Gene Clark Solo Albums-album by album & *now* track by track on p. 23*

It's interesting to me that Roger McGuinn's 1974 album Peace On You features a similar production approach with gospel backing singers and elaborate arrangements.

I prefer the demos of the songs on this album largely, but I will say that lyrically this album is genius - even if you didn't hear a note of music, it's still a masterpiece as a piece of writing.

 

Ha! From Einarson's book -

One inspiration proved to be far more mundane in realty then oft speculated. In interviews Gene would wax philosophical about the inspiration for his mysterious 'Silver Raven' arising from a flying saucer, which he indeed believe existed along with alien visitations to Earth. However, the silver raven in question was wife Carlie's favorite footwear. “I use to have these platform shoes, silver leather platform shoes made for me in the days of platform shoes,” reveals Carlie. “I would dance with those shoes on and Gene called them my silver ravens.” Confirms Ea, “The song 'Silver Raven' is about Carlie's silver platform shoes. She was a very good dancer and she could fly. She had them resoled and made those boots last.”

 

Right. That is in Einarson's book. So if that other quote is to believed, maybe Gene was doing a Dylan thing. Saying outrageous things to the press for lark.

That is the story I remember about Carlie's silver go-go boots.

 

I love Gene's approach to songwriting. In Einarson's book, Gene's approach was never as a poet setting the words to music--the music was a much a part as the words. Though Gene's lyrics are beautiful poetry to anyone's ears, he never wanted to just write poems, like Jim Morrison. Gene never liked being called a poet. He felt his words were nothing without the music--hence his song:"Strength Of Strings"

Hillman said of Gene Clark that Gene was so far ahead of the rest of the Byrds in sophisticated lyrics--they were amazed as Gene would pump out dozens of songs on a weekly basis, then finding one or two good ones among them. The Byrds could never approach Gene's sophistication until after a couple albums, and then of course Gene was gone.

 

I recently listened to the expanded version with demos, outtakes etc. Highly recommended!

No Other with bonus tracks:

 

Yes. The stripped down demos are fantastic.

 

Classic album and a pretty unique one, can't think of anything that sounds like it.

 

Gene was unique throughout his career...like NO OTHER.

...sorry couldn't resist.

 

I prefer to listen to the demos more than the finished versions for most of the songs.

 

For me, No Other is the true definition of Cosmic Americana - as in a superb prog/psych/singer-songwriter/country hybrid!

The arrangements and production lifts it to an even higher level than the already great songs themselves.

 

What a dumb comment from allmusic. I hear no substantial similarity between No Other and those FM albums.

I haven't heard the whole album, but Roger's version of the song "Peace on You" is basically follows the production of the Charlie Rich original, except with more prominent guitars. Masses of strings and gospel backing singers were trademarks of Rich's producer at the time, Billy Sherrill.

Now that I think about it, if I were going to compare the sound of No Other to anything coming out at the same time, it would be the country stuff Billy Sherrill was producing. I don't mean from a songwriting perspective (most of No Other is not country at all) but from a production standpoint. Strangely, not the first time Gene's work paralleled that of Charlie Rich, since Rich's 1965 albums sound a lot like the stuff on the With the Gosdin Brothers album.

 

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Yeah. I guess he was just referring to production techniques??, which in no way explains the success of one (F-M) and not so the other (No Other).

Gene was as always, way ahead of the times. Fleetwood Mac (after Peter Green) was just tapping into the commercial musical trends of the day, not setting the trend. Gene was never one to try to tap into the mainstream nor did he buy into selling out.

 

The production of No Other is very layered, with overdubs up the wazoo. This, and the the excessive time, money, and extravagance is what allmusuc is referring to, not the songs themselves.

Where they differ is the open sound of Runours, which has ‘air’. To me, the production of No Other quite often swamps songs, and seems rather stultifying. The demo’s are for the most part perfect, whereas the Rumours demo’s benefitted greatly from layering, and so on.

Just my opinion, I love the songs. I think they are genius.

 

We'll agree to differ, the album is much better than the demos.

 

No Other was an album I struggled with after picking up the Dillard-Clark collection and the Echoes comp and it wasn't just the sound and style of the album. We've had a few comments in the thread about the photos of Gene. So it's really jarring to see this virile guy all glam on the back of No Other. I did adjust and it truly is a fine album.

 

One of the Gene Clark sites has pictures of the house he was staying in when he wrote the No Other tunes, but I cannot locate it at the moment.

 

If that's the case, it would make more sense to compare it to Tusk, which cost a lot more and took a great deal more time to record than either of the two previous albums. For that matter, the self-titled Fleetwood Mac album was not expensive or extravagant, and took only two months to record, so the comparison does not fit at all.

The obvious difference is that Rumours does not feature piles of strings or gospel choruses, just the five band members.

 

Crap, I got kicked off this thread (I must have forgot to click an alert). I'm going to try to listen to this again in a couple of days. I love the album, production and all...

 

No Other is a slow burn, for me White Light has always been my favorite, but every listen gets me closer to leaning towards No Other. Silver Raven, The True One and the title track are so beautiful. Just ran across a promo copy of fantastic dillard and clark over the weekend they wanted $75 and had mold on the back cover, had to pass

 

I don’t really think that the chronology was what prompted the comparison, but similar production techniques and the opposite outcomes.

But, I don’t know and don’t really care. Take it up with allmusic.

 

How is the production similar? No Other has so much session musician ornamentation, and Rumors is pretty much just a rock band playing. They both took a lot of time and $, sure.

 

And a touch of glam.

 

Rumours has a deceptively-simple sounding production, but it’s actually quite layered.

 

Exactly. The only similarity between Rumours and No Other is time and money spent to make it, not production style or sound. Meanwhile the self-titled Fleetwood Mac album (which was also cited) did not even take a lot of time and money, so there's zero points of similarity there. Yeah, I suppose I've made too much of a big deal about it. But it just strikes me as someone making a ridiculous stretch, I guess to try to prove the point that Gene was ahead of his time and that his career was star-crossed. I don't think Gene prefigured the Fleetwood Mac sound, and I don't think No Other would have been a commercial record regardless of when it was released.

 

That Glam outfit of Gene's is more of a tongue-in-check thing, I'm thinking, and with that over the top retro artwork--the album cover gives the viewer no idea of the uniquely wonderful music within. Kinda mystical. Intended?

In Einarson's book: it seems that they got those Glam threads from one of those hippie used clothing shops where the freaks got those granny dresses etc... like the one that Jim Morrison's girlfriend had, that were all over the LA Strip. Gene's duds are a "used" ladies blouse and pants, not some expensive, custom made GLAM trip. Gene went along, and I bet he was wondering, like wha?...but still pretty cool.