White Light (Gene Clark album)

White Light
Studio album by Gene Clark
Released	August 1971
Recorded	Spring 1971
Studio	A&M Studios and Village Recorders, Los Angeles
Genre	Country rock, folk rock
Length	34:58
Label	A&M
Producer	Jesse Ed Davis
Gene Clark chronology
Through the Morning, Through the Night (1969)Through the Morning, Through the Night1969 White Light (1971) Roadmaster (1973)Roadmaster1973

White Light, aka Gene Clark, is the second solo album by Gene Clark, former member of The Byrds. It received critical acclaim upon its release, but only achieved commercial success in the Netherlands, where rock critics also voted it album of the year.^[1] Like all of his post-Byrds records, it did very poorly on the US charts.

In 2018 independent reissue label Intervention Records announced that it would be reissuing White Light on CD/SACD with expected release of the album in the early summer of 2018.^[2]

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.^[1]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]

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."^[3]

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)

Personnel

References