Mike Smith (1943-2008)
Posted by David Hepworth on 29 February 2008 - 12:58pm.
Mike Smith, whose death at the age of 64 was announced today, was the most prominent member of a group that actually had another musician's name. For about a year the Dave Clark Five were the Beatles' only serious commercial competition, thanks to Clark's robotic drumming and Mike Smith's appealing vocals. Clark went on to be one of pop's millionaires, managing the group throughout their period of success and using the money to invest in buying the footage of "Ready, Steady, Go". Smith died in hospital where he had been a patient since suffering a serious spinal cord injury in 2003.
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Sympathy
My brother-in-law had a similar spinal injury and spent a large amount of time in the same hospital that treated Mike Smith, before dying five years ago. It's a horrible, drawn out way to go; and I can offer nothing but sympathy.
Sad news
I won't pretend to be a big fan, but any death is tragic.
One thing that interested me on the Beeb's website entry about his passing is that they sold 100 million records. This genuinely surprised me; I know the hits they had and appreciate they were around for awhile, but I couldn't equate any of today's 2nd division (for the sake of argument) bands achieving anywhere near this level of sales.
Weren't they....
huge in America for quite a bit longer than they were in the UK?
The bit that made me raise an eyebrow in the story on the Beeb site was "his very good friend Bruce Springsteen". Anyone know the story behind that?
Bruce is a big fan of people of that era
Probably met him a few times.
Aha!
For the first time ever, it's just dawned on me that the Dave Clark Five in America may well have sounded as cool and exotic as Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels did here.
That stat may be plucked out of the air
From what I can gather nobody really knows what exact numbers records sold in the 60s. if it is 100 million it's singles. If it isn't it's nonetheless a hell of a lot.
big in S.E.25
I can vouch for the fact that the Dave Clark Five are still very popular at Selhurst Park. For the Cup Final of 1990, the free scoring Eagles recorded a cover of Glad All Over - happy days.
Born To Run, 19.12.2007
Bruce dedicated Born To Run to Mike and Charlie Smith when he played the 02 back in December.
There's actually a very moving account of the concert by Mike Smith; I posted a link to it and then spotted a request at the bottom not to, so I've withdrawn it. It's quite easy to find, though.
When I was a nipper
every DC5 release was looked forward to; they had their own sound, you knew what to expect from them, and they rarely failed to deliver.
Respect is due to the pioneers, of which they were one of the very best.