We've Got You Covered Again, Geno, Even If It Took Some Time...

While I was busy compiling and sequencing and recompiling and resequencing new volumes of the Bowie-We've Got You Covered series, I realized that the series that had started it all had been stuck in neutral for a while again. The second volume of We've Got You Covered - Gene Clark followed the first one by a month and now it has been *checks notes* seven months?!? Thank god these things don't have cliffhangers...(and don't fear, All Pearls, No Swine fans, that series hasn't been forgitten either...coming soon with a new, bold volume...)

Anyway, so time to get back on the horse with folks covering Geno, especially since there are still too few covering too few different songs. I can probably fill up a disc or two with covers of "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better", much like, as fellow Little Feat compiler Jonder pointed out, you can make a whole disc out of "Willin'" covers alone. The entire point of this series, though, is both discovering artists you wouldn't otherwise (or see some old musical friends you haven't seen in a while) and also discovering the Clark songs that not everyone knows. 

So, this is where Vol. 3 picks up. Of course, there's another "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better", this time courtesy of British 60's jingle jangle revivalist The Coral. "Eight Miles High" is covered by fellow folk veteran Leo Kottke.(a solo acoustic version, not the band version from 1971's Mudlark) and Gene friend and duet partner Carla Olson covers "She Don't Care About Time", here in a duet with Richie Furay (and Clark's mid-80s running mates John York and Pat Robinson). But that's pretty much it in terms of huge classics, unfortunately, because the general public's memory covers those songs and not much else. 

Several of his too little known 60s classics are here:  underrated Dillard & Clark single "Why Not Your Baby?" as faithfully covered by Saville, minor Byrds classics "Here Without You" covered by Reigning Sound and "I'd Want You" as covered with a tinge of garage rock by Thin White Rope, "So You Say You Lost Your Baby" as covered by Thistill, and orchestral experiment "Echoes" as covered decidedly more rustically by Leo Koster. 

What Gene Clark comp would be complete without superfan Sid Griffin (who often takes over liner notes duty on Clark reissues)? Here he is covering "Silver Raven" with his band The Coal Porters. Another Clark superfan is Italian musician Marco Zanzi, showing up with a superb version of "Full Circle". Chris & Rich Robinson, the brothers behind The Black Crowes played concerts as an acoustic duo as Birds Of A Feather (before the inevitable band reunion), where they covered "Polly". My personal favorites on this volume are Bob Holden's delicate acoustic cover of Clarks's last classic "Del Gato", The Mother Hips' great take on "Out On The Side" and Carrie Ashley Hill's dreampop_ish version of "Dark Of My Moon", a late 80s demo that Clark never got to cut in the studio. 

Of Clark's contemporaries, there's Fairport Convention covering "Tried So Hard" for the BBC and of course ever loyal Ian Matthews, this time delivering a beautiful version of "For A Spanish Guitar" with Plainsong. 

As for the surprises that come up with each volume? Well, I wouldn't have had Depeche Mode-front man Dave Gahan on my 'most likely to cover Gene Clark' shortlist, but here he is with The Soulsavers, covering the relatively obscure White Light track "Where My Love Lies Asleep". Red Feather, of which I know next to nothing, are a sludgy psych noise rock outfit, not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of Gene Clark's music. They played an ultra heavy, ten minute slow metal crawl version of No Other. I edited several shorter versions, and finally decided to keep the longest one at around six and a half minutes, which gives you a good impression of what they are doing with the song, without the squalls of pure noise they also produced. I programmmed this as the album closer, so if this admittedly unusual take isn't your cup of tea, you can simply delete it without retaging or other hassles.

So, there's again tons of great covers herewithin, and a bunch of unknown or little known artists to discover. Without further ado, We've Got You Covered Vol. 3 for the songs of Mr. Gene Clark...

If you want to complete your collection, links for volumes one and two have been updated.