Gene Clark: Gene Clark With The Gosdin Brothers

GENE CLARK: GENE CLARK WITH THE GOSDIN BROTHERS (1967)

1) Echoes; 2) Think I'm Gonna Feel Better; 3) Tried So Hard; 4) Is Yours Is Mine; 5) Keep On Pushin'; 6) I Found You; 7) So You Say You Lost Your Baby; 8) Elevator Operator; 9) The Same One; 10) Couldn't Believe Her; 11) Needing Someone; 12*) Tried So Hard (alternate version); 13*) Elevator Operator (alternate version); 14*) Only Columbe; 15*) The French Girl; 16*) So You Say You Lost Your Baby (acoustic demo); 17*) Is Yours Is Mine (acoustic demo).

Gene Clark did not really have enough time with The Byrds to establish himself as a significant frontman in the people's eye — too much of it was simply spent standing out there, shaking an unimpressive tambourine and contributing one of several group harmonies; and out of the band's early A-sides, the only Clark-penned song, ʽSet You Free This Timeʼ, scored the lowest on the charts, so, ultimately, only the most astute of the band's fans could have correctly sensed his crucial importance to the band's early period. But he was indeed the first Byrd to be marked with a strong sense of songwriting individuality — preceding David Crosby by at least a couple of years, not to mention a couple extra pounds of intelligence (sorry, Dave!) — and so it was pro­bably inevitable that he would also be the first Byrd to leave the band and start a solo career. (Stage fright and fear of flying are also given as reasons for his quitting, but I guess all of this is really related in the end).

Clark's solo career has always been a hipster's delight: here is a guy who possessed all the know-hows of his original band, yet never achieved (or even strived for) serious commercial success, and cultivated a far more reclusive, solitary image than his bandmates. He did, in fact, spend a large part of 1966 in seclusion, before eventually realising that he had no choice other than to get back into the musical business, and signing up with Columbia for a solo deal — thus becoming one of the first former members of a major rock band to start his own solo career (I think that, technically, only Alan Price of The Animals precedes him in this), and unquestionably the first former member of a major rock band to proudly release his solo debut at the same time (February '67, in this case) as his former band. (A typical opinion is that sales of the record suffered precise­ly because of its simultaneous release with Younger Than Yesterday, but I do not think it could make that much of a difference — after all, if you enter a music store and have to choose between Gene Clark and The Byrds, how is this different from entering the same store on a different day and having to choose between Gene Clark and, say, Jimi Hendrix, or The Beatles?).

Anyway, truth of the matter is that Gene Clark With The Gosdin Brothers is a very lovely (and tiny — less than half an hour long!) record, but it does not exactly show you a Gene Clark that would be significantly improved over, or even just different from, the Gene Clark of ʽI'll Feel A Whole Lot Betterʼ or of ʽSet You Free This Timeʼ. Aided here by some of his Byrds pals (Chirs Hillman plays bass, and Michael Clarke shares drum duties with session players such as Jim Gordon), a big chunk of the Wrecking Crew, and those Gosdin brothers (a country and gospel singing duo with whom the Byrds had already been friends since the early Sixties), Gene delivers a set of folk-pop and country-pop numbers that, some say, pioneer the country-rock twist of the late Sixties, but, as far as I'm concerned, are really a logical and organic continuation of the schtick that Gene had been doing with the Byrds from the very inception. After all, these diffe­rences are subtle — we all know, for instance, that Sweetheart Of The Rodeo is considered to be almost a «revolutionary» album in the genre, but play it back to back with Mr. Tambourine Man to somebody not well-versed in the differences between country-western and, say, Appala­chian folk, and he will never sense much of a gap here.

The charm of the album, however, lies not in its being revolutionary, and not even in its song­writing: from a melodic standpoint, Gene Clark is not much of a genius, and a lot of these tunes rely on stock phrasing from folk, country, and blues-rock — to the extent that two of the songs (ʽIs Yours Is Mineʼ and ʽElevator Operatorʼ) have the exact same introductions, albeit played in a folksy, jangly manner on the former and in a rock-out manner on the latter. The charm lies in Gene Clark's personal charisma, and his ability to perfectly integrate his handsome and intelligent vocals into equally handsome and intelligent musical arrangements.

Thus, the opening number, ʽEchoesʼ, is not so much of a song as it is a long poem, somewhere midway between Dylan and Van Morrison, set to a baroque-influenced arrangement of wood­winds and strings floating above its folk-rock underbelly. Put out by Columbia as a single, it probably had no hopes due to a concise lack of anything resembling a hook — perhaps they thought the flutes and strings would give it a ʽWalk Away Renéeʼ look, forgetting that the Left Banke actually had a singalong chorus as well — but it did well enough in confirming Gene's reputation as a visionary musical poet, revealing a stream-of-consciousness approach that would have probably been judged as way too extreme for the Byrds (although Crosby was already beginning to follow the same path at the time). For the record, Leon Russell himself is respon­sible for the string arrangements here, and he did a great job ensuring that they sound lush and expansive without being too sappy or corny.

Later on, verses and choruses begin to appear, but compared to Gene's Byrds material, they all seem low-key and suffering from a lack of dynamics — nothing like, for instance, the group harmony punch that cuts across the verse of ʽI'll Feel A Whole Lot Betterʼ and provides a hefty conclusion to the soft sarcasm of the first three lines. Compare this album's ʽThink I'm Gonna Feel Betterʼ, dealing with pretty much the same feeling but having nothing like that punch (it does have a key change from verse to bridge, but it doesn't do the song much good) — a far inferior folk-pop ditty here, though the vocal sentiment is still adorable.

Repeated listens bring out patches of cool musical ideas here and there; for instance, the «wag­ging», spiralling lead guitar lines on ʽIs Yours Is Mineʼ, rolling across the sharp main bluesy riff, surprisingly predict the guitar gymnastics of Television on ʽMarquee Moonʼ (and whoever said Television weren't influenced by classic country-rock?), and the dirge-like procession of ʽThe Same Oneʼ, lulling you with its monotonous jangle, is interrupted now and then by an almost dangerous-sounding downward bass/guitar drift — a bit of proto-Sabbath doom atmosphere making a surprising guest appearance on what began as a meditative mournful performance. But you do have to hunt for them, and unless you are already sold on Gene's voice and style, you will probably not be inclined to delve into such intricacies — especially since for every one non-stan­dard musical move, you will have two or three generic country or blues-rock riffs.

The hardest rocking number is ʽElevator Operatorʼ, whose title currently has the disadvantage of sounding similar to Aerosmith's ʽLove In An Elevatorʼ — but Gene uses his elevator for meta­phors of turbulent relationships rather than sexual fantasies, and lands a tune that is also, elevator-style, caught somewhere between the Beatles' and the Stones' respective floors (the basic melody is close to ʽTaxmanʼ, the harmonies show traces of Beatlesque '65-'66 psychedelia, but the guitar tones and solos are far closer to the Richard/Jones line of work). It is decent enough, but feels a bit lonesome surrounded by all these baroque ballads and fast country-poppers. The theme is pretty much the same, though: stay away from mean bitches. And by «mean bitches», I assume he is really referring — meta-metaphorically — to some of his former bandmates rather than his former (or current) love interests. I mean, "s/he was an elevator operator, s/he had her ups and downs" could just as well refer to Roger McGuinn, no?

In the end, the record is certainly a must for all Byrds / classic country-rock-with-a-slightly-baroque-and/or-psychedelic-twist fans, but I could not define it as some sort of «lost classic»: to do so requires falling in love with Gene Clark, the loner, the visionary, the poet, the troubadour, on the same level that people fall in love with their Nick Drakes or their Syd Barretts, and the man is just a tad too smooth for that. Which certainly does not prevent the album from getting its thumbs up, because how could a young, romantic, solo-going Gene Clark not be altogether love­ly all the way back in 1967? Even if that special something that he took away with him from The Byrds needed The Byrds — and certainly not The Gosdin Brothers, whose contributions to this album, in my opinion, certainly do not deserve any special mention and only reflect a degree of friendliness on Gene's part — to set it truly aflame, it is very comforting to see it still giving off some treasurable warmth for some time afterwards.

On a technical note, the expanded CD reissue of the album, despite bringing its running time up to a respectable 42 minutes, is hardly essential — with a few alternate takes, acoustic demos, and only two really new extra songs (one of them a pretty, piano-based rearrangement of Ian & Syl­via's ʽThe French Girlʼ) that do not provide any special insights. For big fans, however, this will be an extra 15 minutes of pleasant prettiness — and on the acoustic demos, you get to really feel how Clark's vocals merge with the Gosdin Brothers into one (although why should they?).