Gene Clark

Gene Clark playlist

Contributor: Calvin Rydbom

The story of Gene Clark isn’t all that different from far too many other artists who never ‘made it’ because of their own personal demons. For a short moment, during The Byrds early years, he was the acknowledged star of a front line rock ‘n’ roll band. The Golden Boy, Prince Valiant with a soothing yet powerful voice and some serious songwriting chops. Already a veteran of The New Christy Minstrels when he helped form The Byrds, he seemingly had talent to burn. “A hero, our savior. Few in the audience could take their eyes off this presence. He was the songwriter. He had the gift,” is how fellow Byrd Chris Hillman described him. But a self destructive tendency sadly destroyed any chance Clark ever had for any sort of substantial solo career, even if he did try over and over again. His list of collaborators and band mates, and there were several bands the casual fan never heard of, reads as a who’s who of the Country Rock/Folk Rock movement. Yet even though he released one brilliant album after another he somehow managed to not chart once as a ‘solo’ act. And when he would occasionally have a peak, he’d find some way to wreck it. Drug addiction does that. I’ve decided to omit the first 2½ Byrds albums, and their mediocre reunion album from the early 70s, whose only high points were Gene. In that vein I also omitted the 2 (3 if you count 3 Byrds In London) McGuinn, Hillman and Clark albums. Just as an aside its a mistake to think of MCH as simply a mini-Byrds group. They made the very conscious decision to do a much slicker production and approach the song selection differently so as to distance themselves from The Byrds, probably to their detriment. Still, with all the missteps and excesses there were some truly amazing songs along the way for Clark, how could there not be with all his talent? I could easily do a top 30 songs of Gene Clark. Here are my favorite 10, at least for today.

After Gene left The Byrds for the first time he took 18 months off before releasing a solo album of sorts, an eternity for the 1960s. Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers featured Byrds Hillman and Michael Clarke, future Byrd Clarence White, Doug Dillard, Van Dyke Parks, Glen Campbell and Leon Russell. I imagine I hear hope in this album, a man who believes he is on the brink of some great things. Tried So Hard is a favorite of mine from the album, It’s a unique break up song for me as the singer thinks about how, “I’ve been thru similarities / It’s not the first break I’ve had / And I just can’t let it bring me down low.” There is some foreshadowing in the song as well with, “Still with all the things I can do or say / It won’t change the fate I know so well is mine”. Given his life over the next 25 years it’s hard not to read something into that line. Throw in some fantastic guitar playing by White and you have a great little song. But the album didn’t do well and Clark was back to The Byrds for a short stay. But as quick as he came back he was gone.

His next stop was in Dillard & Clark. An early country rock group led by Gene and Doug Dillard, it also featured Hillman, Clarke, Bernie Leadon and Sneaky Pete. Their first album, of two, has often been considered a landmark of the genre. But it was Gene, so the album didn’t sell. Train Leaves Here This Morning, co-written with Bernie Leadon and Doug Dillard, is a bit of a lament. Which was a strong suit for Gene, that voice had a touch of lament in it no matter what he sang. “Looked around then for a reason / when there wasn’t somethin’ more to blame it on”, strikes me as a problem many folks have. The singer in this song simply didn’t know what tomorrow might bring, and very casually didn’t really care. Not even The Eagles could ruin this song for me.

After this group broke up, Clark recorded a couple songs for an odd little documentary called The American Dreamer about Dennis Hopper filming The Last Movie. Outlaw Song is a particularly powerful song as, unlike his usual work, it has a sense of pride in its bleakness. It’s a personal statement of sorts about living “inside the rational lines all men draw”. The American Dreamer is a little gem of a soundtrack album, all but forgotten.

Clark released arguably his first solo album with White Light which offered several great tunes. In many ways he brought his mood from American Dreamer to White Light, as its songs are whittled down to their most essential elements, really quite bare as songs go. The simple guitar piece that opens With Tomorrow (co-written with Jesse Ed Davis) is stark and somewhat haunting. “So with tomorrow I will borrow / another moment of joy and sorrow”. It’s a song I’ve never really completely gotten a hold of the meaning, but those lyrics still freeze me when I hear them.

Dylan supposedly has said For A Spanish Guitar was a song he, or anyone, would be proud to have written. For my money the best description of the musician’s task was in the lines, “For the right and the wrong and insane / for the answers they cannon explain / pulsate from my soul through my brain / in a spanish guitar.” It’s simply a beautiful song.

Clark went into the studio to record his second A&M album, I’m sure hoping this would be the one for him. His band included White, Clarke, Spooner Oldham, Byron Berline and Sneaky Pete. Issues kept Clark from finishing, so A&M added two songs he recorded with the original Byrds for a planned reunion that didn’t happen for a few years, and one song he did with the Flying Burrito Brothers and released it only in Holland. And then they dumped Clark. Roadmaster didn’t see a release in the United States ‘til 1994. In a Misty Morning (as well as Full Circle and One In A Hundred) make it obvious though that Clark’s talent was as strong as ever. “Way down in my soul was the hope / that better days were always there to find.”

Clark joined the short-lived Byrds reunion, arguably producing some of the only listenable moments for the album. After a short stint in McGuinn’s band he joined Asylum Records and made a truly brilliant album, No Other. It’s an album that even though it barely broke 150 on the US charts is currently being covered note for note by an Indy Rock All-Star band on the “No Other Tour”. Produced by Thomas Jefferson Kaye, it was a bit of a train wreck considering the amount of time and money they spent in the studio but it’s brilliant and I didn’t have to cover the overruns. Asylum chief David Geffen was extremely angry with the sales, and more so with the fact Kaye and Clark had spent $100,000 and only recorded eight songs. It was deleted from Asylum’s catalog in under two years. Silver Raven from No Other could be one of the more heart breaking songs from the country-folk scene of the time. Clark did a bit of falsetto in the song, and it works. And there is that bassline, well – you’d have to have played the four string for years to really understand how amazing it is.

Three years later, Clark and Kaye were back with Clark’s final true solo album, Two Sides To Every Story. Home Run King is really a fun song, even though lyrically it’s quite depressing. Spruced up by some Emmylou Harris harmony vocals, I’ve never been able to keep from singing along to “You’re either just the newspaper boy or you’re Babe Ruth.”

A couple of years later, Clark rejoined Hillman and McGuinn of MCH, although his unreliable nature and probably his dissatisfaction with the slick sound of the group caused him to be moved to featured performer on the second album and gone by the third.

After that, Clark bounced around for a while forming a number of bands; Firebyrds, Flyte (with Hillman), sitting in with the Long Ryders and CRY. CRY was a band featuring Clark, Pat Robinson and former Byrd John York. The recordings, made in the mid-80s and not released for fifteen years, were also supported by Nicky Hopkins and the Band’s Rick Danko. Danko had performed with Clark in 1985 with his Byrds Tribute Show along with York, Richard Manuel, Blondie Chaplin, Rick Roberts and Michael Clarke, and was friends with Clark. In the 1980s the powerhouse radio station where I lived use to host something called the Coffee Break Concert, where essentially they would coerce whoever was in town that weekend to play a show at a downtown Cleveland club on Friday afternoon. Some twenty eight years ago, I saw Clark and Danko, as they couldn’t get everyone from the band on that stage, do a small intimate little acoustic show that is still one of my favorite concert-going experiences.

There is a fun song called Mary Sue from the CRY Sessions. It’s about a guy fondly remembering his girl from his youth, happily pondering whether “I wonder if your memory remembers me / Like I remember you”. Clark sounds happy, which isn’t a bad thing. And that line is a question I’m sure we’ve all asked ourselves.

CRY continued after Clark’s death with Carla Olson stepping into the C spot of the group. Olson was the lead singer of the Textones and had contributed some backup vocals to the original CRY sessions. In 1987, Clark and Olson released a duo album called So Rebellious A Lover which wound up being Clark’s best selling album, not including Byrds and MCH of course. And true to his career path, that meant he never recorded another album and died four years later. Mostly because of the huge royalty payday he received from Tom Petty’s 1989 cover of I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better which he poured into drug and alcohol abuse, even though in 1983 he had much of his stomach and intestines removed because of years of heavy drinking.

Still, in 1987, he had one more good album left to make, and he made it with Carla Olson. A couple of the songs on So Rebellious A Lover are up there with his best work. Gypsy Rider is a favorite of mine. Have you ever rode a motorcycle, I mean a serious bike? All those Born To Be Wild sort of songs never really captured the feeling of being out there on your bike to me. But “crank her over once again / put your face into the wind / find another road where you’ve never been / sing that 2-wheeled melody / the highway symphony” – that captures what it means to be out on your bike better than any other song Ive ever heard. Chris Hillman added a little mandolin to the song as there was almost always a former Byrd around to play with him.

It’s hard for me to reconcile so much great music, within so few albums released from 1966-1991, and the fact his solo career was an abysmal commercial failure. He should have been big, one of the biggest. Instead he was one of the legion of great musicians who wasted their talents in a self destructive spiral. Still, there are these ten songs and so many countless others.

Website dedicated to Gene Clark

The Clarkophile – an appreciation and celebration of Gene Clark

Gene Clark biography (Apple Music)

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