
He briefly returned to Kansas City before moving back to Los Angeles to form Gene Clark & the Group with Chip Douglas, Joel Larson, and Bill Rhinehart. This disappointment, combined with Clark's dislike of traveling (including a chronic fear of flying) and resentment by other band members about the extra income he derived from his songwriting, led to internal squabbling, and he left the group in early 1966.
#Youtube the byrds free#
What deep inner part of his soul conjured up songs like 'Set You Free This Time,' 'I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better,' 'I'm Feelin' Higher,' 'Eight Miles High'? So many great songs! We learned a lot of songwriting from him and in the process learned a little bit about ourselves." Ī management decision gave McGuinn the lead vocals for their major singles and Bob Dylan songs. He had the 'gift' that none of the rest of us had developed yet. Few in the audience could take their eyes off this presence.

Bassist Chris Hillman noted years later in an interview remembering Clark, "At one time, he was the power in the Byrds, not McGuinn, not Crosby-it was Gene who would burst through the stage curtain banging on a tambourine, coming on like a young Prince Valiant. He initially played rhythm guitar in the band, but relinquished that position to David Crosby and became the tambourine and harmonica player. Ĭlark wrote or co-wrote many of the Byrds' best-known originals from their first three albums, including " I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better", " Set You Free This Time", "Here Without You", "You Won't Have to Cry", "If You're Gone", "The World Turns All Around Her", " She Don't Care About Time" and " Eight Miles High".

In early 1964 they began to assemble a band that would become the Byrds. After hearing the Beatles, Clark quit the New Christy Minstrels and moved to Los Angeles, where he met fellow folkie and Beatles convert Jim (later Roger) McGuinn at the Troubadour Club. They hired him, and he recorded two albums with the ensemble before leaving in early 1964. On August 12, 1963, he was performing with them when he was discovered by the New Christy Minstrels. Formation of the Byrds Ĭlark was invited to join an established regional folk band, the Surf Riders, based in Kansas City at the Castaways Lounge, owned by Hal Harbaum. When he graduated from Bonner Springs High School, in Bonner Springs, Kansas, in 1962, he formed a folk group, the Rum Runners.

Like many of his generation, Clark developed an interest in folk music because of the popularity of the Kingston Trio. By the time he was 15, he had developed a rich tenor voice, and he formed a local rock and roll combo, Joe Meyers and the Sharks. He was soon playing Hank Williams tunes as well as songs by early rockers such as Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers. His family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where as a boy he began learning to play the guitar and harmonica from his father.

1.3 Solo career, brief return to the Byrds and Dillard and Clark.
