David Crosby on Gene Clark: “He was way ahead of his time”
Rock and roll is brimming with stories in which certain artists do not receive the plaudits they deserve in life. One of the most glaring instances is the tale of Gene Clark, the American singer-songwriter and founding member of folk-rock pioneers The Byrds. While the likes of Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Gram Parsons hog all the limelight for The Byrds, during the band’s early stages between 1964 and early 1966, Clark wrote most of the band’s best-known originals. The list includes ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’ and ‘Eight Miles High’.
After leaving The Byrds in 1966 due to an alleged fear of flying – amongst other issues – Clark went solo. Although he didn’t receive the credit he deserved in his lifetime, he released an array of music hailed as groundbreaking. His 1974 album No Other is now described as a lost masterpiece and even one of the greatest ever made. Tragically, however, Clark’s life would not pan out as he or many would have hoped, with the musician passing away on May 24th, 1991, from a bleeding ulcer. Drug and alcohol addiction were later determined to have contributed to his death.
Nearly 32 years have passed since Clark’s death, with those closest to him and his peers continuing to fly his flag. Despite what other members of The Byrds might have claimed about his relationship with Clark when part of the band, David Crosby – who passed away in January this year – was one of the most prominent advocates of his late bandmate. Speaking to Musicangle in 2004, Crosby looked back on Clark and asserted he was “way ahead of his time”.
Crosby said: “I think he (Gene Clark) was way ahead of his time. His changes. He didn’t know the rules, so he just wrote what he felt, and he didn’t know the rules musically or grammatically or any kind- he had no idea what the rules were, so he just wrote exactly what he felt, and I think he had a freedom about it that produced incredible music…Yeah, he was a good singer…. I think Roger was better. Roger was a very good storyteller.”
Suggesting that other forces might have impacted the trajectory of Clark’s life, Crosby, who was prone to believing in conspiracy theories, said: “Other people were telling him he could be the next Elvis and that he was… you know, that he didn’t… the standard thing…the same shit that fucking Yoko whispered in John’s ear, ‘you don’t need those guys, you’re a star’. Jesus Christ, think about it. The two guys who could have had any two women on earth… My god!!! And Gene was afraid of aeroplanes. We were going to a gig, we all got on the aeroplane; he was very, very nervous, he’d probably gotten himself chemically enhanced before he got on, and he was sitting there, and he was too high, or whatever it was, he panicked and got off the plane. And Roger’s response was, ‘if you can’t fly, you can’t be a Byrd.'”
Pondering what might have been for Clark if he’d gone to Nashville instead of Hollywood, Crosby concluded: “Gene was never meant for that man (the Hollywood star system). If Gene had instead gone to Nashville, he probably would have been a huge star because he was good-looking — a good-looking young guy. A good singer and a good writer, and he had a charisma, you know? He was a great guy.”
