Clarence White
Clarence White was an American bluegrass and country guitarist and singer. He is best known as a member of the bluegrass ensemble the Kentucky Colonels and the rock band the Byrds, as well as for being a pioneer of the musical genre of country rock during the late 1960s. White also worked extensively as a session musician, appearing on recordings by the Everly Brothers, Joe Cocker, Ricky Nelson, Pat Boone, the Monkees, Randy Newman, Gene Clark, Linda Ronstadt, Arlo Guthrie, and Jackson Browne among others.
Together with frequent collaborator Gene Parsons, he invented the B-Bender, a guitar accessory that enables a player to mechanically bend the B-string up a whole tone and emulate the sound of a pedal steel guitar. White was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Fame in 2016, and was inducted a second time in 2019 as a member of the Kentucky Colonels.
Early years
Clarence Joseph LeBlanc was born on June 7, 1944, in Lewiston, Maine. The LeBlanc family, who later changed their surname to White, were of French-Canadian ancestry and hailed from New Brunswick, Canada. Clarence's father, Eric LeBlanc Sr., played guitar, banjo, fiddle, and harmonica, ensuring that his offspring grew up surrounded by music. A child prodigy, Clarence began playing guitar at the age of six. At such a young age he was barely able to hold the instrument and as a result, he briefly switched to ukulele, awaiting a time when his young hands would be big enough to confidently grapple with the guitar.In 1954, when Clarence was ten, the White family relocated to Burbank, California and soon after, Clarence joined his brothers Roland and Eric Jr. in a trio called Three Little Country Boys. Although they initially started out playing contemporary country music, the group soon switched to a purely bluegrass repertoire, as a result of Roland's burgeoning interest in the genre.
In 1957, banjoist Billy Ray Latham and Dobro player LeRoy Mack were added to the line-up, with the band renaming themselves the Country Boys soon after. In 1961, the Country Boys also added Roger Bush on double bass, as a replacement for Eric White Jr. That same year, Clarence and other members of the Country Boys appeared on two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. Between 1959 and 1962, the group released three singles on the Sundown, Republic, and Briar International record labels.
The Kentucky Colonels
Following the recording sessions for the Country Boys' debut album, the band changed its name to the Kentucky Colonels in September 1962, at the suggestion of country guitarist and friend Joe Maphis. The band's album was released by Briar International under the title The New Sound of Bluegrass America in early 1963.Around this time, Clarence's flatpicking guitar style was becoming a much more prominent part of the group's music. After attending a performance by Doc Watson at the Ash Grove folk club in Los Angeles, where he also met the guitarist, Clarence began to explore the possibilities of the acoustic guitar's role in bluegrass music. At that time, the guitar was largely regarded as a rhythm instrument in bluegrass, with only a few performers, such as Watson, exploring its potential for soloing. White soon began to integrate elements of Watson's playing style—including the use of open strings and syncopation—into his own flatpicking guitar technique. His breathtaking speed and virtuosity on the instrument was largely responsible for making the guitar a lead instrument within bluegrass.
The Kentucky Colonels became well known on the bluegrass circuit during this period and made many live appearances throughout California and the United States. Between bookings with the Colonels, White also made a guest appearance on Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman's New Dimensions in Banjo & Bluegrass album, which would be re-released in 1973 as the soundtrack album to the film Deliverance.
In 1964, the Colonels recruited fiddle player Bobby Sloan and continued to make live appearances at various clubs, concert halls and festivals. The Colonels' second album, Appalachian Swing!, was a commercial success and saw White's flatpicking permanently expand the language of bluegrass guitar. Music critic Thom Owens has remarked that White's playing on the album, "helped pioneer a new style in bluegrass; namely, he redefined the acoustic guitar as a solo instrument."
Shortly after the recording of the Appalachian Swing! album, Roland and Clarence undertook some session work backing dobroist Tut Taylor on a Dobro-themed album that was released by World Pacific Records in late 1964 as Dobro Country. Although the brothers were employed as session musicians, the album was credited to Tut Taylor, Roland and Clarence White upon release.
Although the Colonels were a successful recording act, it was becoming increasingly difficult for them to make a living, due to the waning popularity of the American folk music revival due to the British Invasion and homegrown folk rock acts, such as the Byrds and Bob Dylan. As a result, the Colonels switched to electric instrumentation and hired a drummer. In spite of these changes, the Kentucky Colonels dissolved as a band following a show on October 31, 1965. Clarence, Roland and Eric Jr. formed a new line-up of the Colonels in 1966, with several other musicians, but this second version of the group was short-lived and by early 1967 they had broken up.
Session work (1966–1968)
During 1964, White began to look beyond bluegrass music towards rock 'n' roll as an avenue for artistic expression. Although he was influenced by Country guitarists like Doc Watson, Don Reno and Joe Maphis, he also idolized the playing of jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, rock 'n' roller Chuck Berry, and studio musician James Burton. White even anticipated the viability of a folk/rock hybrid when, in the summer of 1964, he was approached by Jim Dickson to record a version of the then-unreleased Bob Dylan song "Mr. Tambourine Man" with electric instruments. However, despite White's enthusiasm for the project, he was unable to convince his bandmates in the Kentucky Colonels of the experiment's validity and ultimately, the song was instead recorded by Dickson's proteges, the Byrds.By the time the original line-up of the Kentucky Colonels folded in late 1965, White had become a respected and well-known guitarist. Abandoning bluegrass temporarily, he switched from his Martin D-28 acoustic guitar to an electric Fender Telecaster, with the intention of becoming a studio musician like his hero James Burton. Transitioning to electric guitar required White to modify his right hand playing technique, switch from open chording to fretting the whole guitar neck with his left hand, and practice using the tone and volume controls. However, he soon mastered the intricacies of the instrument and, between 1965 and 1968, he undertook session work for artists including Ricky Nelson, the Monkees, and the Gosdin Brothers.
As 1965 turned into 1966, White met Gene Parsons and Gib Guilbeau at a recording session for the Gosdin Brothers and, shortly after, he began to perform live with the duo in local California clubs, as well as doing regular session work on their records, which were released under the moniker of Cajun Gib and Gene. 1966 also saw White begin playing with a country group called Trio, which featured drummer Bart Haney and former Kentucky Colonel, Roger Bush, on bass. In autumn of that year, as a result of his friendship with Gilbeau, Parsons and the Gosdin Brothers, White was asked to provide lead guitar to ex-Byrd Gene Clark's debut solo album, Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers. White briefly joined Clark's touring band shortly thereafter.
During the Clark album sessions, White reconnected with mandolin player and bassist Chris Hillman, who he had known during the early 1960s as a member of the bluegrass combo the Hillmen. Hillman was currently a member of the Byrds and, in December 1966, he invited White to contribute countrified lead guitar playing to his songs "Time Between" and "The Girl with No Name", which both appeared on the Byrds' Younger Than Yesterday album. The country-oriented nature of the songs was something of a stylistic departure for the group and can be seen as an early indicator of the experimentation with country music that would color the Byrds' subsequent work. White also contributed guitar to the band's follow-up album, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, and to their seminal 1968 country rock release, Sweetheart of the Rodeo.
Nashville West
By mid-1967, White had begun performing at night in the band the Reasons, which included bass player Wayne Moore, along with Parsons and Guilbeau. The band mostly worked at the Nashville West club in El Monte, California, frequently borrowing the club's name as their own. Critic Erik Hage has said that, in the years since their formation, the band have become legendary as one of the first to play a seamless blend of country and rock, although L.A. group the International Submarine Band, which featured country rock pioneer Gram Parsons, were also exploring a similar sound concurrently.A live recording of Nashville West would eventually be released in 1979, which music historian Richie Unterberger later described as being "of considerable historical interest for anyone interested in the roots of country-rock". Unterberger also remarked that the recording illustrated Nashville West as having "more electric rock influences than most country acts were using at the time." In addition to being a member of Nashville West, White was also a member of another country bar band that regularly played at the Nashville West club called the Roustabouts.
In July 1967, White signed with Gary Paxton's Bakersfield International record label and released a pair of solo singles: "Tango for a Sad Mood" b/w "Tuff and Stringy" and "Grandma Funderbunks Music Box" b/w "Riff Raff". He also reportedly recorded a solo album for the label, although it has never been released.