GENE Clark was dead before I made his acquaintance. But it didn't stop me from delving deep into his life. The cover of Raven Records American Dreamer compilation first drew me in. The photo is classic Gene. Brooding good looks, enigmatic, mysterious. I found that his life was littered with dramatic stories of scorching affairs, 8-mile highs, desperate lows, substance abuse, missed opportunities and an early demise. However, above all else, the music Gene Clark created is intoxicating, soulful and timeless.It wasn't hard to become a fan of Gene Clark.

TAJ Mahal can be a moody old bastard. Gruff, abrupt and dismissive when the subject doesn't compel him. The legendary bluesman cut a formidable figure in his cowboy hat and sunglasses. But a mention of Gene made him open up. According to Taj, Gene was the "soul" of the Byrds.

"You could see Jim McGuinn. You could talk to Chris Hillman but you could feel Gene Clark," Taj says leaning on the word. "There's a guy who was underrated in the Byrds. My God the songs he wrote. He was a very deep man."

Back in 1965 Taj was in a band called the Rising Sons. Signed to Columbia Records in the wake of the Byrds success they shared the same label, the same producer and the same love of music. Taj also shared a friendship with Gene Clark.

"I love Gene. I love Gene Clark," Taj says. "I thought when this guy came around to do a song he could draw you in like nothing I've ever seen. He was wonderful."

Taj Mahal was one Clark's peers to see him in his last run of shows at the Cinegrill, Hotel Roosevelt before his death.

"I went to see him play live at the bequest of one of the women that worked at the record company who was just smitten by this man," he says. "We went to see him play at a club in Los Angeles. You know he still had it. This is a week, two weeks, a month before he passed out of this life."

On May 24, 1991, the life of Gene Clark was over at age 46 - finally victim to decades of hard living battling misfortune and personal demons.

Sid Griffin, frontman with bands like the Long Ryders and later the Coal Porters, played with Gene and since his death has compiled and contributed liner notes to many Clark re-issues including a 2-cd best of Flying High.

"He was addicted to alcohol and dabbled in far too many drugs," Sid Griffin admits. "His personal behaviour, veering from gentleman to drunk, did his body or his soul no favours over the long haul…when he got fucked up he was apparently very, very hard to deal with but then who wouldn't be? Having said that I must add he was always but always nice to me personally."

However, the quality of the music Clark created is everlasting. As a founding member of the Byrds, he helped shape one of the most influential bands of all time. During his career he mid-wifed the birth of folk-rock, power-pop, psychedelia and country rock.

"What first struck me about the songs of Gene Clark was just the overall sound," Griffin explains. "It had a certain soulfullness that not even Gram Parsons had. A much more inner, deeper, serious human voicing with cryptic lyrics. He was like a cross between Hank Williams and Bob Dylan. A true hillbilly Shakespeare."

HAROLD Eugene Clark was born on November 17, 1944 in Tipton, Missouri - the oldest of 13 children. Gene's break into music came in 1963 when Randy Sparks - leader of the folk ensemble the New Christy Minstrels - plucked the awkward, raw-boned teenager from a mid-west obscurity. The Minstrels, a group of nine male and female folk singers, had hit the charts with 'Green, Green' and needed a quick replacement for a departing member.

"Randy Sparks and George Grieff came in and asked if I'd like to join," Clark told 'Bucketful of Brains' magazine. "That was right when 'Green, Green' was a hit and they were really on top at the time. Of course, I wasn't going to turn down something like that - it was right out of the movies. George was saying, "Kid, do you want to go to Hollywood and be a star?"

"Gene Clark might've been the best venetian blind salesman this world has ever known..."

Eight months of heavy touring, television and recording schedules followed including a performance for US President Lyndon Johnson. But Gene never played a prominent part in the group. He was more into the Beatles than the Minstrels and left in February 1964. Randy Sparks says he was fired.

"In afterthought, I have offered myself a plausible explanation of what went wrong," Sparks told the Byrds Full Circle fanzine. "Gene was a lost soul in the big city. (In the New Christy Minstrels) Gene now had money and unlimited access to the "magic potion" he had previously discovered in Kansas City. I think he was sedated out of his mind most of the time and that's what turned me off. He was boring. I had heard a few of his songs and this part of him didn't thrill me either. I still don't feel he was a gifted writer. I would welcome hearing something of his that I could respect. I don't deal much in guilt trips, but Gene Clark would probably still be alive and well on the Great Plains had I left him alone. He might have been the best venetian blind salesman this world has ever known."

Clark was determined to make music his life and following the New Christy Minstrel experience he landed in Los Angeles. At a club called the Troubadour he happened upon Jim (he'd later change to Roger) McGuinn singing the Beatles' 'You Can't Do That'.

"We decided we'd become a duo, like a Peter and Gordon type of thing, and write a couple of songs," Clark explained to writer Frank Beeson. "We wrote 'I Knew I'd Want You' and 'Please Let Me Love You Awhile' and a couple like that. I remember Hoyt Axton liked us and thought we had something going, as did a couple of other people - everybody else was snobby toward us because they didn't like this Beatles stuff - the diehard folkies."

Upon meeting David Crosby Gene insisted he join the fold despite McGuinn's reservations. The trio played and recorded as the Beefeaters and the Jet Set before settling on the name the Byrds. Along the way they picked up bassist Chris Hillman and drummer Michael Clarke.

"If it hadn't been for Gene discovering what I was doing at the Troubadour," McGuinn said years later. "The Byrds may never have happened."

THE 20-YEAR-OLD Gene Clark dominated the Byrds. Two albums of demo material from the pre-Columbia period - Preflyte and In the Beginning - have been released. Of the sixteen songs included Gene pens 12. Most of the songs were discarded by the time 'Mr Tambourine Man' was recorded but 'She Has a Way', 'The Reason Why' and 'For Me Again' could easily add to the strength of the first two albums. Another track, 'You Showed Me' co-written with McGuinn, became a hit albeit for other artists as disparate as the Turtles, Salt n Pepa and the Lightning Seeds.

When the Byrds made it big on the back of Bob Dylan's 'Mr Tambourine Man' Gene was the one banging away on a tambourine. When the band weren't covering Bob Dylan tracks it was Gene Clark they relied on to provide the songs. Five Clark tunes were included on the debut album. The most famous is 'I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better' - a power pop classic that both McGuinn and Hillman still play in concert. Also recorded were 'You Won't Have to Cry, 'It's No Use' (both co-written with McGuinn), 'Here Without You' and 'I Knew I'd Want You' (b-side to the 'Mr Tambourine Man' single).

"I'd come into the group with a whole albums worth of songs ready," Clark told writer Bruce Eder, "and it quickly became clear that I was a lot more comfortable than the others and a lot more prolific at songwriting."

Gene Clark's writing style during the Byrds was pure folk-rock. He successfully combined the sounds of the Beatles and the Searchers with Dylanesque lyrics.

"We saw some value in Gene's stuff, Dylan saw more. Other people saw none," Byrds' manager Jim Dickson told the band's biographer Johnny Rogan. "I felt we needed to select the right Gene Clark songs because a lot of them on paper didn't make literal sense. Dylan, seeing songs more as poetry, wasn't so concerned about 'making sense'. The thing that worked for Dylan was that Gene Clark knew what he meant, so his interpretation and feeling for the song was always perfect for the 'implied' story. Part of the story was told in the feeling that Gene gives a song and the sureness of what he means. The words printed on paper without Gene Clark's phrasing made less sense."

At the time Dylan commented: "Clark intrigues me more and more." (Tt wasn't all beer and skittles between the two. In actor David Carradine's autobiography Endless Highway Carradine tells how Gene once chased Dylan out of McGuinn's house with a pool cue.)

"Dylan was most interested in Gene Clark," Dickson said. "Gene was the songwriter and Dylan understood the value of Gene Clark as a songwriter more profoundly than any of us. That, in itself, created an attitude, some of it positive, some of it negative and jealous."

"Maybe being in the background created a mystique that was beneficial..."

The jealousy deepened when the royalty cheques for the first album made Gene a richer man than his fellow Byrds. By the time Turn! Turn! Turn! was recorded he had only three songs on the album - 'Set You Free This Time', 'If You're Gone' and 'The World Turns All Around Her'. Another power pop gem 'She Don't Care About Time' was relegated to a b-side.

"I didn't feel slighted that my songs were on the B-sides," Gene recounted to writer Frank Beeson. "Of course, I made a lot of money. The Byrds had so much character: You had McGuinn with the 12-string and the glasses and Crosby with the unique hippy thing, people weren't into that yet - it was a small Northern California approach he had. A lot of these things overshadowed a lot of the songwriting and things like that. So maybe, in a way, being in the background kind of created a mystique that, in the end, might even be beneficial. I certainly didn't suffer that much."

"The Byrds have probably been the most influential group in Britain for the last decade as the ideal look for a group," former Moodists' frontman Dave Graney says. "Also the music of the Byrds is extremely intoxicating in the harmonies and the sound of it.

"Gene was the most enigmatic of the band, the one who just stood and shook a tambourine and sang but not in a way like Jim Morrison or Mick Jagger. It was seen as a way of being a singer without having to deal in overt sexual parading. That, of course, appeals to the androgynous British. As far as influence on me went I liked the way Gene went down his own way so it's more that sense of identity."

Gene Clark left in March 1966 having barely turned 21. The jealousies, conflicts, egos and the fast rise to success all combined to do Gene Clark's head in. In later interviews he often made remarks about a nervous breakdown, cutting off his phone lines and hiding in his house for a couple of months.

"The Byrds were such a unique group. You had such an incredible mix of personalities that when you put them all together there was magic," Clark stated for Bucketful of Brains. "(You also) had tremendous egos in that group, myself included … a tremendous amount of ego and conflict all of the time. It was the one group that could probably never get along, that's the way it was with the Byrds."

"I guess we were real jealous that he'd had so many songs on the albums that we all wanted his air time," McGuinn admitted in Timeless Flight.

Gene's last contribution to the Byrds is also arguably his greatest. His involvement with the writing of 'Eight Miles High' has often been obscured. Quite simply it wouldn't exist without him. It was his original inspiration that produced the melody and most of the lyrics. McGuinn later arranged the song to fit his John Coltrane inspired guitar licks while Crosby added one key line.

Amazingly, 'Eight Miles High' has never been included on any Clark compilation celebrating his career.

"I wrote all the words except for one line that David wrote (Rain grey town), and then Roger arranged it, basically, so I had to part something with those guys," Gene told writer Paul Zollo. "I decided that I wasn't going to get a single out of this deal, because I'd already written so many songs with this group that they're gonna grab up the singles for their own stuff, you know so I split it with them so I could get a single. That and they really did help me write it, too. But one of the problems we had by the release of the second album was the animosity growing amongst the group. Especially about me, because I was making a lot more money than anybody else from the royalties."

At this point Stephen Stills saw an opportunity to hitch his star to Gene's wagon before he joined up with Neil Young. Clark told Frank Beeson a fledgling Buffalo Springfield were interested in his services, "I remember Dewey Martin and Stephen Stills coming up to my house and asking if I'd like to be in it. I didn't even want to know about any group either."

"I'm glad Gene Clark left, actually. I'm glad everybody left..."

"Roger, Christopher and I were the essential parts," David Crosby said about the Byrds in Guitar Player magazine. "When Gene left, it was a great loss as a writer but not so much as a singer or performer."

"Gene leaving obviously left an open spot for me to be more prominent, but on the other hand, we lost a heck of a songwriter," Chris Hillman told Record Collector magazine. "To this day, and I'll be the first to admit it, I'd never realized how good Gene was until after he'd gone. As much press as Gram Parsons gets, I constantly remind people that Gene wrote some amazing songs, and lots of them. He used these very interesting word-groupings, which were far deeper and heavier than any of the rest of us could come up with. Listen to something like 'Set You Free This Time', and you'll see what I mean."

"Gene Clark didn't really know how to keep time at all, at all," McGuinn told Johnny Rogan. "He was playing tambourine: Cah, Cah, Taw! He was just spastic on the tambourine. I'm glad he left, actually. I'm glad everybody left."

OUT FRONT of the Whisky A-Go-Go club in Hollywood the newly formed Gene Clark Group lined up for a series of photos. It's June '66, a northern summer and a 21-year-old Gene is surrounded by three Clark clones. They look good together. The line-up consists of ex-Modern Folk Quartet bassist Chip Douglas, ex-Leaves guitarist Bill Rinehart and ex-Grass Roots drummer Joel Larson. It's a Californian supergroup of sorts - one that, in theory, had a lot of promise.

If there is one period of time Gene fans dream was better documented it was the Gene Clark Group of '66. Sid Griffin describes them as "young Doc Hollidays playing poppy C&W with a rock n roll attitude."

But, unfortunately, the Group didn't last long. Rinehart was the sole member included in the recording of Clark's debut solo album in late '66. (Rinehart and Larson later joined Emitt Rhodes in the Merry-Go-Round while Douglas went onto produce the Monkees' Headquarters LP).

By his own admission Gene had a plethora of songs written that the Byrds or the Group had never cut in the studio. When recording finally started Clark used the Gosdin Brothers Vern and Rex to add harmonies. The star studded session players used included Clarence White, Glen Campbell, Van Dyke Parks, Leon Russell, Doug Dillard and Byrds Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke.

"It was all very intense," Clark admitted to Bruce Eder. "I remember telling people I was doing an album with (all these people) and they thought I was crazy. It was like, "you're going to make a record with them? What a weird combination of people."

Two of the highlights of the album were the single 'Echoes' and 'So You Say You Lost Your Baby' - both featuring psychedelic baroque string arrangements by Leon Russell. An intimate demo version of 'So You Say You Lost Your Baby' has since been unearthed and captures Gene at the peak of his talents.

"Leon Russell did all of the music arrangements and I arranged all of the vocals," he told Eder. "I remember going over to Leon's with 'Echoes' as nothing but a demo with my voice and coming back the next day to find him passed out next to a stack of 32 lead sheets - he'd taken the demo and written the arrangements for a 32-piece orchestra."

Clark has stated the album was influenced by the Beatles' Rubber Soul and early Mamas & the Papas (maybe because Gene was in the midst of an intense love affair with Mama Michelle Phillips). It also contained some of the first stabs at country rock with tracks like 'Tried So Hard', 'Needing Someone', 'The Same One' and 'Keep on Pushin''.

Gene was in the midst of an intense love affair with Mama Michelle Phillips.

Despite Gene's overload of unrecorded material the Gosdin Brothers album clocks in at just over 27 minutes.

A second Gene Clark Group was put together to promote the record. This time the line-up was drummer Eddie Hoh, guitarist Clarence White and bassist John York (White and York would eventually join the Byrds). But this outfit lasted less time than the first Group.

Gene later told Barry Ballard, "we split up on the premise of me re-joining the Byrds."

IMAGINE the sound of 1967-style Gene Clark with the vibrant ear of jazz trumpeter and producer Hugh Masekela. It's a rich thought and it happened but the results have still to be released. '67 also saw Gene cut various tracks with a series of other producers including Gary Usher, Curt Boettcher and Leon Russell.

"I cut some tracks with Leon," Gene told Dark Star magazine, "They were orchestrated by a big band…a real R 'n' B kinda thing which was an unusual form for me at that time. One ballad and one heavy R 'n' B thing that was recorded for a single with Hugh Masekela producing."

Only two songs with Boettcher at the helm - 'French Girl' (a cover of the Ian & Sylvia track) and 'Only Colombe' have been released on 1991's Echoes compilation. Sid Griffin describes the tracks as sounding like "Dylan singing in front of the Left Banke."

In Timeless Flight Johnny Rogan lists a wealth of songs Gene registered during '67 that were tried with one or more producers. An acetate of a lost 1967 album called Sings for You exists. We can only cross our fingers fabled tracks such as 'One Way Road', 'Yesterday, Am I Right?', 'Whatever', 'Bakersfield Train', 'Down on the Pier' and 'Translations' with be released soon.

Meanwhile, other artists released three Gene Clark tracks around this time. The Rose Garden did 'Till Today' and 'Long Time' on their self titled debut while Blow Up and Barbarella star David Hemmings covered Gene's 'Back Street Mirror' on David Hemmings Happens.

"Just imagine how incredible Younger Than Yesterday and Notorious Byrd Brothers would've been with Clark songs..."

Recently, Not Lame Records released a 2-cd tribute to Clark called Full Circle and Los Angeles band The Retros did a version of 'Long Time'. It's a good approximation of what a Gene-version of the song could have sounded.

"My first thought was to do an obscure track - hopefully one never recorded and released by Gene Clark," Retros guitarist Jeffrey Glenn says. "We decided to record a version of 'Long Time' that would sound like Gene Clark had never left The Byrds. As good as the post-Clark Byrds LP's are - especially Younger Than Yesterday and Notorious Byrds Brothers - just imagine how incredible they would've been with Clark songs replacing some of the weaker songs."

In '67 Larry Spector, who now managed both Gene and the Byrds, was one of many who thought Gene belonged back in the Byrds. A perfect opportunity arose in late '67 with the ousting of David Crosby. McGuinn and Hillman, who were in the midst of recording Notorious Byrd Brothers, agreed to re-instate Gene to the fold. There's conjecture over whether Clark did much, if any, recording for the album but McGuinn later stated Clark deserved more credit for the track 'Get to You' than Hillman.

TV appearances on Groovy!, Where the Girls Are and Smothers Brothers lip-synching 'Mr. Spaceman' and 'Goin' Back' heralded the return. A lean, shorthaired Gene also looks a little haunted. Fans didn't get much chance to welcome him back. His tenure as a Byrd only lasted three weeks. The same pressures that drove him to the breaking point first time around were still apparent.

"He said he'd fly but at the last moment he decided he wouldn't," McGuinn told Rolling Stone writer Ed Ward. "He would always take trains everywhere. We had this one date we had to fly to, and he'd been up all night in a cold sweat. He came into the room about seven or eight in the morning and we said, "Come on, we'll give you sleeping pills or whatever you want to knock you out," but he said, "No, man, can't do it." Somebody said, "It's Mother," and he snapped back, "You're damn right it's Mother!" Real soap-opera psychodrama-ish."

"We tried three different times to put it back together, but it was like having a fresh wound," Gene confided in Barry Ballard. "You're still to sensitive. It's like having a divorce and then trying to get back together in six months. The underlying hurt and emotional things are still there and still very fresh."

AUSTRALIAN solo artist Michael Carpenter readily admits he wasn't aware of the music of Gene Clark until he was asked to contribute a track to the Full Circle tribute album. He was a Byrd fan who had never explored Gene's solo career. As research for the project he listened to the 1998 compilation Flying High. It included three previously unreleased tracks from an aborted 1968 album with A&M producer Laramy Smith. Two were Clark originals 'That's Alright By Me' and 'Los Angeles'. The third was a Dylan cover 'I Pity the Poor Immigrant'.

"For me the songs that demanded my attention straight away were from the lost sessions in '68," Carpenter says. "I couldn't believe 'That's Alright By Me' and 'Los Angeles' were unreleased. 'That's Alright...' with it's beautiful acoustic guitar and frighteningly intimate vocal take had me immediately. I knew I could interpret it in my own style, while still being faithful to the song and Gene's original vision."

Clark thought the Laramy Smith sessions to be directionless and began seeking inspiration elsewhere. He had an idea to team up with banjo picker Doug Dillard - who had appeared on Gene's 'Keep On Pushin'' from the With the Gosdin Brothers album. The joint venture in country and rock was to be called the Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark.

"I had an existing deal with A&M Records and when I presented the 'Fantastic Expedition' idea to them they liked it very much," Clark recounted to Full Circle's Andy Darlington. "They didn't know what to do with it, but they liked it. It was 'what do you do with contemporary bluegrass in 1968?' And we had a lot of bumps, I mean a lot of troubles with it. We went down to Nashville and got, literally, booted out of there, y'know. And even though our record was played quite a bit when it finally came out we had a problem getting it across."

The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark contained some of Clark's greatest work including 'Out on the Side', 'Something's Wrong', 'The Radio Song' and 'Train Leaves Here This Morning' (co-written with the Expedition's guitarist Bernie Leadon). Leadon, who subsequently joined the Flying Burrito Brothers and was a founding member of the Eagles, re-recorded 'Train Leaves' on the Eagles debut.

"Clark's most underrated record is easily the first Dillard and Clark album," Sid Griffin tells me. "It is everything (The Flying Burrito Brothers') Gilded Palace Of Sin is and more. Why there isn't a cult around it I will never ever know."

Griffin picked a 1969 Clark gem 'Why Not Your Baby' - a song released as a Dillard & Clark single - to record for the Full Circle tribute album.

"Why Not Your Baby was Dillard and Clark trying to record a pop single,' Griffin says. "It seemed silly to merely re-record the song as Gene did it. We did it slowly instead of up tempo and turned it into a ballad like the Everly Brothers."

Fantastic Expedition was quickly followed up by another album - 'Through the Morning, Through the Night'. Clark originals were scarce on the album but the title track and 'Polly' represents the highlights. Also a magnificent cover of John Lennon's 'Don't Let Me Down' showed Gene at his best. While Lennon's take on the song is like a challenge to a lover; Gene's version comes across as a plea to himself.

Some Dillard & Clark shows were complete disasters because Gene and Doug would be so fried.

A mere two months after the release of 'Through the Morning, Through the Night' Dillard and Clark had split. In John Einarson's forthcoming book Desperados: The Roots of Country Rock (Cooper Square Press, February 2001) the Expedition's drummer Jon Corneal and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's John McEuen suggest D&C could've been much more successful if Gene and Doug had laid off the drink and drugs. Both were heavy indulgers making some shows a complete disaster because the two would be so fried. Corneal also says Gene felt left out as Dillard took the band in a more bluegrass direction with the inclusion of his girlfriend Donna Washburn on vocals and fiddler Byron Berline.

"The problem was that Doug was involved in this romance with Donna Washburn and brought her into the fold," Gene later recalled to Bruce Eder. "Doug was impressed with her talents in one area or another, but in the area that I had to deal with, I felt it took away from what we were doing together."

DIRECTOR Sam Peckinpah used 'Through the Morning, Through the Night' for his 1972 film The Getaway. Dennis Hopper also asked Gene to compose two songs for the cinema verite documentary on his life called American Dreamer.

"Dennis had wanted me involved in Easy Rider, but Peter Fonda wanted McGuinn to work on that," Gene told Goldmine magazine. "Peter and Dennis didn't get along, and McGuinn didn't want me working on the picture if he was involved. So I never did Easy Rider but Dennis had me do two songs for American Dreamer that were done by me with an acoustic guitar. It was a silly movie, as I guess a lot of what Dennis was doing during that period was silly. Then a director named David Berlatsky took the same two songs and put them into a movie called The Farmer so people have heard them in there, too."

'American Dreamer' and 'The Outlaw Song' can also be found on Raven's magnificent Gene Clark compilation American Dreamer 1964-1974. Another two tracks found on the compilation were 'She's the Kind of Girl' and 'One in a Hundred'. Produced by Jim Dickson they featured the original Byrds backing Gene. They now stand as the best re-union tracks produced by the original band.

"That was really the first attempt to have a Byrds reunion album," Gene remembered. "It was really hard to get everybody together."

The story goes that none of the Byrds put down their parts in the company of the others. When the Byrds finally did get it together for a reunion album on David Geffen's Asylum label in 1973 the results proved disappointing. David Crosby didn't cut it as a producer and some of the material let the band down. Gene contributed two strong songs with 'Changing Heart' an underrated jewel.

"That album had been discussed for ages, and finally I got a call from David Crosby one night, and he suggested we just get together to see how it worked," Gene told Zigzag magazine. "We could have done a lot better if we'd taken more time and rehearsed it longer. If we had sorted out arrangements and material for six months and not tried to produce it ourselves, we could have made a great album, rather than an OK album."

ACCORDING to David Carradine's colourful autobiography Endless Highway Gene was known within the Byrd family as "Uncle Cherokee". Clark often referred to having Indian blood in his family. When he met Kiowa Indian guitarist Jesse Ed Davis the two quickly became soul mates.

Davis had just finished his three albums run as Taj Mahal's guitarist and decided to produce Gene's second solo album.

"Indian Ed Davis was one of the most underrated guitar players to come along in that era," Taj enthuses. "He was just not willing to go and bastardise the sounds that he played. He created a lot of that stuff on a telecaster with his little finger, a pick and a volume control. He was a great player. It wasn't loud or derivative notes in your face. It was improvised like jazz. This guy played some great solos. The tone and attack on the solo in 'Diving Duck Blues' (off Taj's 1968 debut album) just kills me to this day. I listen to the whole tune - there's a bunch of different vocal notes I really like. I like the whole thing all the way around but I wait for when he attacks that guitar solo. It's just unbelievable. I got off on him playing live just like I did on the record."

Together Clark and Davis produced a musically sparse, lyrically dense folk-rock album. Released in 1971 White Light was defined by tracks like 'The Virgin', 'With Tomorrow' and 'Spanish Guitar' (one of Dylan's favourite Clark tunes). Commercially the album sank but in Holland the nation's rock writers voted it album of the year.

In 1971 White Light was voted Album of the Year in Holland.

A&M Records started to go cold on the idea of Gene Clark but there was one final crack at recapturing some chart glory. Soon after the release of White Light Gene got together a group of old friends including Clarence White, Michael Clarke, "Sneeky" Pete Kleinow and Spooner Oldham and recorded a number of tracks. With this line-up it was no surprise the songs had a stronger country-rock feel than White Light.

Despite the success of Californian country rock at the time the album was curtailed when A&M heard nothing remotely commercial.

"For a long time I'd been in a situation where I'd get halfway through into a project and then someone would throw a wet blanket on it," Clark said. "They may or may not have understood what I was trying to do artistically, but for whatever reasons, the problem wouldn't be allowed to work itself out."

These sessions were later cobbled together and released as Roadmaster. Included were the two Byrd tracks from 1970, a Flying Burrito Brothers experiment with Gene on vocals called 'Here Tonight' plus songs like 'In a Misty Morning', 'I Remember the Railroad' and a slow version of the old Byrds b-side 'She Don't Care About Time'. Gene was unhappy with the compilation but it has since been recognised as one of Clark's best country rock albums.

It was the album that alerted Australian singer-songwriter Dave Graney to the cult of Gene Clark. It prompted him to record 'In a Misty Morning' on two albums - My Life on the Plains and the live Lure of the Tropics.

"I got Roadmaster and the image of Gene Clark on the cover was just about everything I was into," Graney says. "He's in this hot car. He looks incredibly healthy, in his prime and I was right into those movies like Two-Lane Blacktop. That song In a Misty Morning had a real Easy Rider kinda feel to it…it's an exciting, dramatic song to play."

"SAID she saw the sword of sorrow sunken in the sand of searching souls" - 'From a Silver Phial'

1974 was the year Gene Clark turned cosmic cowboy. Signed to Geffen's Asylum following the '73 Byrds' reunion album Gene spent months crafting an album to be called No Other. True to the title it sounds distinct from anything else in the Clark canon. Shining, mystical, big and original.

"Gene played me the songs and I just flipped out," producer Thomas Jefferson Kaye remembered. "It was a very expensive record to make, but 'Silver Raven' and 'No Other' are like my answer to Brian Wilson and Phil Spector, as a producer."

No Other was a grand and ambitious statement. Originally devised as a double album with 13 songs being recorded. Only eight were eventually released but in true mid-70s fashion the sessions took five months and cost almost $100,000.

"David Geffen was furious because there are only eight cuts on the album," Kaye said. "It went to place 86 with a bullet in Billboard and sold about 70,000 units in the first three weeks, but Geffen just dropped it and wouldn't get behind it."

No Other was written and produced when Clark's personal life was in turmoil. Yet on the album Gene appears at peace with himself. 'Silver Raven' is often quoted as Gene's solo masterpiece and seen to be akin to 'Eight Miles High' while a clear sense of vision comes through on 'From a Silver Phial', 'Some Misunderstanding' and 'Lady of the North'.

"Any amount of soul searching, whether it be by a novelist, or a film-maker, or anyone, makes for a more profound statement," Clark declared to ZigZag magazine. "For example, the No Other album was written when I had a house overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Northern California. I would just sit in the living room, which had a huge bay window, and stare at the ocean for hours at a time. People would come in and say 'How come you're not doing anything...how can you just sit there?' But I would have a pen and paper there, and a guitar or piano, and pretty soon a thought would come and I'd write it down or put it on tape. In many instances with the No Other album, after a day of meditation looking at something which is a very natural force, I'd come up with something."

"I thought No Other was a truly fine album and I felt very let down that it didn't do better. Almost to the point of depression."

Released in September 1974 No Other received critical praise but it was quickly deemed another commercial failure.

"I thought it was a truly fine album and I felt very let down, very disappointed that it didn't do better than it did," Gene told Barry Ballard. "Almost to the point of depression, because I thought I'd finally found a niche with my own art that I could carry on into other areas."

NO Other was Gene's creative peak. Never again would he venture so ambitiously. He released another three solo albums - 1977's Two Sides to Every Story, Firebyrd in 1984 and So Rebellious a Lover with Carla Olsen in 1987. He also teamed up again with McGuinn and Hillman in the late 70s but no Byrd magic was apparent on their MCH records.

Gene was buried in his hometown of Tipton, Missouri. The inscription on his gravestone is "No Other".

Sid Griffin is adamant he won't stop working until Gene Clark gets the recognition he deserves.

"The Long Ryders, my old band, and I got the name of Gram Parsons around and now I intend to get the Gene Clark Bandwagon rolling," he says. "When do you ever but ever hear mainstream press or popular artists sing the praises of Gene Clark? Only his cult and Byrd freaks know about him."

My suggestion is to start with American Dreamer and go from there …

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©2000 Christopher Hollow