, Hollywood. It really sees them coming.”
Mick Houghton is the author of Becoming Elektra: the True
Story of Jac Holzman’s Visionary Record Label, published
by Jawbone Books, 2010.
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Barry Ballard
Barry Ballard is a UK music journalist and archivist, with
a particular interest in and extensive knowledge of the
Byrds and their numerous off-shoots.
‘That’s Alright by Me’: For me deciding on one Gene Clark
album would be a difficult enough challenge; selecting
a favourite track applicable to all moods is simply an impossibility.
As those aware of his vast catalogue already know,
you can more or less pick a Gene Clark song to fit the
frame of mind you’re in. A day later, even an hour later,
that choice is likely to be different.
However for now, primarily because it’s a song I feel
I can still regard as unfamiliar and therefore a relatively
new discovery, I’ve chosen ‘That’s Alright by Me’.
Originally part of Gene’s post Byrds live set, a rough
version of the song was included on the legendary Sings
For You acetate. It was re-visited in 1968 with Phoenix,
the group Gene formed with Laramy Smith, and it is this
version from the 1998 A&M compilation Flying High I’ve
gone with.
Starting out with a traditional moody Clark vocal,
the song heralds an imminent relationship break-up, yet
manages to motor along at a fair speed powered by some
solid guitar work placed predominantly in the mix. As
with many of Gene’s compositions, lyrical gymnastics
abound, and any difficulty in catching some of the words
only adds to the song’s mystery and intrigue.
Background harmonies are very reminiscent of those
on the then upcoming Dillard & Clark album, and the
track would sit comfortably alongside any other on that
first record by the Expedition.
So then, it’s ‘That’s Alright by Me’. Not an obvious
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choice or well-known title perhaps, but for me that is
a large part of its attraction, and a debt of gratitude is
owed to those who finally made it available to us.
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Tim Burgess
Andy Childs
Musician, songwriter, The Charlatans
Andy Childs has had a career in the music business spanning four decades, beginning as editor of Zigzag magazine and currently as a consultant to several artists and
record labels. Music and literature have always been his
joint passions and he continues to pursue projects that
combine both worlds.
‘Echoes’: This was the first song I heard by Gene as a Solo
artist. So for this reason I claim it as, if not ‘The Best’ then
at least, the most personal to me.
I think its hard to pick the best track as there are so
many. The whole beautiful concept of the classic album
No Other is one of my favourite albums of all time, featuring Lifes Greatest Fool, ‘Silver Raven’ and ‘Strength
of Strings’. All three of those could be my favourite on
any other/given day … the whole of White Light or is
it called simply Gene Clark? which I have to point out
would probably be the album I have referenced the most.
this album influenced me a lot during the making of The
Charlatans LP the track ‘Get On It’ from that album is …
well!!!! … Basically Gene.
When Sony re-issued The Byrds’ Mr Tambourine Man
album in the mid-90s they added six obligatory ‘bonus’
tracks, one of which was a Gene Clark song called ‘She
Has a Way’ which was apparently bumped from the original release to make way for the more commercial Dylan
covers. Clark’s writing still dominates the original material on Mr Tambourine Man but it’s still a shame that this
near-perfect slice of Americanized Mersey Beat with its
memorable chiming riff and teen-angst lyrics never made
it first time. There are at least five other takes of ‘She Has
a Way’ – earlier versions can be found on the Preflyte Sessions package – but it’s this version, recorded in August
1965 when the Byrds looked and sounded their best, that
I will remember the great Gene Clark by.
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Stephen Cracknell
Aaron Fletcher
Musician, songwriter, The Memory Band
Musician, songwriter, The Bees
‘Silver Raven’: Ever since I first heard this song it has held
an intense fascination for me. It’s all about contrasts, with
the simple driving repetition of the country style acoustic
guitar contrasting with the spaced out psychedelic tones
of the slide guitar. The song builds and builds become
ever more intense and Clark’s voice begins to soar, but as
he does the lyric becomes ever darker and more hesitant.
And when he sings “Have you seen the silver raven / she
has wings that barely gleam / They barely gleam they
barely glimmer” the genius of the song for me is clear. It’s
that use of the word barely. In that one word he sums all
the fragile beauty of the natural world in danger. There’s
no moral conclusion to the song, just a sense of wonder,
struggle and fragility. Recurring notions in the wonderful music that Gene Clark made.
‘So You Say You Lost Your Baby’: I’ve got a comp called
Collectors Series: Early LA Sessions. The wonderful sleeve
notes talk about how this was a bunch of recordings that
were way ahead of their time. A period of regeneration
in rock and roll, where the creative London sound of the
sixties was being caught up and arguably bettered by the
Los Angeles sound … so true. For me Gene Clarks sound
is like honey, it don’t go bad.
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Bobby Gillespie
Primal Scream frontman
I used to live in Brighton in the late 80s to mid 90s. I’ve
never been someone who frequented pubs much ever but
I sometimes found myself in the Heart & Hand pub on
North Rd. In the North lanes, mainly because that’s where
my friend Sean Sullivan spent a lot of his time and also
because of the fantastic jukebox. The jukebox was stacked
with Singles by The Byrds, Yardbirds, early Stones, Animals, Love, rare psyche, 60s Soul, & some cool contemporary stuff like Cyberie’s Reverie by Stereolab which I
loved at the time. It had been stocked by a guy called Dave
Minns who had a great record shop called Borderline just
across the road in Gardner St. Dave’s main man was Gene
Clark, he loved Gene more than anyone, he even saw the
Byrds play with Gram Parsons in London in 1967 and he
came away disappointed cos Gene wasn’t there. He even
promoted Gene one time in Brighton at the Concorde &
had a great photo of him & Gene up on the wall of the
shop. Anyway, my main memory of those times is of Sean
& me getting drunk & playing ‘Why Not Your Baby’ by
Gene on repeated play on the jukebox, Dave had very
kindly donated his extremely rare precious 7” single to
the pub. Sean, like me is a Byrds fanatic but also like me
he would get melancholy when drunk and loved the sad
songs, maybe it’s a Celtic thing, I don’t know, Sean’s Irish
& I’m Scottish but he is a huge fan of Shane McGowan
and listening to ‘A Pair of Brown Eyes’ always had us in
tears, ‘Why Not Your Baby’ had the same effect on us.
Gene Clark wrote and sang some of the saddest &
most beautiful songs ever, ‘Here Without You’, ‘I Knew I’d
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Want You’, ‘With Tomorrow’, ‘She Don’t Care About Time’,
I could go on & on, He was the main songwriter in The
Byrds in the beginning when they were mainly covering
old folk songs and Dylan songs, his songs stand up alongside Dylan’s on those early albums, His version of Dylan’s
‘Tears of Rage’ is heartbreaking but ‘Why Not Your Baby’
is the saddest. When that acoustic guitar kicks in at the
beginning and then Gene sings “She wore a blue dress
when she walked in the room…”. It always destroys me.
I’m floored. It’s too much for me. How can something that
sad make you feel good? I don’t know but it does, that
mixture of melody and pain, ecstatic melancholy, beautiful sadness.
Gene is one of the great singers, his voice aches with
pain & yearning. He has that break/crack in his voice that
all the best singers have, Hank Williams had it, so did
Gram Parsons & Tim Hardin. It sounds like they’re crying
& they probably were, you can’t fake that shit. It’s the real
thing, deep soul, country blues, call it what you will, all I
know is that it moves me.
I’m going to leave you with a quote from a song Gene
wrote for Dennis Hopper’s movie ‘The American Dreamer’, one of my favourites, it’s an outlaw folk blues & I
think it gives you a picture of Gene as he really was, I’m
being romantic here but what the hell, in my mind he was
a cowboy poet outsider, a beautiful soul. “Sometimes a
thinker, sometimes a schemer, sometimes a child, sometimes a wise man, a lonely soul a great extremer but none
the less The American Dreamer.”
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Barney Hoskyns
Writer, editor of Rocks Backpages
This is the original unexpurgated section on No Other from
Barney’s book Hotel California:
Torn between his self-destructive urges and a deep
spiritual yearning that pushed him to flee LA for the
coastal northern California town of Mendocino, Gene
Clark found himself back inside the Asylum circle after
his involvement in the Byrds reunion album. Perhaps because his songs were the only substantial things on that
record, David Geffen decided to offer him a solo deal.
Clark already had a bunch of remarkable new tracks
ready – songs he’d written up in Mendocino in an almost
meditative state of reflection. Inspired by his readings of
key Zen texts, they were long and mystical pieces, some
of them bearing scant relation to Clark’s usual folk/country style. Emanating from No Other was the comparative
calm of life with his wife Carlie and son Kelly.
“There’s a lot of bullshit about Gene writing those
songs in a cocaine haze,” protests his biographer John Einarson. “He was actually very spiritual and reflective at
that point in his life, and enjoying family life in Mendocino. He didn’t do coke around the home, and the songs
were all conceived up there.”
Even the gorgeous ‘From a Silver Phial’, a song that
stayed true to Clark’s country-folk style, turned out not
to be a blatant cocaine reference. The pleading ‘Some
Misunderstanding’ played on the connotations of the
word “fix” but broadened the meaning of the word.
“My feeling about saying that,” Clark explained to
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Dark Star, “was if you fix yourself in such a pattern that
you haven’t got any channels of release or escape to go
out, look, think about it and come back in…”
Things changed once Clark was installed at LA’s Village Recorders in March 1974. With Geffen’s money at
his disposal and manic producer Thomas Jefferson Kaye
at his side, Clark made one of the most ambitious albums
to come out of California in the mid-70s, as rich with detail as White Light had been pared and minimal. A host of
stellar sidemen – the Section players included – built the
tracks into orchestral mood suites.
No Other, the album’s title track, seemed to derive
from blaxploitation funk of the time, benefiting from the
wailing gospel chorus of Claudia Lennear, Cindy Bullens and Ronnie Barron. ‘Strength of Strings’ and ‘Lady
of the North’ (co-written by Doug Dillard) were epics of
haunting, visionary beauty. ‘Silver Raven’ was a hymn to
cosmic transcendence and renewal. Though Clark cited
the influence of Goat’s Head Soup, this was music out-ofsynch with almost everything happening in rock in 1974.
Marginally less anomalous was the cover of No Other,
which was typical of the 20s Hollywood fixation of mid70s sleeve and costume designers. The work of Marlene
Dietrich’s grandson, no less, it was a collage of silentmovie stars that spoke pure Hollywood Babylon decadence. Gene himself was photographed in a pair of outrageous pantaloons: pure glam rock, without a trace of
denim in sight.
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“Gene just wanted a vacation from being a cowboy,”
Thomas Jefferson Kaye told Omaha Rainbow. “It freaked
out an awful lot of people, though.”
Close to $100,000 later, Clark presented No Other to
David Geffen at the Elektra-Asylum offices on North La
Cienega Boulevard. To Clark’s mortification, Geffen was
horrified that his considerable investment had bought
him a mere eight tracks.
“What can I do with eight songs that are six minutes long?” Geffen yelled at Clark. “Make a proper
fucking album!”
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A crestfallen Clark watched as Geffen petulantly
dropped the acetate in his bin. Gene tried to explain that
there were five tracks that he and Kaye hadn’t been able
to finish, but Geffen was in no mood to pump more money into the project.
“I explain to a lot of people that ‘No Other’ is not
the complete No Other album on that record,” Clark said.
“It was originally a thirteen-track album, but we weren’t
able to do a double record and so the rest of the songs
were left unfinished. No Other I really consider is a great
album myself, I’m very proud of it. But I was very disappointed and let down after its release that it didn’t go any
further than it did.”
“David just dropped it and wouldn’t get behind it,”
Thomas Jefferson Kaye recalled. “He wouldn’t give us
any money to go on tour or to subsidise a band or anything.”
Clark never quite recovered from blowing his big shot
at a comeback. He failed to land a major-label deal and
his drinking began to get worse. As Linda Ronstadt and
the Eagles ascended on LA’s up-escalator, Gene slowly
descended with the other mavericks who didn’t fit the
record industry’s round holes.
“Gene became an increasingly tragic figure, just because he lasted longer than the other guys,” says Bud
Scoppa. “He didn’t leave as handsome a corpse. Talk
about underrated.”
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Martin Kelly
Co-founder Heavenly Recordings.
Co-author Fender: the Golden Age
I grew up on a staple diet of Beatles records that my parents had kicking around the house so when my older
brother Paul got me into Bob Dylan at 15 it was a logical
move to check out the Byrds. In a pre CD, pre internet
1981 you couldn’t buy the groups individual albums, let
alone download them and all that was available in my
local record store was The Best of the Byrds a single vinyl
14 track compilation.
That summer, that record blew me away and had a
huge influence on forming a band of my own. The stand
out track for me wasn’t a Dylan cover or anything by
guitarists Roger McGuinn and David Crosby but a song
by Gene Clark titled ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’. Finding
information or even pictures of the band in the early 80s
was tough but I soon realised that Clark was the tall sultry tambourine player – one cool motherfucker and the
groups main songwriter during his short stint with them.
Years of crate digging ensued as I gathered up every record by the Byrds and in turn even harder to find solo
albums by Gene with the Gosdin Brothers and Doug Dillard. It was the start of a fantastic voyage of discovery
that led me down many musical avenues and to meet
like minded souls most of whom have remained friends
for life.
Gene was an amazing songwriter who fused folk with
baroque pop, country and bluegrass. He wrote the most
poetic, haunting lyrics that stay with you long after the music ends. He sang with a heartfelt tenderness on songs like
– ‘She Don’t Care About Time’, ‘Spanish Guitar’ and ‘American Dreamer’ – that one rarely hears in recorded music.
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It seems hard to believe that it’s 20 years since hearing the news of Gene’s death, a tragic and untimely loss.
I listen to his music often and it still gets me in a way that
no one else does. Like his friend and band mate Michael
Clarke this Byrd has flown but his legacy certainly lives on.
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Gerry Love
Musician, songwriter, Teenage Fanclub
Although I don’t remember the exact date, I do remember, quite clearly, the moment I first heard a Gene Clark
record. I was visiting Eugene Kelly’s flat above the old
Canton Express on Sauchiehall Street on a classic midsummer evening in 1992, during one of those four hour
slow motion sunsets that occasionally unfold in the west
of Scotland. It was back in the time of grunge, and I was
slouching on the living room floor, 24 years old, with
the back of my head resting against the sofa. There was
smoke hanging in the air, a window was open, and outside Glasgow was gilded in that glorious transformative
light, the type of light that you hope for all through the
dark gloomy stretches of winter. There were a few of us
there, having a smoke, listening to some records before
we headed out for a drink at The Griffin. Eugene’s flatmate, Richard, who was the guitar player with Perspex
Whiteout, said he had something he thought I might
like. After shuffling through a pile of CDs, he handed me
the cover of Roadmaster, placed the CD on the tray and
pressed play.
After a couple of empty seconds, “She’s The Kind
of Girl” began with its understated gentle stress on the
one: no big hyped beginning, no crashing cymbals, no
power chords; just a softly played hi-hat, a couple of
mellow-toned lightly tremeloed electric guitars, and a
rooted easy bass. The flute and the conga followed on
the two, weaving their way through the air of the studio, through the smoke in the living room, and into the
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golden red dusk of summer. The notes, the blend, the
tone and the texture seemed completely in tune with the
moment; with the optimistic buzz of June, with the bittersweet dying of the day, with all that surrounded me,
with what was in my young heart, and I sat up a little and
listened more carefully. On the second beat of the fifth
bar Gene starts to sing “She’s the kind of girl, together
like a rhyme” in such a soft soulful sad beaten beautifully
hopeful melody that I felt as if a door was opening and I
was on the threshold of something precious, something
magical and eternal; as if I had been presented the key
to a hidden vault, a parallel reality, a secret knowledge.
The record was absolutely brand new to me, fresh, and
exciting, but the ache and the humanity in Gene Clark’s
voice made it feel equally close and familiar, as if it was
echoes of sounds and melodies that I had always known
and always loved but somewhere, somehow, along the
way, I had lost touch with and forgotten about.
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Gary Lucas
Guitarist, composer, songwriter who played with Beefheart for five years in the Magic Band of the 80s. He plays
on Ice Cream for Crow. Also co-wrote ‘Grace and Mojo Pin’
with Jeff Buckley
Gene Clark to me is a largely unsung American treasure, a maverick who unfortunately as is often the case
with mavericks should be a lot better known, eclipsed
as he was in the public eye by Roger McGuinn and David Crosby despite a slew of excellent solo releases and
various collaborations (of which my favourites are the
albums he made with Doug Dillard). He epitomised in
both his chiseled good looks and forceful baritone the
rugged individualism of the Great Plains of America
from whence he sprang the first time I set eyes on The
Byrds on a TV appearance on Hullabaloo in 1965. ‘I’ll
Feel a Whole Lot Better’ is one of Gene’s earliest shining moment where it all came together in a beautiful
memorable song penned by him (which includes perhaps the earliest usage of the phrase “putting me on” –
pre-dating Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited – Gene Clark
was a fantastic lyricist). He stands out from the swirl
of the go-go dancers iconic, towering over his band
mates even though he is hunching down to their height
to project an image of solidarity with the group – immoveable, oblivious to the commotion around him, just
standing and delivering a classic song sincerely without
affected posing. ‘I Knew I’d Want You’ is another early Gene Clark masterpiece, the flip of ‘Mr Tambourine
Man’ which the Moody Blues later appropriated most of
the chords and feel of for ‘Nights in White Satin’. And
of course he wrote and sang the blissful ‘She Don’t Care
About Time’, the flip of ‘Turn Turn Turn’, with its Bachi36
an breakdown in the bridge (‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desire’).
His influence is incalculable and lives on prominently in
the vocal styles of many well known singers today (did
I mention Michael Stipe?). A legend who should need
no further introduction.
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Craig Leon
Rich Machin
An American born record producer, composer and arranger, currently living in the English countryside, he
produced early recordings by the Ramones, Blondie and
Suicide but these days focuses on classical composition
and orchestration.
Rich Machin has been doing all things Soulsavers
since 2000
‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’ was one of major favourite
Byrds songs and still is. Also I’m very fond of the harmony part on the version of ‘Deportee’ that he recorded
with Carla Olson from The Textones (a name from the
past I haven’t thought about in years). Classic Byrds Appalachian underpinning part.
I think my favourite Gene Clark album has to be No Other.
When I first came across the record, it was during a period when I used to spend a large amount of time sitting
listening to records late at night & on my own. It just became the perfect soundtrack to my life at that point.
I was consumed by this one record. I could sit there
listing to it it to the end, then flip it over again & again.
You were clearly listening to a tortured soul, but yet at the
same time the record sounded so warm & comforting.
It was easy to picture the environment that surrounded the recording of the album. A burnt out Gene sitting
for days on end on a cliff-top house staring out at the
pacific ocean. It has that grandness to it, like the musical
score to one of natures entrancing images. It’s not the
sound of a balanced person clocking in to a studio from
noon to 8pm to knock out the next record in their contract. It’s the sound of someone digging deep into their
soul and challenging themselves to deliver the goods.
The real deal. The album was a commercial failure. The
first requirement of any true masterpiece.
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Andrew Male
Deputy editor Mojo magazine
One career compilation that refuses to conform to type
is Gene Clark’s Flying High. Released in 1998, this glorious collection (compiled by sometime Mojo contributor,
one time Long Ryder, current Coal Porter, and friend of
Gene, Sid Griffin) touches parts other anthologies cannot reach. For one, it opens out a career that, up to that
point, had been shut down or closed off to many.
Lest we forget, by 1998, Gene Clark had been largely
forgotten. Dead some seven years, the singer had been
written off by many as but a shy, boozy, footnote in the
history of The Byrds. Looking like a fugitive Greek Argonaut, adrift in time, Gene was The Byrds’ Orphic existentialist floored by a fear of flying, the quiet, corvine
paladin who wrote labyrinthine heartbreakers like ‘She
Don’t Care About Time’, imbuing the band with a swirling melancholic romanticism that was soon lost after he
bailed in 1965.
Shy, desolate, just 23, increasingly reliant on the fuzzy
aplomb that only booze brings, post-Byrds Gene kickstarted country rock with his debut solo, With the Gosdin Brothers and the beguiled bluegrass mysticism of The Fantastic
Expedition of Dillard and Clark, starring in lonesome roadside ballads as an outcast-changeling, trudging a broadway of neon brambles, forever caught between hedonism
and enlightenment, journey and arrival.
Subsequent albums became more intricate, variegated and dark, as Clark attempted to capture his own
elusive, fleeting dream-state of euphoric bewilderment.
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“I can only make guesses,” he sang, “on some of my past
addresses.” He drifted, drank, despaired and finally died
in 1991, aged just 46.
Yet while Flying High single-handedly restored Clark’s
reputation and revived his back-catalogue, it also worked,
as a complete listening experience. From the early Byrds
tracks at the start of CD1 to high-flying cosmic country and
the lost, lonesome tracks that rounded off CD2 here was
a compilation that served its purpose as a job of curation
but also, thanks to Clark’s skills as a songwriter and Griffin’s skills as a compiler, told a rich, sad compelling story
of an American visionary and storyteller, one superior in
every way to that otherbroken Western poet, the over-mythologised Gram Parsons. In fact, one night, some years
ago in a bar called The Two Boots in New York’s Lower
East Side I tried drunkenly arguing that same point with
Black Crowes’ frontman and number one Gram Parsons
fan Chris Robinson. It ended with me being sick on a tree
but I think I won. Gram Parsons never wrote anything
as tragically beautiful as ‘With Tomorrow’, and no Gram
Parsons compilation could come close to the rich, dark
complexities of Flying High.
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Kris Needs
Creator of the Dirty Water compilation series
Although a lifelong Byrds-maniac from the opening
jingle-jangle of ‘Mr Tambourine Man’, it was only later
that I realised I preferred the haunting b-side, ‘I Knew
I’d Want You’. Same thing went on to happen with ‘All
I Really Want to Do’s flip, ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’
and, incredibly, ‘Turn Turn Turn’, which harboured the
impossibly gorgeous ‘She Don’t Care About Time’ and its
wonderful Bach-derived middle eight.
It was only later that it emerged that management
dictated McGuinn sing the hits, but these Clark expeditions on the flip were things of untold beauty, the real
essence of the Byrds. After I’d grown up, the three years
I spent hanging out with and conducting an ill-fated crusade for the Flamin’ Groovies rammed home the true
essence of these songs and Gene’s talent, the group releasing their booming cover of ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’ as a single, thus cementing Gene’s often criminallyoverlooked talent in my then punk-addled brain. Sitting
in their rehearsal room next to Cyril Jordan’s amp, while
they piled through this was like being inside Gene Clark’s
heart for just over two minutes, just that one time; a remarkable place, full of bared soul lyrics and soaring musical majesty.
I love Gram Parsons, but have long believed that Gene
was just as, if not more, important and fascinating as an
eternally damaged soul not getting his just acclaim and
own worst enemy. He just didn’t have the Nudie suits
and Keef connection. The widescreen, excess-all-areas of
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1974’s No Other continues to suck me back in like a dark,
emotional whirlpool, particularly the snarling title track
and poignant ‘From a Silver Phial’, putting the other Asylum stuff reaping acclaim at that time into the shade.
Then there’s Gene’s stellar last album, 1987’s So Rebellious a Lover, recorded after his solo career had been
traversing its own roller-coaster for 20 years, in tandem
to the drugs and booze abuse which clobbered his health
until it gave out four years later. With Carla Olson providing understated harmonies, tracks such as ‘Why Did You
Leave Me Today’ and ‘Love’s Turnaround’ are up there
with the great lovelorn country laments.
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Richard Norris
Musician and writer living in Lewes, Sussex. His projects
include The Grid, Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve and The
Time and Space Machine
‘Strength of Strings’: It’s not an auspicious start. It begins
with a honey toned madrigal by way of the best backup
LA can hire, almost tipping into a horrendous hey nonnyno-Spinal Jack Black pomp rock mock tudor piss-take.
For way too long. And then, thankfully… the release. The
rhythm and guitar is as tight but loose as, say, Ry Cooder’s Cayleib People, the music doesn’t so much start up
as drench you, those velvet backing voices now sounding
like an epiphany. And Gene Clark steps up to the mic.
Years ago a piece by Barney Hoskyns stuck with me,
riffing on the crack, the break, the grain in Bobby Bland’s
voice, that moment, true to all great soul singers, the
crystal clear moment of yearning that digs right into you,
instantly drawing you in. I first encountered it standing
freezing my tits off as a fourteen year old market trader,
listening to two C90 cassettes of soul music on repeat in
endless waiting winter moments of dull sleet and rain,
wondering just what it was that James Brown and Sam
Cooke were doing that produced these new physical feelings somewhere near the heart. Gene opens with ‘Back
In My Life Again’, and you get a feeling its a life that’s
been lived in, for sure, as by the time he’s on the fourth
word, piano, that yearning break familiar to Barney and
Bobby and James and Sam hooks you beyond words, beyond meaning. And it goes on and on, on and in. The
reissue liner notes guess Gene was attempting to convey
‘the unconscious process by which music is assimilated’
in this song. Boy did he nail that one.
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“Notes that roll on winds / with swirling wings /
bring me words / that are not the strength of strings…”
at ‘Strength of Strings’ Gene appears momentarily unbalanced, but the tide rolls over again, and redemption
lifts him, and us, up up and out again. A rare few achieve
this blend of portent and uplift, defiance with an opening of the gates – certain Neil Young and Skip Spence
cuts spring to mind. Fiery rain lashes down, heart strings
and vocal chords are bent to near breaking point on this
cowboy’s cosmic range, but there’s a stride, a holler in
the soul that gets him through; his world has just begun.
It ends as weirdly as it started, almost peters out in
wordless lulling backing vocal. I have listened to this
song many many times, and I have no idea what it is
about. But I know just how it makes me feel.
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Carla Olson
Kevin Pearce
Songwriter & musician
Music. Writing. Connections
How does one pick a favourite Gene Clark song? If you
like Gene Clark you can perhaps narrow down a list to
10 favourites at a minimum: ‘Del Gato’, ‘I’ll Feel a Whole
Lot Better’, ‘From a Silver Phial’, ‘I Remember the Railroad’, ‘In the Misty Morning’, ‘Past Addresses’, ‘Set You
Free This Time’, ‘She Don’t Care About Time’, ‘Spanish
Guitar’, ‘Where My Love Lies Asleep’, ‘Your Fire Burning’
... oops that’s 11!
I was fortunate to have sung about half of the above
songs live with Gene and many others. No other singer has
Gene’s graceful power in voice, dignity and stage presence.
A Gene tale, hmmmmm. We we–re at Gene’s one day
playing songs casually and he began playing ‘Del Gato’.
I thought it was a Herb Jeffries or Marty Robbins or Willie Nelson outlaw tune I hadn’t heard before. Such great
lyrics and haunting melody. Turns out it was a new song
Gene had written but not recorded! It was one of the motivating factors in why we had to cut our So Rebellious a
Lover album.
‘Set You Free This Time’: It’s easy to forget that, for a
teenager in the early 80s, there was so little old music instantly available. So an LP of The Byrds’ Original Singles
1965 – 67 was a revelation in that Postcard-coloured age.
And Gene Clark singing ‘Set You Free This Time’ was the
song I kept coming back to, because of the ache in his
voice. I’d play that song, and The Kinks’ ‘Set Me Free’,
over and over, lost in melancholy daydreams. And I’ve
kept that song of Gene’s close to my heart, maybe for the
line: “I have never been so far out in front that I could
ever ask for what I want and have it any time…”
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Andy Roberts
Jim Sclavunos
Andy Roberts is a guitarist/songwriter who worked regularly with Roger McGough and was a founder member of
The Liverpool Scene in 1968. He’s recorded a number of
solo albums, including two for Elektra and also founded
Plainsong with Iain Matthews
Record producer & musician, The Bad Seeds,
Grinderman
‘Spanish Guitar’: Plainsong recorded this in 1972, and
it was an outstanding song, then and now. Dylan-esque
(apparently getting a nod from the great man himself)
there was no-one more full of white man soul then Gene
Clark when he turned it on. I love the way it just rolls
round and round with no attempt at narrative; Gene
paints with words, like the true stoned poet that he was.
“To play on a spanish guitar / With the sun shining
down where you are / Skipping and singing a bar / From
the music around.”
That’s one of the most joyous lyrics about music ever
written.
‘Echoes’: In light of his career-paralyzing fear of flying,
it’s ironic that Gene Clark was actually the first of The
Byrds to leave the nest; sadly most of his work seems to
have flown under the radar. When I first stumbled upon
a cassette of Gene Clark With The Gosdin Brothers in
a thrift store bargain bin, I had no prior inkling of this
stunning debut effort, and was especially unprepared
for its epic opening track, ‘Echoes’. It was like happening
upon some kind of mutant folkie version of Scott Walker.
And there is a lovely little anecdote about the song: just
before recording ‘Echoes’, Gene Clark left his a cappella
demo tape of the song with Leon Russell, who was playing on the session. When Gene returned the following
day he discovered Leon sprawled unconscious beside a
stack of lead sheets he’d frantically composed overnight
for each member of the 32-piece orchestra coming in for
the session.
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49
James Skelly
Neville Skelly
Songwriter & musician, The Coral
Musician, songwriter
‘Silver Raven’: I’ve always tried to write the ultimate
dream song, something that can only be found in a world
between worlds, but when I heard ‘Silver Raven’ I realised Gene Clark was already there.
‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’: Its class, a perfect pop tune.
I love its simplicity and that you can’t help yourself singing along to it.
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John Tobler
John York
A key chronicler of American music for Zigzag, and numerous other magazines, Tobler has also supplied liner
notes for countless reissues. He currently runs the Road
Goes On Forever label in Tyneside, England.
John York replaced Chris Hillman in the Byrds in September 1968 and played on the Ballad Of Easy Rider and Dr
Byrds & Mr Hyde albums. He toured regularly with Gene
Clark in the 80s
‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’: My one encounter with
Gene Clark came in 1977 when the McGuinn/Clark/
Hillman package came to London. Gene seemed slightly
under the affluence of alcohol, and seemed put out when
I asked if he was still scared of flying (the reason given at
the time for his leaving The Byrds early on). If anything,
there were too many songwriters in The Byrds (McGuinn,
Crosby, Hillman and Gene Clark), so when Clark not only
found it hard to get his songs recorded, but also wasn’t
necessarily lead vocalist on singles, he must have been
rather put out. This topic is explored much more deeply
in Johnny Rogan’s Timeless Flight Revisited: the Sequel. It
was a tragedy that Gene Clark died so young (only 46,
and apparently of natural causes) but my impression is
that he felt doomed, as life failed to treat him well. Coincidentally, my next writing task is the sleeve note for
BGO Records for a reissue of both Dillard & Clark albums
plus the three non-LP single tracks.
Ultimately, Gene was a tragic casualty of fame.
I would have to say that choosing a favourite song of
Gene’s is impossible. Usually whatever song of Gene’s
that I happen to be playing is the favourite at that moment. Certain songs always loom large in my set lists.
‘She Don’t Care About Time’ just might qualify as the favourite, but ‘Set You Free this Time’ is a close rival. And
‘Gypsy Rider’ also needs to be mentioned. Those of us
who played music with Gene and loved him no matter
what, all agree on keeping his music alive as long as we
are alive. The hope is that younger musicians will take it
from there, adding their own inspiration and respect for
Gene’s great talent as a songwriter.
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