After leaving the Byrds, Clark should’ve been a huge success. But in a way I’m selfishly glad that he remains one of the best kept secrets in popular music, widely influential but entirely under the radar of popular recognition. While his Dylanesque White Light and his coked-out baroque country masterpiece, No Other, are generally the ones most often mentioned, this one, which to all intents and purposes is his solo debut (the Gosdin brothers playing an integral role but having little to do with the album’s composition), is a record of tremendous scope for its modest length, with flashes of country, bluegrass, baroque pop, psychedelia—and more than an occasional nod to the spare melodicism of Rubber Soul. It’s the kind of record only a singer and songwriter as talented as Clark could pull off without coming off as pretentious or boring or unfocused. This album is none of those things. It frequently beats the Byrds at their own game, so fans of that group’s ilk should get this posthaste. But I’d recommend this to anyone with an interest in the best stuff from the mid 60s.
–Will
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