White Light (Gene Clark album)

White Light

Studio album by Gene Clark

Released

August 1971

Recorded

Spring 1971, A&M Studios & Village Recorders, Los Angeles

Genre

Country rock, folk rock

Length

34:58

Gene Clark chronology

Through the Morning, Through the Night
(1969)

White Light
(1971)

Roadmaster
(1973)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic

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. However, like all of his post Byrds' records, it did very poorly on the US charts.

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.

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."

All songs written by Gene Clark, except where noted.

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

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Wikipedia