In may 1977 Gene Clark, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman reformed The Byrds for a European tour. At the appropriate moment, McGuinn would turn to Clark and ask: "So, Gene. Do you wanna be a rock'n'roll star?" To which Gene always replied, "Nope."
Many a true word. Gene Clark had quit The Byrds back in the mid-'60s, while Fifth Dimension was in pre-production (imagine George Harrison leaving The Beatles during Rubber Soul), blaming his fear of flying; an irony considering that "Eight Miles High" was his swan song with them. Whatever, the gag tells us plenty about this reluctant team player.
Harold Eugene Clark from Tipton, Missouri grew up in Kansas City with his own agenda. Heading west for Los Angeles, California, aged 19, he joined eccentric folkies The New Christy Minstrels, then did the Troubadour/Whiskey A Go-Go thing and hooked up with Jim McGuinn's nascent Byrds outfit. He was the straight man to the band leader's commercially cute 'let's-do-Dylan-and-make-a-million-bucks' persona. Which happened. So he stayed for a while. And then he left. That was Gene Clark's way.
Following stints in The Gosdins and Dillard & Clark, he achieved moderate sales for 1971's Gene Clark (confusingly also known as White Light) and 1972's Roadmaster, initially available only in Holland. Welding an increasingly cynical streak to a love of chemicals, booze and Zen Buddhism, Clark immersed himself in a new venture with madcap producer and sometime Steely Dan cohort Thomas Jefferson Kaye. Kindred spirits, they were astute enough to enlist various elite LA sidemen and the heavenly gospel voices of Venetta Field, Clydie King, Cindy Bullens, Claudia Lennear, the Matthews sisters and Ronnie Barron.
Checking into The Village Recorder, West LA in March 1974, Clark wanted something more considered. Something darker, in the way some Rolling Stones records are. Six months and $100,000 later he'd got his wish: an album that evoked Hollywood Babylon versus the death of the hippie dream—a staple obsession of this period judging by contemporary albums by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Mac Gayden, Stephen Stills, Steely Dan, Neil Young and Steve Miller.
Unfortunately, Asylum's boss, the flamboyant, hard-nosed David Geffen, was as contrary as his prized signing. Asylum refused to bankroll a double album (five other songs were cut and squirrelled away) and offered minimal promotion. Where were the singles? Why was Gene on the cover posing like Valentino in a Hollywood Hills mansion? Why was he wearing make-up and camp satin pants? Despite himself, Geffen was not amused.
Of course the cover, often dismissed as a red herring that bears no relation to the music inside, was part and parcel of the whole. Art-directed and designed by Marlene Dietrich's grandson John, and photographed by his wife Linda, the sleeve glorified the golden age of 1920s Hollywood debauchery. The Gene genie aside, it showed a motley selection of sensual flappers and matinee idol hunks like Rudi Sieber (Marlene's onetime husband), and gave off a vibe based on decadence, coke-sniffing roués and celluloid megastars. All totally Billy Wilder.
While it would be stretching a point to say that Clark's new songs were irrevocably intertwined with the wrapping, it can't be denied that they resemble a bouquet of blown orchids on a sidewalk. An air of doomed resignation hangs over No Other like an apocalyptic bout of smog from the moment that Clark wades in with the deceptively jaunty "Life's Greatest Fool", the first of eight song stories that function like prose poetry of the very highest order.
Charting his own chemically-induced creativity, Clark's lyricism was lashed to his finest vocal performance, skimming from counter tenor and baritone to the churchy counterpoint of Claudia Lennear and company. Meanwhile, the boys in the back room—stellar players including Leland Sklar, Russ Kunkel, The Allman Brothers' drummer Butch Trucks, Mike Utley and Joe Lala—moved the mood from baroque country to subtle soul music with synthesizers, strings and indefinable magic. As for the guitar-playing contributions of Jesse Ed Davis, Steve Bruton, Jerry McGee on pedal-steel and the ineffable Howard "Buzzy" Feiten—well, let's just say you really need to hear this record.
The "Cosmic Motown" angle that Clark and producer Kaye lusted after is evident once the Southern gothic "Silver Raven" fades into the ether. Gene's characteristic Missourian burr sets up the title piece; a devilishly tricky exercise in funky time and Moog space, heavily influenced by Stevie Wonder's 1972 masterpiece Music Of My Mind. As soul-perfect as this is, "Strength Of Strings" raises the bar; a perfect pastiche of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, this ambitiously scoped, orchestrally-driven melody inspires an image of Clark wiping his hands with glee and muttering "I showed you" in the general direction of his former Byrds colleagues.
Side two (counting in old money) is no less daunting. The powder and poison road to ruin of "From A Silver Phial", Chris Hillman's mandolin holding the tiller in a ghastly plantation epic; the stately, gloom-ridden death march of "Some Misunderstanding"; the rustic, nostalgic guilt of "The True One" ("I used to treat my friends like I was more than a millionaire")—they all unravel in a flawless sequence.
Clark's decision to finish with "Lady Of The North", co-written by his best pal and former bandmate Doug Dillard, suggests someone who knew the dark side needed light. A glorious metaphysical love song, it ends in a bizarre avant-garde coda, as if Gene had thrown all his cards in the air.
For the record, this reissue comes with six alternative takes and a sweet version of "Train Leaves Here This Morning", a familiar favourite—and the story of Gene's life. Welcome as these songs are, they aren't integral to the main event. True, No Other has only sold a paltry few thousand copies over the years, but it's the best album any Byrd ever made. Gram Parsons was great; but not this great.
Lest we forget: Gene Clark died of a heart attack in his Sherman Oaks home in May 1991 and was buried in Tipton. His headstone is carved with his full name and two more words: "No Other".
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Many a true word. Gene Clark had quit The Byrds back in the mid-'60s, while Fifth Dimension was in pre-production (imagine George Harrison leaving The Beatles during Rubber Soul), blaming his fear of flying; an irony considering that "Eight Miles High" was his swan song with them. Whatever, the gag tells us plenty about this reluctant team player.
Harold Eugene Clark from Tipton, Missouri grew up in Kansas City with his own agenda. Heading west for Los Angeles, California, aged 19, he joined eccentric folkies The New Christy Minstrels, then did the Troubadour/Whiskey A Go-Go thing and hooked up with Jim McGuinn's nascent Byrds outfit. He was the straight man to the band leader's commercially cute 'let's-do-Dylan-and-make-a-million-bucks' persona. Which happened. So he stayed for a while. And then he left. That was Gene Clark's way.
Following stints in The Gosdins and Dillard & Clark, he achieved moderate sales for 1971's Gene Clark (confusingly also known as White Light) and 1972's Roadmaster, initially available only in Holland. Welding an increasingly cynical streak to a love of chemicals, booze and Zen Buddhism, Clark immersed himself in a new venture with madcap producer and sometime Steely Dan cohort Thomas Jefferson Kaye. Kindred spirits, they were astute enough to enlist various elite LA sidemen and the heavenly gospel voices of Venetta Field, Clydie King, Cindy Bullens, Claudia Lennear, the Matthews sisters and Ronnie Barron.
Checking into The Village Recorder, West LA in March 1974, Clark wanted something more considered. Something darker, in the way some Rolling Stones records are. Six months and $100,000 later he'd got his wish: an album that evoked Hollywood Babylon versus the death of the hippie dream—a staple obsession of this period judging by contemporary albums by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Mac Gayden, Stephen Stills, Steely Dan, Neil Young and Steve Miller.
Unfortunately, Asylum's boss, the flamboyant, hard-nosed David Geffen, was as contrary as his prized signing. Asylum refused to bankroll a double album (five other songs were cut and squirrelled away) and offered minimal promotion. Where were the singles? Why was Gene on the cover posing like Valentino in a Hollywood Hills mansion? Why was he wearing make-up and camp satin pants? Despite himself, Geffen was not amused.
Of course the cover, often dismissed as a red herring that bears no relation to the music inside, was part and parcel of the whole. Art-directed and designed by Marlene Dietrich's grandson John, and photographed by his wife Linda, the sleeve glorified the golden age of 1920s Hollywood debauchery. The Gene genie aside, it showed a motley selection of sensual flappers and matinee idol hunks like Rudi Sieber (Marlene's onetime husband), and gave off a vibe based on decadence, coke-sniffing roués and celluloid megastars. All totally Billy Wilder.
While it would be stretching a point to say that Clark's new songs were irrevocably intertwined with the wrapping, it can't be denied that they resemble a bouquet of blown orchids on a sidewalk. An air of doomed resignation hangs over No Other like an apocalyptic bout of smog from the moment that Clark wades in with the deceptively jaunty "Life's Greatest Fool", the first of eight song stories that function like prose poetry of the very highest order.
Charting his own chemically-induced creativity, Clark's lyricism was lashed to his finest vocal performance, skimming from counter tenor and baritone to the churchy counterpoint of Claudia Lennear and company. Meanwhile, the boys in the back room—stellar players including Leland Sklar, Russ Kunkel, The Allman Brothers' drummer Butch Trucks, Mike Utley and Joe Lala—moved the mood from baroque country to subtle soul music with synthesizers, strings and indefinable magic. As for the guitar-playing contributions of Jesse Ed Davis, Steve Bruton, Jerry McGee on pedal-steel and the ineffable Howard "Buzzy" Feiten—well, let's just say you really need to hear this record.
The "Cosmic Motown" angle that Clark and producer Kaye lusted after is evident once the Southern gothic "Silver Raven" fades into the ether. Gene's characteristic Missourian burr sets up the title piece; a devilishly tricky exercise in funky time and Moog space, heavily influenced by Stevie Wonder's 1972 masterpiece Music Of My Mind. As soul-perfect as this is, "Strength Of Strings" raises the bar; a perfect pastiche of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, this ambitiously scoped, orchestrally-driven melody inspires an image of Clark wiping his hands with glee and muttering "I showed you" in the general direction of his former Byrds colleagues.
Side two (counting in old money) is no less daunting. The powder and poison road to ruin of "From A Silver Phial", Chris Hillman's mandolin holding the tiller in a ghastly plantation epic; the stately, gloom-ridden death march of "Some Misunderstanding"; the rustic, nostalgic guilt of "The True One" ("I used to treat my friends like I was more than a millionaire")—they all unravel in a flawless sequence.
Clark's decision to finish with "Lady Of The North", co-written by his best pal and former bandmate Doug Dillard, suggests someone who knew the dark side needed light. A glorious metaphysical love song, it ends in a bizarre avant-garde coda, as if Gene had thrown all his cards in the air.
For the record, this reissue comes with six alternative takes and a sweet version of "Train Leaves Here This Morning", a familiar favourite—and the story of Gene's life. Welcome as these songs are, they aren't integral to the main event. True, No Other has only sold a paltry few thousand copies over the years, but it's the best album any Byrd ever made. Gram Parsons was great; but not this great.
Lest we forget: Gene Clark died of a heart attack in his Sherman Oaks home in May 1991 and was buried in Tipton. His headstone is carved with his full name and two more words: "No Other".
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