We've Got You Covered, Geno, yes, we do...

Time for some more Gene Clark around here, albeit indirectly. The first Little Feat entry might have been posted first, but this was the beginning of our hopefully soon to be loved We've Got You Covered series. As with most other things in his life, musically and otherwise, even tribute albums to him were a difficult proposition. Nothing of course happened in the 90s, the lowest time for any Clark afficinado, but in the early 2000s, at the very beginning of the slow Gene Clark revival, two tribute albums appeared: Full Circle (which I have), a really good two-disc set from (mostly) American independent recording artists that was supported by the Clark estate and featured a tribute song by his son Kai, and You Can't Hide Your Love Forever, an indie compilation from down under (which I don't own). So far, so good. Still, despite the recognition of Gene Clark hitting a high in the early 2010s (think The No Other Band), no high-profile tribute album has come along. 

We've Got You Covered: Gene Clark, Vol. 1 isn't exactly high profile, either, but it will hopefully do its very modest part to raise Geno's profile just a little bit more. For right now, this series is scheduled for four volumes, but we'll see. The roster for the whole series is divided into the usual suspects (Sid Griffin, Iain Matthews), friends & family (Carla Olson, Rick Clark), cult artists covering another cult artist (This Mortal Coil, Mark Lanegan, Leo Kottke, Yo La Tengo), a bunch of rather random folks paying tribute and tons of tons of little-known or unknown artists. 

Since the idea was to discover what these lesser known folks do with Clark's work, I left off the one really high-profile cover he received, which was a blessing and a curse for Clark during his lifetime. After Tom Petty covered "Fell A Whole Lot Better", Clark was suddenly and unexectedly relatively flush with money, which he then used for his bad habits that contributed to his maddeningly early death. Still, it's crazy that singers with a nose for a great song like Emmylou Harris (before she became a more than respectable songwriter) never recorded a song by Gene Clark. Oh, I forgot: Semi-high profile Robert Plant & Alison Krauss are also not part of the line-up.  

So, off to the roster of this first volume, shall we? We got contemporary colleagues of Clark like The Cryan' Shames (opening proceedings), Starry Eyed And Laughing and Johhny Winter (on one of the early recordings for Roy Aymes). Aforementioned cult bands like Yo La Tengo and Midnight Choir are present and accounted for, as is a quasi-dB's reunion, with an appropriately jangly cover of "Here Without You", from the 1991 duo album by Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey. And there is a ton of bands that before compiling this series I had never heard of before: The Marsh, The Piedmont Brothers Band, WolRus, The Birdy Nam Nams, The Improper Bostonians, Hungrytown or Ex Norwegian. The latter close this compilation with a truly fantastic version of "Lady Of The North". But the quality control button has been pushed to 11, so all of these are really good. All pearls, no swine, if you know what I mean. And for the wild card in the bunch we have an appearance of Peggy Bundy, erm, I mean Katey Sagal with a really nice, subtly electronics-enhanced version of "Feel A Whole Lot Better"! 

So, this will hopefully remind you of how fantastic these songs are, and once you're through listening to We've Got You Covered: Gene Clark, Vol. 1 you should go back and listen to some of the man's work. And if you don't know where to start, there are always the alternate versions of his albums that I have compiled. Because as ever, you can't have enough Gene Clark in your life.