The Byrds frontman’s deliriously opulent solo work was misunderstood upon release, but this lavish repackaging restores a spiritual singer-songwriter classic.
For those that knew him, there seemed to be two Harold Eugene “Gene” Clarks, each contradicting the other. There was Gene Clark the country boy from Tipton, Missouri and Gene Clark the mid-’60s L.A. rock star and frontman for the Byrds.** He had the chiseled looks to earn the nickname “Prince Valiant” and looked every bit the ideal frontman, yet suffered crippling stage fright. While his band took sterling Bob Dylan covers to the top of the charts, Clark penned songs that earned the admiration of Dylan himself. He was humble and quiet, yet since he wrote all the Byrds’ early songs, his first royalty check allowed him to wheel around town in a maroon Ferrari while the rest of the band was still broke. His last songwriting credit for the band during their heyday was “Eight Miles High,” and he departed soon after due to a “fear of flying.” Even with his posthumous cult fandom, Clark’s visionary composite of country and rock doesn’t command the same reverence as erstwhile fellow-Byrd Gram Parsons.
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