#Eight miles high group free#

The album is original, experimental and daring, and yet at the same time as unfocused and derivative as all of Gene’s “career” was. This resourceful, pioneering album is anything but “of a genre,” though it includes elements of country-rock, before there was such a category. The title may fool you into thinking Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers is a bluegrass album. Sessions (Columbia KC 31123) remixed from the original 8 track tapes with new Clark vocals, misses the magic of the original. Original “360 Sound” pressings of CL/CS 9418 are nearly impossible to find (I paid $50 for an original mono “radio station service” copy) and a later 1972 issue Gene Clark, Collector’s Series: Early L.A. The story of how this album came to be, how Clark hooked up with The Gosdin Brothers (two bluegrass pickin’ Alabamans and friends of Chris Hillman), and was joined on the record by Leon Russell, Van Dyke Parks, future Byrd Clarence White, Glen Cambell and the guy who played the opening lick to The Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville” and the others who played on the record, is well documented in the newly commissioned liner notes for the January, 16th, 1967 release.

Sundazed has been kind enough to issue it on a 180 gram vinyl edition cut from the master tape, adding 3 previously unissued bonus tracks. The song is, of course, one of The Byrds’ greatest musical accomplishments and one of the finest singles of that, or any other pop music era.Ĭlark’s solo career never reached such exalted heights, nor did it ever find such fine focus, but he left many great moments, many of which can be found on the obscure but essential Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers. But not before writing and recording “Eight Miles High” with the group.

#Eight miles high group free#

On Turn! Turn! Turn! Clark once again provides the songwriting backbone and the most memorable, and moody original tunes with “Set You Free This Time,” “If You’re Gone,” and “The World Turns All Around Her,” though one could make a case for McGuinn’s startling “It Won’t Be Wrong.” Tambourine Man back jacket photo of Dylan joining The Byrds onstage, showing a displaced Clark standing behind the folk-hero serves as a powerful metaphor. McGuinn and his Rickenbacker stole stage focus. He was the singing, tambourine shaking “front man,” but he never seemed comfortable thrust that far into the spotlight. Though he contributed mightily, Clark seemed to be lurking in the shadows. On the first album, while the novelty of electrified Dylan songs attracted immediate attention, Clark, “the songwriting Byrd,” quietly gave the album its most memorable moments with the haunting ballads “Here Without You,” and “ I Knew I’d Want You,” and “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better,” the jingly/jangly kiss-off song that distills and defines The Byrds’ sound. He quit and headed West where he joined up with McGuinn and later Crosby at Doug Weston’s famed Santa Monica Blvd. While a member of The New Christy Minstrels during the early ‘60s, the young mid-westerner heard “She Loves You” on a jukebox and realized his place wasn’t in a folksploitation group. We brought it back to accompany Sundazed's reissue of Gene Clark -ed. This updated feature originally ran in Listener magazine and was re-published here in 2004.