Dillard & Clark
The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark

Just look at their faces to understand the differences, observing the cover but also the photos inside: Doug Dillard, cheeky and ruddy, skinny with a mouth too wide, wider than his face itself, is a perfect country lad. Gene Clark, on the other hand, rather than smile, mostly just winks, you can also see him absorbed and in profile, and if the photo is frontal, he lets the locks cover his eyes. He seems more like the country version of a new romantic, or a Brian Ferry.

A pop-rock star and a country boy... Leather caps à la Marlon Brando, sidecar... Clark is simply super cool, had he been bare-chested, perhaps covered by just a leather vest, he would have made even the top-notch Morten Harket envious... Doug Dillard with that headgear is even more outlandish, also because under that visor, you can see him grinning as usual, and the protruding ears make the caps stand out, oh yes, they do!

Everyone knows who Gene Clark is. Doug, instead, is a talented guitarist and banjo player, and the leader of the family-run band The Dillards. With them, he played contemporary country music since 1963. The release month for this duo work, however, is October 1968.

The Dillards had released their fourth album, "Wheatstraw Suite," a few months earlier. In the same year, the band Gene Clark had to leave, the Byrds, produced two masterpieces: "The Notorious Byrd Brothers" in January and "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo," with Gram Parsons, in July. This last one, Parsons, was already on his second record and with a second band. And by February '69, he would be with the third band. All of this, you'll agree, is monstrous.

In this coming and going of records, in this tangle of names and titles, amidst all the successive styles and stylistic elements, ambitions, and visions, the most relaxed guy seems to be Gene Clark, whose solo debut followed "a good" eighteen months after his last work with the Byrds, while this with Dillard came out the year after. In times so frenetic, a year seems to be quite something.

While Crosby was going into orbit, while Parsons rushed towards the end, while McGuinn harbored ambitions of grandeur that not even Roger Waters had, here's Gene spending time in the countryside among the good guys, somewhat losers too. Yet beware of thinking him indolent: this is an album that arrives just three months after "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo" and four before "The Gilded Palace Of Sin," and in that almost no man's land that was the early country-rock, "The Fantastic Expedition Of Dillard & Clark" is not an album of duets, reunions, semi-sober sessions, trifles, but it can be considered one of the most monumental works.

First of all, the names. Besides the two Expeditionists, there are the Byrds, Michael Clarke and Chris Hillman. Then the future flying Burritos, Jon Corneal and above all Sneaky Pete Kleinow... Then a certain Mr. Bernie Leadon, a guitarist of bluegrass origins who also passed among the Burritos to then bring to life a little project called Eagles. And if in those parts even a burrito can fly, why not start a band with the name of the quintessential American 'Byrd'?

In the opinion of the writer, this album, undoubtedly less cosmic American and more country American than the contemporary Byrdsian publications, can easily be considered superior to the paradigmatic "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo," although it lacks the broad breath of certain epic-western typical performances of the most visionary Parsons. The judgment just expressed stems from the consideration of various factors, the first of which is the artistic choice: authorship and not covers, except for the playful "Git It On Brother," in my opinion, moreover, the weakest of the group. The writings, moreover, do not belong only to Clark, a sublime author recognized by worldwide critics although not by the masses: for the most part, in fact, there are four other hands, those of Dillard and those of Leadon, who then perhaps did not appear on the cover and was not an official member of the Expedition because he was not yet famous, and also because the sidecar can only have one in the carriage.

The listening of the triple creativity is simply a gentle succession of perfections, starting from "Out On The Side," the most soothing and expressive of beginnings. Among more aligned and covered tracks that nevertheless do not lack value, stand out the sweet "Train Leaves Here This Morning," simply a manual of metrics applied to song form, the intricate and mournful "With Care From Someone," the languid tension of the immense "The Radio Song": a trio of masterpieces that revolutionize.

In a peaceful and soothing finale, between "In The Plan" and "Something's Wrong," soothing, heartfelt but relaxed, the sidecar flows and takes away emotions with it. Rock mixed with country, deep down, could indeed be this: yearning and reconciliation, fun and melancholy, defiance and awareness, flights of fancy and realism, a sense of omnipotence and a sense of impotence. Lysergic and liturgical.

So beautiful, in any case, and so superior that it can easily do without labels or spatial-temporal placements in geographical areas and historical periods.

And you? If you have an old vintage motorcycle, still gleaming, in front of you, what do you do? Do you put a tag in front with the date of road registration and the number of units produced, or do you take the longest ride you can? Whether you have the right look or look like a loser, you know my advice.