No Other

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No Other
No Other cover
Studio album by Gene Clark
Released December 1974
Recorded Spring 1974
Genre Rock
Length 43:01
Label Asylum Records 7E 1016
Producer Thomas Jefferson Kaye
Professional reviews
Gene Clark chronology
Roadmaster
(1972)		 No Other
(1974)		 Two Sides to Every Story
(1977)

No Other is a 1974 album by Gene Clark. Now generally considered by most critics to be a lost masterpiece, the album was dismissed upon its release as being overly indulgent. Due to a lack of support from label Asylum Records, the record was a commercial failure upon its release in 1974 and all but annihilated Clark's career as a recording artist.

Contents

[edit] Genesis

After leaving The Dillard and Clark Expedition in 1969, Gene Clark retreated to the northern California coastal town of Mendocino, home to a large hippie/bohemian population during the epoch. With little incentive to work (royalties from his days with The Byrds were still substantial), he married, sired two children, and all but retired from the music business. In 1971 Clark signed with A&M Records and recorded White Light (also known under the misnomer of Gene Clark), produced by blues guitarist and critical wunderkind Jesse Ed Davis. The album was comprised of numerous songs with overtly metaphysical lyrics inspired by the collaborators' shared Native American heritage; most of the musical stylings were reminiscent of Bob Dylan's contemporaneous country work. While well reviewed, the album did not fare well on the charts in America (mainly due to Clark's refusal to tour), but was a great success in Europe, especially the Netherlands where rock critics voted it album of the year.

The singer's next release, entitled Roadmaster was a compilation of tracks recorded with former Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers and a hand- picked session team (including Spooner Oldham). The album was only released in Europe, where it became a Dutch best seller like its predecessor.

In late 1972 Clark was invited to join a reunion of the first Byrds line-up on Asylum Records. The resulting album (considered to be a stopgap release by other band members) was a showcase for Clark, who sang on two Neil Young covers and two original songs. Dismissed by many longtime fans and critics--who felt that the album was little more than a vanity exercise for David Crosby, then at the height of his success--it nonetheless managed to sell 400,000 copies and reach the Top 20. According to Clark:

“ The Byrds reunion LP was thrown together. We were all doing different things at the time. Chris Hillman was touring with Manassas, I was working on a film score, Michael Clarke came in from Hawaii, Roger had the other Byrds on the road. It was called the Byrds, but it was real difficult to get everybody together. Nobody wanted to rehearse, consequently the album isn't as good as it could have been. We just didn't take time to work on the material. There are cuts where, on the vocals, there are no Byrds except me and David Crosby. There was a lot of that kind of stuff going on. ”

Internal squabbles notwithstanding, the perennially unsuccessful singer was signed to Asylum as a solo artist by David Geffen, who was impressed with the quality of Clark's songs on the reunion album. At the time Asylum was at the epicenter of the ascendant singer-songwriter movement, and by all indications, he was on the comeback trail.

While preparing to record, Clark briefly joined the backing group of former Byrds colleague Roger McGuinn; the two even shared a home together during the period in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean. During an engagement at The Troubadour in Los Angeles with McGuinn, he introduced what many fans consider to be his greatest song, "Silver Raven"; it would be recorded in an arrangement featuring Jesse Davis and L.A. session ace Danny Kortchmar on No Other. Of the song's composition, Clark said in a 1976 interview:

“ It actually came about from a news story that was about some satellite, or something, they had discovered. They said they couldn't figure out where it came from. It was beyond our solar system. They were getting signals from it that they said were about 100 years ahead of our technology. ”

[edit] Composition and Recording

Retreating to his coastal home in Mendocino, Clark began to compose songs for his new album, "analyzing the material" for over a year. According to Clark:

“ The whole 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. 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 most instances, after a day of meditation looking at something which is a very natural force, I'd come up with something. ”

Contrary to rumors that many of the album's songs were conceived under the influence of mescaline and other illicit chemicals, Clark's wife Carlie stated in Mr. Tambourine Man: The Story Of the Byrds' Gene Clark that he was sober throughout the Mendocino years and was disinclined to experiment for the sake of his children. Living up to the "hillbilly Shakespeare" moniker accorded him by former bandmate John York, the "weighty" and ponderous nature of most of his lyrics from the period were drawn from his Christian upbringing and discussions regarding Carlos Castaneda, Theosophy and Zen with his wife and friends like David Carradine and Dennis Hopper.

Entering the studio in April 1974, Clark was paired with producer Thomas Jefferson Kaye, who subsequently would become a dependable collaborator of the singer for the next fifteen years. This was a foreboding sign for the label, as Kaye had accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in cost overruns on Bob Neuwirth's solo debut, which subsequently failed to dent the charts. Most sessions were conducted in Los Angeles and featured the cream of the era's session musicians: Korchmar, keyboardist Craig Doerge, bassist Leland Sklar, and drummer Russ Kunkel, aka 'The Section;' percussionist Joe Lala, Butch Trucks of the Allman Brothers Band, Jesse Ed Davis, backup vocalists Clydie King, Claudia Lennear, & Venetta Fields, and former Byrd Hillman. The plaintive country-folk sounds of White Light and Roadmaster were replaced by intricate vocal harmonies and heavily overdubbed, atypical arrangements in Kaye's "answer to Brian Wilson and Phil Spector as a producer". However, there was a pronounced R&B/funk feel to the title track, which has often been attributed to the presence of Sly Stone at some of the sessions. According to John Einarson's Mr. Tambourine Man, all of the assembled musicians were impressed by Clark's perfectionism and genial, humble attitude in an era where overindulgence and bloated egos were the norm.

Initially, Carlie Clark and the children temporarily relocated with him to Los Angeles, in the hope that the family routine of Mendocino could be preserved. However, it was not long before Clark reacquainted himself with L.A.'s party circuit and the latest fashionable drug - cocaine. After his disgusted wife moved the family back to Northern California, Clark established house with old cohort Doug Dillard in the Hollywood Hills; "Lady of the North", a mournful ballad for Carlie and the album's closer, was written by the twosome in a cocaine haze, their final collaboration set to record.

[edit] Aftermath

No Other was delivered to Asylum Records in the tumultuous summer of 1974. As recording costs had ballooned to over $100,000, a considerable investment in a performer who had seen his last Top 40 hit in 1966, Geffen was dismayed by the dearth of songs and the uncommercial nature of the material.

For years rumors circulated that only half of an intended double album had been recorded, with Geffen balking at the excessive cost and eventually pulling out. This was corroborated by Clark in a 1976 interview. According to Kaye in Mr. Tambourine Man, 13 or 14 songs had been demoed with acoustic guitar at early sessions but only nine were recorded with a full band. "Train Left Here This Morning", a more elaborate rerecording of a song first released on The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark, was omitted from the final album and amended to a 2003 European reissue.

Released in September 1974, No Other was dismissed as being bloated and pretentious by critics, reaching a disappointing peak of #144 on the charts without any active promotion from the label. Further confounding matters was the album's misrepresenative artwork: the front cover was a collage inspired by 1920s Hollywood glamour, while the back featured a photo of the singer with permed hair and clad in full drag, frolicking at the former estate of John Barrymore. A rare fall tour staged by the singer could not salvage the endeavour, and demos for a new album--reportedly a fusion of country rock with R&B, funk, and early disco stylings--were promptly rejected by Asylum. (By 1976 No Other had been deleted).

Clark then signed with RSO to release the more straightforward Two Sides to Every Story in 1977, only to find it lost in the shuffle next to two more significant releases--Eric Clapton's Slowhand and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. In 1979 he reunited with McGuinn and Chris Hillman to form McGuinn, Clark, and Hillman; they would release one album to moderate success before Clark grew disinterested and left.

Henceforth relegated to obscurity, Clark would die of alcoholism-related causes in 1991. He remained embittered about the lack of success entitled to No Other, which he deemed to be his masterpiece in several interviews.

By the late 1990s, perhaps indirectly because of his death, interest in Clark's catalog had grown to the point where three songs from No Other were included on an excellent double disc compilation entitled "Flying High". In the early 2000s, No Other was finally reissued in its entirety. A 2003 European reissue included "Train Leaves Here This Morning" and several alternate, semi-acoustic renditions while a skeletal version lacking the bonus tracks but containing restored packaging and new liner notes appeared in the United States on Collector's Choice Music.

[edit] Track listing

  1. "Life's Greatest Fool" – 4:44
  2. "Silver Raven" – 4:53
  3. "No Other" – 5:08
  4. "Strength of Strings" – 6:31
  5. "From a Silver Phial" – 3:40
  6. "Some Misunderstanding" – 8:09
  7. "The True One" – 3:58
  8. "Lady of the North" – 6:04

(bonus tracks on the 2003 import - currently available and it by far the definitive CD release:)

  1. "Train Leaves Here This Morning" - 4:59
  2. "Life's Greatest Fool" (alternate version) - 4:16
  3. "Silver Raven" (alternate version) - 3:06
  4. "No Other" (alternate version) - 5:35
  5. "From A Silver Phial" (alternate version) - 3:42
  6. "Some Midunderstanding" (alternate version) - 5:17
  7. "Lady Of The North" (alternate version) - 5:54