RIP Mike Smith

[Ian Sharrock]

Mike Smith, keyboard player & lead singer of the Dave Clark Five, passed away today.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/29/nsmith129.xml

 

As a kid back in the '60s the Dave Clark Five captured my imagination much more than the Beatles did, and was one of reasons that I wanted to play music.

 

Condolences to his family & friends.

[Dave Ferris]

Yes that is sad. He was the first guy I ever saw playing the Vox Continental. I really wanted one but my mom didn't have a lot of dough so it was the Vox Jaguar for me.

 

Thanks for letting me know.

[kad]

Bummer. He was still performing (and sounding great!) as recently as a couple of years ago...

[MikeT156]

Quote by Dave Ferris:

 

"Yes that is sad. He was the first guy I ever saw playing the Vox Continental."

 

Me too. I had other organs before I finally got a Super Continental. I had to save for quite awhile before I could spring one.

 

I really liked the Dave Clark Five when I first saw them on the tube during the British Invasion. The Beatles were "thee" group, but as a KB player, I loved it when I saw the Animals and the DC 5 using a Vox.

 

I understand Mike Smith died of Pneumonia.

 

Mike T.

[ITGITC]

Glad All Over is a song written by Dave Clark and Mike Smith and recorded by The Dave Clark Five. In January 1964 it became the British group's first big hit, reaching number one on the UK Singles Chart and dethroning The Beatles at the height of British Beatlemania, then in April 1964 later reaching number 6 on the U.S. pop singles chart, becoming the first British Invasion hit by an artist other than The Beatles. It also hit number one in Ireland.

 

"Glad All Over" featured Smith leading unison group vocals, often in call and response style, a saxophone line used not for solo decoration but underneath the whole song, and a big, "air hammer" beat that underpinned wall of sound production unto garage rock.

================

 

Yup. I had the LP... probably still do.

 

Those were good times.

 

RIP Mike Smith.

 

 

 

[NoLights]

That was a fun band; Mike (and Alan Price) gave me my first case of GAS, at age 14, for a Vox Continental (but, like Dave Ferris, ended up with a Jaguar too). Every once in awhile, a DC5 songs comes up on the Oldies station, and I'm struck again by the flat-out energy and optimism in the sound. What an awful time he must have had these past few years. He will be missed.

[retrokeys]

The DC 5 was important to me quite simply because they showed that there was a place in rock for a keyboardist and that there was an instrument for the job. At the time of the Beatles guitar heavy invasion, the only only option for us key guys was the traditional piano ala Jerry Lee Lewis or Gerry and the Pacemakers. Hammonds were for jazz. Like others here, until the DC 5 and Mike Smith I had never seen or heard a combo organ. Afterward, I just had to get a Vox and like previous posters, I too had a Jaguar. Thanks Mike for showing me a way to rock n'roll. Rest in Peace.

[Dave Ferris]

The second guy I saw playing the Vox might have been Paul Revere.

One guy in our neighborhood had parents that were well to do, he was

the first one I knew of to get the Continental....man, he was the

sh.t. Now that I think of it, he was the first to get a B3 also.

[MikeT156]

I just read the story about what had happened to Mike Smith. He had a spinal cord injury when he fell trying to climb over a 7 foot fence back in 2003. Wow, that's terrible. The last 5 years he has been paralyzed from the waste down. I had no idea that had happened to him. Really too bad for just a great person and a musical influence that anyone who still remembers the music from the sixties still enjoy.

 

Mike T.

[Jazz+]

That's a sad ending, I'm sorry to hear that. In the 60's I thought their songs were a bit less catchy compared to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys. Maybe not, I don't know.

 

Here is a history from All Music:

 

"For a very brief time in 1964, it seemed that the biggest challenger to the Beatles' phenomenon was the Dave Clark Five. From the Tottenham area of London, the quintet had the fortune to knock "I Want to Hold Your Hand" off the top of the British charts with "Glad All Over," and were championed (for about 15 minutes) by the British press as the Beatles' most serious threat. They were the first British Invasion band to break in a big way in the States after the Beatles, though the Rolling Stones and others quickly supplanted the DC5 as the Fab Four's most serious rivals. The Dave Clark Five reached the Top 40 17 times between 1964 and 1967 with memorable hits like "Glad All Over," "Bits and Pieces," "Because," and a remake of Bobby Day's "Over and Over," as well as making more appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show than any other English act. The DC5 were distinguished from their British contemporaries by their larger-than-life production, Clark's loud stomping drum sound, and Mike Smith's leathery vocals. Though accused by detractors of lacking finesse and hipness, they had a solid ear for melodies and harmonies and wrote much of their early material, the best of which endured quite well. Interestingly, and unusually for that era, bandleader Dave Clark managed and produced the band himself, negotiating a much higher royalty rate than artists of that period usually received. After a couple years of superstardom, the group proved unable to either keep up with the changing times or maintain a high standard of original compositions, and called it quits in 1970. ~ Rick Clark & Richie Unterberger, All Music

[Jazz+]

I can't find any clips on Amazon or mp3 but they are on YouTube,

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dave+clark+five&search_type=

 

Glad All Over:

 

 

[Steve Force]

RIP Mike Smith.

 

FWIW: I was all over DC5 when it first came out (still have the vinyl) but tired of them very quickly (even as a 9-10 Y.O. boy...)

 

 

[Jazz+]

While we are reminiscing, check out the go go dancers in this 1960's video, this was a good band:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2UYRoti-tY

 

.

[linwood]

I loved those guys. Condolences to his family. Mike was an influence on many of us here. Sure made me wanna play keys in a band. We also lost Buddy Miles this week. I put on Them Changes with Jimi yesterday. It's been a bad couple weeks 'round here.

[kwgm]

I remember our group of 13 year-olds in the heated arguments about who was better: Dave Clark 5 or the Beatles? Both had hit songs, both had a hit movie (now that I look back, Having a Wild Weekend was a lousy copy of A Hard Day's Night).

 

 

 

[MikeT156]

Quote by Jazz+:

 

"I can't find any clips on Amazon or mp3 but they are on YouTube, they do sound like the early Beatles to me, not bad."

 

Having grown up in that era, the thing you have to remember, or should I say the thing you have to "forget" is all the music that we all know now that happened AFTER all the music of the mid sixties happened. It was all new territory in those days. The Music, the Hair, the clothes, everything. Previous to the British Invasion we had fifties music, then "teen idols" like Fabian (GOD!) Frankie Avalon, Neil Sedaka, Bobby Vee, etc. By the mid sixties it was ALL rehash. We were ready for something new, and the British Invasion gave it to us. Oddly enough, the Brits were listening to all the American Music like we were, and did a lot of American rock n' roll in their own style. Some kids thought it was "new". They did write a lot of new material and we really enjoyed the dramatic change.

 

 

Mike T.

 

[StartRun]

...like y'all, Mike Smith introduced "organist" into the music

I wanted to play.

 

Yep-I wanted a Vox Continental, but I ended up learning "Because", "Can't You See That She's Mine", and later- "House of the Rising Sun" on a Magnus Chord Organ. Finally-my folks

got me a Farfisa CC.

 

We never got to find out if Mike Smith had "chops"; it wasn't

what the DC5 and that era was about. But-he looked good onstage; and gave those of us who played piano/organ a seat at the British Invasion table that the Beatles didn't.

 

RIP, Mike Smith.

 

 

[drawback]

Having grown up in that era, the thing you have to remember, or should I say the thing you have to "forget" is all the music that we all know now that happened AFTER all the music of the mid sixties happened. It was all new territory in those days. The Music, the Hair, the clothes, everything. Previous to the British Invasion we had fifties music, then "teen idols" like Fabian (GOD!) Frankie Avalon, Neil Sedaka, Bobby Vee, etc. By the mid sixties it was ALL rehash. We were ready for something new, and the British Invasion gave it to us. Oddly enough, the Brits were listening to all the American Music like we were, and did a lot of American rock n' roll in their own style. Some kids thought it was "new". They did write a lot of new material and we really enjoyed the dramatic change.

 

 

Mike T.

 

Well put, Mike.

 

I'd add that for my demographic, use of the piano in pop/rock music at the turn of the '60s was passé - by then Jerry Lee, Little Richard etc were "old school" - and British Invasion and even Surf music was all about guitars at first.

 

I played piano from 4 years old but in my first band, at 12, I learned to play guitar. This all changed with the Dave Clarke Five and The Animals made a big difference in that 1964 - 66 period, when my world turned around. I think Mike Smith was the first combo organ player I'd ever seen.

 

All that guitar stuff came in handy. I still read chords off a guitar neck, so a lot of unfamiliar tunes in a live situation come together pretty quickly if I get the guitar player to turn my way.

[mate stubb]

I'm watching a musical tribute to Mike right now on VH1 Classic, organized by Paul Schaffer. Paul is playing a Continental and has lots of musical guests from that era.

 

Edit: Zombies just came on. Rod Rocks!

[Steve Force]

I taped it (actually, DVR..) and watched it this morning. Good stuff!

 

IMO far better production than the PBS tributes.

 

(and I wish David Letterman would send a Lear jet out for me when I have flight issues like the Zombies had.. I guess it is who you know.. )