Gene Clark

Though wildly misunderstood when first released (like most art that’s ahead of its time), Gene Clark's third solo album—his most focused and intricately-produced shot at musical immortality—is now revered as something of a lost masterpiece. Expectations were high for the former Byrd, who had signed a solo deal after he’d been the bright spot in the band’s abortive 1973 reunion.

Although Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, and Chris Hillman were founding members of the Byrds, when they reunited as a trio at the end of the 1970s they seemed determined to create a sound that did not remind listeners of the earlier group. Though their music was still mainstream pop/rock with folk antecedents, it sounded like contemporary '70s studio rock, even to the point of including a song with a disco arrangement, "Release Me Girl." More important, the trio's vocal blend, heavily augmented by the voices of John Sambataro and Rhodes, Chalmers & Rhodes, did not remind listeners of the Byrds.

A documentary on the life and work of Gene Clark, co-founder of The Byrds, whose subsequent career was a rollercoaster of pioneering music and personal disaster.

The Dillard & Clark duo was Gene Clark's most artistically successful post-Byrds collaboration, and his best venture into country-rock as well. With Chris Hillman and Bernie Leadon playing behind the duo throughout the first album, in many ways it is as much an offshoot of the Flying Burrito Brothers' work as it is of the Byrds, with more of the Burritos' feel. The standard of playing and singing on both albums is extremely high, but the ten songs on The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark are more impressive, both as recordings and compositions. The ten songs from Through the Morning, Through the Night fail to match the joyous quality or the originality of their predecessors and the sound is less unified, mostly due to the presence of a third singer in the guise of Donna Washburn. But combined together, these 20 songs are an essential addition to any country-rock collection and are also indispensible to fans of the Byrds or the Flying Burrito Brothers. This 1989 audiophile release by Mobile Fidelity combines both albums on one remastered CD.