The Dave Clark Five Complete History Vol.1 - Glad All Over - Return - American Tour (CD)

The Dave Clark Five

In 1964 one of the biggest decisions rock 'n' roll fans had to make was whether they preferred the Beatles or the Dave Clark Five. That may seem absurd now, with the Beatles canonised and the DC5 usually remembered as just another sixties group, but when it all started there were serious questions as to whether the Liverpudlians would be beaten back to the docks by the Tottenham quintet.

After first scoring a UK No. 1 single with their second Columbia record, "Glad All Over" – and knocking the Beatles off the top spot in the process – the Dave Clark Five followed the Fabs to America. Although "Glad All Over" only reached No. 6 here, the group – Clark, Mike Smith, Rick Huxley, Lenny Davidson and Denis Payton – quickly went from hit to hit until they were regarded as the second most popular band of the British Invasion. The usual crazy tours, countless TV appearances and even a film – Having A Wild Weekend – kept them in the eye of the English hurricane.

But while the Beatles kept going and kept growing, the DC5's reign at No. 2 began to fade at the end of 1965. After reaching their only US No. 1 at the end of 1965 with a cover of Bobby Day's "Over And Over", the group returned to the Top 10 of the singles chart in 1967 with another cover, Marv Johnson's "You Got What It Takes". After 1967 the DC5 retreated as quickly as they had arrived, and from then on the five musicians basically went unheard. That may, of course, be an oversimplification. In the eyes of record collectors and those with more than a passing interest in sixties music, the Dave Clark Five are held in wide regard.

A reunion tour, should it ever happen, would no doubt draw sell-out crowds wherever it went. Reissues of their hits would surely sell in respectable quantities. The reason there is no tour and there are no reissues lies with Dave Clark himself. A shrewd businessman even when he had the group, Clark kept all the rights to the group's recordings. He invested the money he made, and today he is a wealthy man – with almost no interest in rekindling the past. Clark has steadfastly refused to give interviews about the group, preferring to concentrate on his current business interests. And they are considerable – Clark also wrote and produced the London musical Time, which recently closed after a successful long run. The other members of the group have kept a low profile, some still working in the music business, others living "normal" lives away from the pop limelight. Although Mike Smith co-wrote and sang many of the Five's biggest hits, it is unlikely that any but the truest fans would remember the names of the other DC5 members.

To be fair, though, Dave Clark was the undisputed leader of the Dave Clark Five. It was Clark who formed the group and called the shots; Clark even had the foresight to demand what would later become known as "artistic control" over the group's music; at a time when record companies made all the decisions, Dave Clark chose the recordings to be released as DC5 singles. His instinct is beyond dispute. The group's origins can be traced back as far as 1957. Mike Smith (born 6 December 1943), a keyboard player with an interest in Elvis, Chuck Berry and other early rockers, was playing pub audiences with two friends in a group called the Impalas when Dave Clark (born 15 December 1942) turned up. He was impressed by Smith and the two became friends. It would take another four years for the group that was to evolve into the Dave Clark Five to come together.

Legend has it that Clark needed money to send his football team to a tournament in Holland and formed the band to raise the funds (there were six members at first, of whom only Clark, Smith and Huxley would survive to the final line-up). Today Mike Smith dismisses this story as publicity hype, but in any case, by 1961, when Payton and Davidson replaced the three drop-outs, the Dave Clark Five, as they became known, were getting into their stride around Tottenham, North London, completely unaware that a similar phenomenon was brewing in the distant city of Liverpool. The group's first recording was made in 1961 for the British Ember label, a one-off "Tequila" soundalike called "Chaquita". They switched to Pye Records for their next single, another instrumental called "First Love", and then cut a vocal, "I Knew It All The Time", for Piccadilly. Finally the group landed at Columbia (Epic in the US), where, after a couple of misses, they scored their first UK hit in the autumn of 1963 with "Do You Love Me", a cover of the Contours hit. Just a month later "Glad All Over" beat the Beatles at their own game.

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