236. Gene Clark - White Light (1971)


















Track Listing

1. The Virgin
2. With Tomorrow
3. White Light
4. Because Of You
5. One In A Hundred
6. Spanish Guitar
7. Where My Love Lies Asleep
8. Tears Of Rage
9. 1975

Review

Gene Clark of Byrds fame starts what is unfortunately a string of unexceptional albums on this list for the next three days. That is not to say that there are not things which are really worthy from these albums, none of them is a disaster. This one is a very good singer/songwriter album actually, but again there is nothing which really gets you.

My biggest gripe with this album is that very little here demonstrates much originality, a lot of it has been done by Dylan, by former Byrds colleagues and by The Band. These are all very good influences to have, of course, but they are also very hard to beat. Gene makes a perfectly good album here, just not that new.

There is no reinvention of the singer/songwriter medium, there is a guitar, a bit of harmonica, occasional folksy/country arrangements which derive from his love of country already present towards the end of the Byrds. This album ends up being a culmination of all these influences, good but not enough for a truly great album. Tears of Rage form example, a Band cover is expertly done but it brings little new to the song, it is a very pretty album, however, most tracks are quite soothing and the title sure fits the album. You can get it form Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. The Virgin
2. One In A Hundred
3. For A Spanish Guitar
4. Tears Of Rage

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It received universal critical acclaim, upon its release, but only achieved commercial success in the Netherlands where rock critics also voted it album of the year. It is considered by many to be Clark's magnum opus, although, like all of his post Byrds' records, it did very poorly on the US charts.

Clark's backing band on the album included bassist Chris Ethridge of the Flying Burrito Brothers, pianist Ben Sidran of the Steve Miller Band, organist Michael Utley, and drummer Gary Mallaber also of the Steve Miller Band.


Nothing on Gene Clark on Youtube from thise era, so here a documentary about Byrds: