White Light (Gene Clark album)

Background

Clark's backing band on the album included producer and guitarist Jesse Ed Davis, bassist Chris Ethridge of the Flying Burrito Brothers, organist Mike Utley, along with pianist Ben Sidran and drummer Gary Mallaber, both of the Steve Miller Band. Although Clark began another album for A&M, the label stopped the sessions before the album was completed. Those tracks were available in the Netherlands, but not released in the U.S. until 1994 on Roadmaster.

Reception

Music critic Thom Jurek, writing for Allmusic, wrote the album "has established itself as one of the greatest singer/songwriter albums ever made... Using melodies mutated out of country, and revealing that he was the original poet and architect of the Byrds' sound on White Light, Clark created a wide open set of tracks that are at once full of space, a rugged gentility, and are harrowingly intimate in places. His reading of Bob Dylan's "Tears of Rage," towards the end of the record rivals, if not eclipses, the Band's. Less wrecked and ravaged, Clark's song is more a bewildered tome of resignation to a present and future in the abyss. Now this is classic rock."

Track listing

All songs written by Gene Clark, except where noted.

1. "The Virgin" – 3:40
2. "With Tomorrow" (Clark, Jesse Ed Davis) – 2:27
3. "White Light" – 3:41
4. "Because of You" – 4:06
5. "One in a Hundred" – 3:36
6. "For a Spanish Guitar" – 5:00
7. "Where My Love Lies Asleep" – 4:23
8. "Tears of Rage" (Bob Dylan, Richard Manuel) – 4:15
9. "1975" – 3:49

The 2002 Universal/A&M CD reissue adds the following bonus tracks:

1. "Because of You" (alternate mix)
2. "Stand by Me" (previously unreleased) (Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller)
3. "Ship of the Lord" (previously unreleased)
4. "Opening Day" (previously unreleased)
5. "Winter In" (rare track)

Musicians

Production