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 (a.k.a. Nashville West), which included bass player Wayne Moore, along with Parsons and Guilbeau (as banjoist-turned-drummer and lead singer respectively). 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 (no relation to Gene), 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