Mike Smith, lead singer and keyboard player for the woefully underappreciated '60s British Invasion band The Dave Clark Five, died Thursday of pneumonia. He was 64. Smith had been paralyzed since September 2003 after sustaining a spinal cord injury, but he was still planning on traveling to New York City March 10 to attend his band's induction into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame. What makes Smith's death all the more tragic is that DC5 was supposedly set to be inducted last year; the band had enough votes, but chairman Jann Wenner went with the sixth-highest vote-getter, (the also-deserving) Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five, instead.
Not that the Hall Of Fame means much in the long run, but it obviously meant something to Smith, whose powerful pipes can be heard on great mid-'60s DC5 hits like "Glad All Over" and "Catch Us If You Can." (The latter is also featured in the band's fun John Boorman-directed Hard Day's Night rip-off, Having A Wild Weekend.) The DC5 might not have been as innovative as The Beatles, Stones, or Kinks—it was just a good little rock 'n' roll band that made very enjoyable singles, but its best songs deserve to be remembered along with the titans of the era. Unfortunately, the band doesn't have a greatest hits album that's currently in print, but the recent publicity will hopefully change that. Here's the DC5 performing "Glad All Over" and "Bits And Pieces."