![\"The](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/The-Dave-Clark-Five.jpg\")
<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\nI was very lucky to see the great Mike Smith perform shortly before the tragic fall that paralyzed him and led to his death in 2008\u2014just before the Dave Clark Five, finally, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
I got lucky again the day before PBS debuted the DC5 documentary <\/span>The Dave Clark Five and Beyond\u2014Glad All Over<\/i>, when I spoke with Clark, then was in the audience at a screening that he attended and spoke at afterward.<\/span><\/p>\n The first thing that struck me was how soft-spoken and sincere he sounds when speaking. Of course, he was not the lead singer, but he had such propulsive drive as a drummer that Elton John, in the documentary, cites the \u201craw power\u201d of the DC5 records, while Steven Van Zandt called them \u201cthe most powerful records ever made.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe were really a live performing band,\u201d Clark said following the screening, speaking of himself, Smith, guitarist Lenny Davidson and the late saxophonist Denis Payton and bass guitarist Rick Huxley.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAt the Royal Tottenham [the premiere North London dancehall and the DC5\u2019s home base\u2014hence the term <\/span>Tottenham Sound<\/i>], we played for three-and-a-half hours to 6,000 people a night\u2014and never repeated a song. Once we made it, we were <\/span>restricted<\/i>, and had to do the hits.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Clark actually wanted to disband the group in 1967.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to go out still feeling great,\u201d he said. But he kept it going until 1970.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe were still getting hits in Europe, but not in America,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Europe hits weren\u2019t made for the U.S. [market].\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n But in the band\u2019s U.S. heyday, as is noted in the documentary, the band had released 15 consecutive Top 20 U.S. hit singles within a two-year period\u2014more than any other group except the Beatles\u2014and appeared a record-breaking 18 times on <\/span>The Ed Sullivan Show<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe recorded a lot of songs for the U.S. market,\u201d said Clark. \u201cWe took your music and made it our own\u2014but it was <\/span>your<\/i> music.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In the film and in my conversation with him, he noted how he and the band learned American hits like The Contours\u2019 \u201cDo You Love Me,\u201d Bobby Day\u2019s \u201cOver and Over,\u201d Chris Kenner’s \u201cI Like It Like That\u201d and Chuck Berry\u2019s \u201cReelin\u2019 and Rockin\u2019\u201d from playing American military bases in England early in their career. All these songs were later U.S. hits again when covered by the DC5.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c[Cheap Trick drummer] Bun E. Carlos said, \u2018You introduced me to Chuck Berry,\u2019\u201d Clark recalled.<\/span><\/p>\n This rings true for me, too. Eleven years old then, I might have known these songs from the originals, but I definitely knew them from the DC5, same as I knew so many others from The Beatles and the Rolling Stones covers. Indeed, Elton, in the documentary, puts the DC5 right up there with The Beatles and the Stones, rightly. The Big Three, along with the other British Invasion bands that were likewise modifying the rock \u2019n\u2019 roll we sent them and sending it back with their own stamp.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c\u2019Over and Over\u2019 didn\u2019t get played on the radio in England, and \u2018I Like It Like That\u2019 was recorded for America,\u201d said Clark, who toured the U.S. steadily with the band. \u201cWe spent so much time in America, the British DJs were envious. But the reality is, one tour and you\u2019re done in England, [whereas] in the U.S., every state is like England [in size].\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And America, he noted, \u201cwelcomed us with open arms\u2014and we loved it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Acknowledging how Ed Sullivan was often taken lightly, he pointedly and properly credited the Great Stone Face.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe was responsible for the British Invasion,\u201d he said, adding that eight weeks after their first Sullivan appearance, the DC5 were back in America and playing huge arenas. But after the band broke up, Clark fared better in the U.K.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe Beatles did it all,\u201d Clark said, here referring to their \u201cLove is the answer\u201d theme and reciting the song titles \u201cAll You Need is Love,\u201d \u201cGive Peace a Chance\u201d and John Lennon\u2019s \u201cImagine\u201d as prime examples.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe Beatles really changed the world,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n Time<\/i>, he added, was about \u201cwhat\u2019s happening now in the world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n But <\/span>Time<\/i> didn\u2019t happen here in America, for reasons that he said he\u2019ll go into in the book he\u2019s currently writing.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere were two big things in my life,\u201d Clark maintained, \u201cthe Dave Clark Five and <\/span>Time<\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He noted how Olivier\u2014\u201cone of the 20th Century\u2019s greatest actors\u201d\u2014had \u201ctrusted a rocker from Tottenham to direct him,\u201d and that he\u2019d asked Gene Simmons, surprisingly the best commentator of the docu\u2019s talking heads, to appear in full Kiss regalia in order to provide <\/span>yin<\/i>\/<\/span>yang<\/i> in relation to Olivier.<\/span><\/p>\n Clark also pronounced Mercury \u201cone of the greatest singers ever\u2014along with Mike Smith.\u201d While he\u2019d been told that Mercury could be very difficult, Dave said that he and the Queen frontman \u201cfed off one another.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe were both perfectionists,\u201d he said, though Mercury kept an atypical studio schedule of working from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.\u2014\u201can eternity\u201d for Clark.<\/span><\/p>\n Taking questions from the audience, Clark was asked why the Vietnam War was absent in his documentary, unlike, for instance, PBS\u2019 excellent recent <\/span>1964<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt didn\u2019t enter into it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt does for most people, but I wanted a hopeful, entertaining trip through Memory Lane.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Besides, he added, \u201ceverybody is aware of the Vietnam War. The sad thing is after Vietnam, it shouldn\u2019t have happened again. People forget about all the maimed and crippled. My dad had a lot of friends who were maimed for the rest of their lives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Returning to the theme of <\/span>Time<\/i> and The Beatles\u2014and invoking the Irish Republican Army, he concluded, \u201cI\u2019m not taking sides, but there shouldn\u2019t be war. All you need is love.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And speaking of his dad, Clark said that a month ago, when a London cabbie recognized him, he jokingly told him, \u201cYou\u2019re talking about my dad.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like another lifetime,\u201d Clark said, looking back over the extraordinary career represented in <\/span>The Dave Clark Five and Beyond\u2014Glad All Over<\/i>. \u201cIt was an amazing time for all of us, but I\u2019m not really tempted to come back. It wasn\u2019t a monetary thing: We did it for the fun of it. We were all mates from school days, and it\u2019s sad for me, but I know that Mike, Denis and Rick are up there and smiling.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t want to do a documentary,\u201d he conceded. \u201cBut Tom [Hanks, who inducted the DC5 into the RockHall with over-the-top passion] and Steven [Van Zandt] said to do a documentary and book.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Quoting them, Dave Clark finished: \u201cYou owe it to history and to yourself, but most of all, you owe it to the boys.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Jim Bessman<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE DAVE CLARK FIVE Playing Music For The Fun Of It I was very lucky to see the great Mike Smith perform shortly before the tragic fall that paralyzed him and led to his death in 2008\u2014just before the Dave Clark Five, finally, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4976],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12204,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12200\/revisions\/12204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/The-Dave-Clark-Five-Time-The-Musical.jpg\")
His sci-fi musical theater piece <\/span>Time<\/i>, about the quest for universal peace and accompanied in 1986 by a concept album featuring Laurence Olivier, Freddie Mercury, Julian Lennon, Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach, Ashford & Simpson and Stevie Wonder, was a big hit in the U.K.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/The-Dave-Clark-Five-PBS.png\")
\u201cBut he did 110 percent all the time, and was such a great singer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n