White Light

White Light is Clark's second solo album, released by A&M in 1971. It is sometimes called Gene Clark, because the title does not appear on the cover sleeve and some later reviewers took it to be untitled. Jesse Ed Davis produced it and mixed it at Sunset Sound. Clark developed a strong rapport with Davis, partly through their shared ancestry. It was recorded in February and March 1971.

The backing band was Davis on electric and bottleneck guitar, the Flying Burrito Brothers' Chris Ethridge on bass, organist Michael Utley, and pianist Ben Sidran and drummer Gary Mallaber of the Steve Miller Band. Mallaber told Uncut there was no panic and no pressure, and that the musicians listened, arranged and played until they all felt a take was right. Clark wrote everything except With Tomorrow, which he wrote with Davis, and Tears of Rage by Bob Dylan and Richard Manuel.

Reviews were warm and sales were not, apart from the Netherlands, where rock critics voted it album of the year. Modest promotion and Clark's refusal to tour for it hurt. In the Guardian, David Bennun called it a plain, folky, largely acoustic album that stands among the finest records of its era that were beholden to Dylan. The critic Thom Jurek wrote that it has established itself as one of the greatest singer/songwriter albums ever made. It has been in the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die book since its first edition in 2005, and in 2018 Intervention Records reissued it on vinyl and as a hybrid CD/SACD.