Forty years younger than yesterday

This week marks forty years since the release of Gene Clark With the Gosdin Brothers (aka Echoes), the first country-rock record ever according to wikipedia.

This was Clark's first solo album after leaving the Byrds, and features Chris Hillman on bass and Michael Clarke on drums, as well as future Byrds Clarence White and Doug Dillard, so it sounds like a close cousin to the Byrds' Younger Than Yesterday (which was also released forty years ago this week).

As the title suggests, the album was a collaboration with the Gosdin Brothers (Vern and Rex), who added guitars and harmonies and brought Gene's Byrdsy folk rock to the country, more than a year before Sweetheart of the Rodeo or the International Submarine Band brought "country-rock" into the vernacular.

Since it came out the same week as Younger Than Yesterday, and featuring such a novel sound, Gene's album got lost in Columbia's promotional shuffle for the Byrds and didn't have a chance on either the country or pop charts. Back in 1967, there weren't Americana or even FM-rock stations to play albums like this, and alt-country was still decades away from being "invented" by Uncle Tupelo, so this album was a masterpiece without an audience.

One of the standout tracks on Gene Clark With the Gosdin Brothers is "Tried So Hard", which was later covered by Fairport Convention, the post-Gram Flying Burrito Brothers, and Yo La Tengo (on their Fakebook album) . Besides Clark/Byrds diehards, most people know this song from the cover versions, but here's an alternate take of the original, from the long out-of-print 1990 Epic/Legacy reissue of the album. This site gives a good writeup of the recording for this album, and is a great resource for Gene Clark and Byrds info.

Gene Clark With the Gosdin Brothers - Tried So Hard [mp3]