No Other

by

Gene Clark

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I bought this record when it came out in 1974 because that was my summer of full immersion in Southern California country rock.Having been a Byrds fan, and because the record was released on Asylum records I guess I expected something different from what I heard when I played the thing. Well I don't rember disliking it, but it never got heavy rotation on the turntable, and somewhere down the line it kinda disappeared from my collection.Over the years fans and revisionist reviewers started gushing over this great "lost" work of art, comparing it to Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks' (um...no.)or Skip Spence's Oar (only in the sense that neither sold, cuz Oar is awful). So when 'No Other' finally got it's CD release, amidst glowing reviews, I had to check it out again. Well folks what we have here is a little masterpiece of SoCal country rock with gorgeous singing and playing and I can't remember why I didn't love it thirty years ago. The reason it didn't sell is because most people didn't know who Gene Clark was, not because of some kind of weirdness in the music.Neil Young sold tons of records that were far stranger and less accessible than anything on here.Promotion might have done the trick, but there was none, so it sank without a trace. Here thirty years later, and too late for the sadly deceased Gene Clark, is another chance for country rock fans to hear a work of great emotion and heartbreak that should have been a contender. It's, I repeat, a great ,great country rock recording, by a very talented singer songwriter, and that's all. And that's enough.

If you check out the cover art for this David Geffen sponsored release, you will see the improbable sight of Gene Clark wearing makeup. Take that as a warning. This record is wildly overproduced.

"From a Silver Phial" is flat-out fantastic. But, tellingly, it is the shortest track on this album. "Strength of Strings" is a great Clark opus but the arrangement is far too long at six and a half minutes. "Life's Greatest Fool" is entertaining with its odd gospel backup singers. "No Other" (the song) sounds like an effort by Clark to stretch himself musically but it doesn't really work. "Some Misunderstanding" is plodding; it's a bit like a mean parody of Gene Clark's work.

I differ with the other writers here. This is not a great album, but the good stuff is very much worth having. The excesses remind me that this comes from the era and the town that gave David Bowie and John Lennon their worst years in terms of mental health (drugs, drugs, drugs) and is not too long after Gram Parsons expired for the same reason. Thank God the same demons weren't yet destined to take Gene from us.