Clarence White: Strap Yourself to a Tree with Roots: 1970

 

“We’re getting standing ovations for the first time. We’re tighter and more together. We’re a much, much better band.”
–Roger McGuinn to Rolling Stone, late 1969

1970 was The Byrds’ last great year of sustained excellence. They played around 200 gigs in the US and Europe and were consistently lauded for kickass live performances. Their last great album, Untitled, was released on September 16, 1970, with half the album consisting of face-melting live tracks and the other half consisting of hit and miss, but mostly solid studio work. Clarence, of course, was invaluable in both contexts, but particularly so live. While the setlists didn’t vary too much from night to night, White’s playing never stayed in any one place too long. His was a jazzbo’s sensibility, constantly tinkering with the delivery, giving these great songs an evolving, fluid presence that brought out the best in The Byrds catalog.

After sifting through the original Untitled release, the outstanding two-disc reissue from 2000, multiple live shows, and some non-Byrds material — notably his acoustic duets with Roger Bush — I finally settled on 10 Byrds tunes, just over a half-hour in length, that I feel best showcase Clarence White’s arsenal of talents. I’ve arranged the tracks in the fashion of their shows from that year, so that we start off with rock songs (both country and regular), incorporate an acoustic midsection, and then return to the rock. I also nod to the Untitled format by following the live stuff with studio material.

But first, an overview of the era with Skip Battin replacing John York on bass, a personnel change that kicked the rhythm section up a notch. Then, Gene Parsons and a few rock critics discuss how The Byrds vastly improved as a live act by 1970, that their harmonies may have gotten “crustier” and they certainly weren’t as commercial, but as a performing unit they were never better.

THREE-HEADED GENIUS

“Clarence) was the first guy to get a lot of mileage out of the StringBender. But, he also played fingerstyle cross-picking, which was a big departure for him because he was a flatpicker on the acoustic. He played almost like a bluegrass banjo player on the electric guitar. He also took advantage of the light setup and the Telecaster snarl to get a kind of nasty, biting sound.”
–Jerry Garcia to Rick Petreysik, “Echoes of a Country Rock Legend,” Guitar Player, September 1992, pp. 81-82

Garcia’s perceptive analysis reveals one of the amazing truths about Clarence White’s development as a guitarist. Between 1963-70, he mastered THREE separate kinds of guitar playing. He revolutionized acoustic flatpicking with the Kentucky Colonels (1963-64), transitioned to Telecaster and created a unique, heavily-syncopated style that effortlessly combined country and rock (1966-67), and then mastered the StringBender (1969-70), which produced a more fluid, steel guitar sound that combined country and rock, but in a markedly different way. This three-headed genius is wholly represented on Untitled, where even Clarence’s acoustic takes center stage. This is especially true of the 2000 reissue, with its fancy extra disc of live and studio recordings. However, before we acoustic, let us country rock.

Byrds – You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Untitled/Unissued, 2000 Reissue
Recorded March 1, 1970
Amazon

 

Byrds – Positively 4th Street
Untitled, 1970
Recorded March 1, 1970
Amazon

 

The Byrds owe so much to Bob Dylan, why start anywhere else? The studio version of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” is certainly in the pantheon, but this version is miles ahead. White’s steel-heavy guitar part (panned left) establishes double country propers. The Byrds learned when they first hired Clarence White that their songs with him sounded country not only because he was picking in the classic Bakersfield/honky-tonk tradition, but because there was also a steel feel to his playing. This was true even before he and Parsons shape-shifted the StringBender into existence. By 1970, songs like “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” and “Old Blue” sounded like The Byrds had a lead guitarist and pedal steel player — only there was one guy standing there!

On “4th Street,” I love how the band essentially consists of three lead instruments, like a country-rock Who. As with “Lover Of The Bayou” (profiled back in April), Battin and Parsons lay down the funky pocket, with White (again panned left) moving in and out, expertly accenting their parts with his own distinctive coloring.

Byrds – Eight Miles High [Live Excerpt]
Louisville, Kentucky
June 12, 1970

 

“One night we were playing the Whisky, and when we were in the dressing room this really well-dressed black man wearing a hat with a feather in it walks in and says to Clarence, ‘Are you Clarence White?’

And Clarence says, ‘Yeah.”

And the fellow adds, ‘Well, I really love the way you play guitar. I’ve been listening to you for years and you’re one of my favorite players.’

So Clarence says, ‘Wow. Thanks a lot. What did you say your name was?’

The fellow says, ‘I’m Jimi Hendrix.'”
–Gene Parsons to Rick Petreysik, “Echoes of a Country Rock Legend,” Guitar Player, September 1992, p. 84

While this story sounds almost too good to be true, you listen to this rip through “Eight Miles High” and the question isn’t “Was Hendrix really a Clarence White fan?” The question is, “Why wouldn’t Hendrix be a Clarence White fan?” The expansive musical vision, the command of guitar, amplifier, electricity, and tone, the way CW trills and divebombs in two different sections (1:54-2:15ish and 3:10-3:25) are all Jimi-esque. In the rock ‘n’ roll fantasy camp that is my brain, few imaginings are better than an after-hours Hendrix/White jam session. Pure music nerd-vana.

Regarding that “expansive musical vision,” it was mostly because of White that The Byrds were able to cover the ground from “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere to the “Eight Miles High” jam and not miss a beat. Clarence may have been the only guitarist in 1970 who was capable of legitimately reconciling the Fillmore West with Nashville West (which we’ll get to later).

 

This song also demonstrates one of the unique qualities of this era of The Byrds. White was so rhythm-centric in his playing that he worked less off McGuinn and Battin than he did off of Gene Parsons. Clarence recruited Gene into the band because he’d been playing with him for years and knew he could keep up. In fact, I’d say the White-Parsons chemistry is the secret ingredient — and for my money, the most consistently interesting feature — of the 1968-73 Byrds. Their call-and-response was the driving force of that band, an unusually syncopated, borderline telepathic rhythm machine. When on, which was often, they were tough to top.

“I DON’T THINK I’M GONNA PLAY ANYMORE, MAN!”

Byrds (w/John Hammond) – I’m Movin’ On
Ash Grove, Hollywood, CA
Summer 1970

 

John Hammond joins The Byrds for a great run through the 1950 Hank Snow hit, though it owes way more to the Elvis version released on From Elvis In Memphis in June 1969. On a sidenote, it was the success of From Elvis In Memphis, itself building on the success of the ’68 Comeback Special, that motivated Elvis to hire Clarence’s early mentor on electric guitar, James Burton (pictured right with Elvis), as bandleader and arranger for the TCB Band.

This track is actually one of the few examples where White plays like Burton. That slashing, syncopated, R&B-influenced guitar is straight TCB. And while I could be wrong, it sounds like White and Hammond trade solos in the manner of an old-fashioned cutting contest between 2:09 and 2:56. While Clarence does his thing (2:09-2:39), Hammond’s solo (2:39-2:56) almost sounds perfunctory, like he couldn’t wait for it to end and why in the name of God did I agree to follow CLARENCE WHITE (!!!) on guitar? Perhaps then, the motivation for this friendly exchange at the song’s conclusion:

JH [chuckling]: “I don’t think I’m gonna play anymore, man!”
CW: “No, everything’s cool, but I think that’s it.”
JH: “Thank you.”

Byrds – Black Mountain Rag (Soldier’s Joy)
1990 box set
Recorded February 28, 1970
Amazon

 

There was quite a bit of exchange going on between us for the first year or so, when Clarence came into the group. Later on, though, I stopped playing as much because he was so good. I just let him go.”
–Roger McGuinn, from the Untitled liner notes

While my favorite Clarence White tracks are with the Tele and StringBender, you simply cannot deny the majesty and raw power of CW on acoustic guitar. The man owned the room and McGuinn’s off-the-cuff, “I’m gonna try to keep up with him” sums it up. As with Hammond, you can almost imagine McGuinn standing there thinking, “Why am I here again???”

Byrds – Take A Whiff On Me
Untitled/Unissued, 2000 Reissue
Recorded September 23, 1970
Amazon

 

“Cocaine’s for horses, not for men
The doctor say it’ll kill you, but he don’t know when.”

Leadbelly‘s tune about the pleasures and perils of demon blow is arranged as a group vocal a la southern gospel, with Clarence taking lead on the verses. I like this version better than the album version because it’s considerably more spirited, the crowd gets into it, and I think all that allows White to get into a comfort zone on the mic. It probably helped that in terms of group harmonies, “Whiff” wasn’t altogether different from some of the old Kentucky Colonels material. A fun song and considering that snorting cocaine almost became an Olympic sport in the 1970s, prescient.

 

Byrds – Nashville West
Untitled, 1970
Recorded March 1, 1970
Amazon

 

“Nashville West” was written by White and Parsons during their stint in The Reasons (aka Nashville West) and it served as an homage to the nightclub of the same name in El Monte. (See Clarence White and the Rise of Nashville West: 1966-67). It was a standard part of Byrds setlists once White and Parsons joined the group in 1968.

I think as much as any song on Untitled, it also showcases the banjo-esque cross-picking style that impressed Garcia. If you pay attention to Clarence in the left channel, you can hear what sounds like two guitars. Really what he’s doing is voicing hard, slashing notes with a guitar pick and following those notes up with banjo-esque frailing with his bottom three fingers. Thus, Garcia’s description of White as “a bluegrass banjo player on the electric guitar” is apt, not just technically, but also in the way a bluegrass banjo player fills in the sound rhythmically around the main melody. Quality.

LOWERED HIM DOWN WITH A GOLDEN CHAIN

Byrds – Old Blue
Untitled/Unissued, 2000 Reissue
Recorded March 1, 1970
Amazon

 

One of my favorite songs from Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde (1969), I was tempted to include it with the profile of that album (see Clarence White: Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Men: 1968-69). However, I knew had some smokin’ live versions from 1970 waiting for me. This one from the Untitled reissue is my favorite of the bunch. Clarence puts on a StringBender clinic, juking and swooping around the melody with bursts of pitch-bending explosiveness that recall Ike Turner at his meanest and whammiest (“Prancin’, e.g.”).

This is also the perfect song to reiterate how difficult it must’ve been to play with Clarence. His style was so unorthodox, at any given moment he could be behind, on, or in front of the beat. He could effortlessly double back on his own lines like a bebop soloist. He could lead Battin down a melodic rabbit hole on bass, while simultaneously answering and responding to Parsons’ rhythmic cues on drums. And it’s astonishing to remember that White was making up the StringBender rules as he went along. The guitar was all of two years old (!) in the summer of 1970. Yet, no one has created a more complete vocabulary on the instrument nor surpassed the fundamentals he laid down in this glorious honeymoon period.

Byrds – Chestnut Mare
Untitled, 1970
Recorded June 3, 1970
Amazon

 

One of The Byrds’ most enduring songs, “Chestnut Mare” is wonderfully arranged, contains approximately 37 different guitar parts that somehow manage to stay out of each others way (many of which feature Clarence picking an acoustic), and is a perfect cross-section of pop, rock, folk, and country, which is also a pretty good description of The Byrds. And yet, it still creeps me out because the narrator says the horse “will be just like a wife.” Um, you said what now??? White has a heavy right channel presence throughout, an atypical production choice to this point in his tenure with The Byrds. He was more often than not panned left on Byrds albums.

Byrds – Truck Stop Girl
Untitled, 1970
Recorded June 3, 1970
Amazon

 

Clarence wasn’t the greatest vocalist, but “Truck Stop Girl” was kind of perfect for him. It was in a good key, it was one of Lowell George’s best songs (which is saying something), and his outro guitar solo (2:26-3:14) kills. It was also his first real solo vehicle. “Oil In My Lamp” (from Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde) and “Take A Whiff On Me” were arranged as group vocals with White out front. Here, it’s all Clarence.

VIDEO VAULT

For such a groundbreaking, popular band, there’s precious little Byrds video in existence. However, here’s a couple gems from 1970. This first one is from the Kralingen Pop Festival in Holland. Typically excellent (and understated) guitar work from CW, I just wish there was more of him in the vid. I know, I should be happy with what I got. Just sayin.

The Byrds – Old Blue
Holland Pop Festival, Rotterdam
June 27, 1970

This second video is classic footage from the fall of 1970, when The Byrds hooked up with the Earl Scruggs Revue in Nashville. Thankfully, this collaboration is now available on the Scruggs grassumentary, The Bluegrass Legend: Family and Friends, but I’m not sure if there’s more Byrds material than this.

The Byrds & Earl Scruggs – Nothin’ To It + You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Doug Underwood Ranch
June 13-14, 1970

From a historical perspective, it’s great to see White play with Scruggs. Talk about strapping yourself to a tree with roots. The roots don’t get much deeper than Earl Scruggs. Both he and Clarence revolutionized bluegrass, White by establishing the guitar as a primary voice in the ensemble, and Scruggs by midwifing the genre into existence with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys. Both men were also pioneers in the sense that they were unafraid to challenge their own comfort zones. White was constantly exploring new sounds, mostly on electric guitar, while Scruggs split with longtime musical foil, Lester Flatt, in 1969 because he enjoyed playing music with (and being influenced by, one would presume) them damn hippies.