The Dave Clark 5 spent 1964 as the one British band the Beatles had to watch.
Led from the drum kit by its namesake, the group stomped out hit after hit, then all but vanished.
Table of Contents
- A Tottenham Youth Club and a Drummer in Charge
- Taking On the Beatles
- Eighteen Nights on the Ed Sullivan Show
- The Disappearing Act and the 2008 Return
- FAQ
A Tottenham Youth Club and a Drummer in Charge
The Dave Clark Five formed in Tottenham, north London, in 1958.
Dave Clark bought a drum kit and built a band to fund his football team's trip to Holland.
"The whole reason I formed the band was to raise funds so our youth team could travel," Clark said.
The group first backed a singer called Stan Saxon around Tottenham dance halls.
By 1962 it had settled into a five-piece rehearsing at a Tottenham youth club.
Mike Smith sang lead and played organ, and his voice carried the band.
Lenny Davidson played guitar, Rick Huxley played bass, and Denis Payton played saxophone.
Clark stayed at the back on drums and ran everything else.
The Drummer Who Owned the Tapes
Clark produced the records himself and licensed the finished tapes to EMI.
He never signed the master recordings away.
That made him one of very few British Invasion figures to own his catalogue outright.
The choice looked smart while the hits kept coming.
Years later it let him pull the entire catalogue out of circulation.
How the Dave Clark 5 Took On the Beatles
In January 1964 the group released "Glad All Over" and it went to number one in the UK.
It knocked the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" off the top after a seven-week run.
The single sold more than a million copies.
For a few weeks the British press billed the band as the Beatles' most serious challenger.
The write-ups leaned on a label the group's publicist had been pushing.
They called it the "Tottenham Sound," an answer to the Merseybeat coming out of Liverpool.
The style ran on Clark's heavy four-to-the-bar drumming, Payton's saxophone, and Smith's belted vocals.
It was loud, blunt, and made for dancing.
Bits and Pieces and the Ballroom Stomp
The follow-up, "Bits and Pieces," reached number two in the UK in 1964.
Its stomping beat was so heavy that some British ballrooms reportedly barred the record.
Managers worried the crowd's stamping would damage the floors.
The band leaned into the effect on stage and on television.
That thump, more than any guitar line, is what people remembered.
Eighteen Nights on the Ed Sullivan Show
The band was the first British Invasion act to tour the United States, in the spring of 1964.
It went back again and again to "The Ed Sullivan Show."
The tally reached 18 appearances, more than any other act of the era.
Between 1964 and 1967 the group put 17 singles into the American Top 40.
The PBS series Great Performances later put the band's worldwide sales above 100 million records.
"Because," a slow organ ballad, climbed to number three in the US in 1964.
"Over and Over" gave the Dave Clark 5 its only American number one, on Christmas Day 1965.
Other hits from the same stretch worked the same formula:
- "Do You Love Me"
- "Can't You See That She's Mine"
- "Any Way You Want It"
- "I Like It Like That"
Catch Us If You Can Reaches the Screen
In 1965 the band starred in a film called "Catch Us If You Can."
It was the directing debut of John Boorman, who later made "Deliverance."
American distributors retitled it "Having a Wild Weekend."
The plot followed a stuntman trying to drop out of the ad business.
It was sharper and stranger than the usual pop-group picture.
The Disappearing Act and the 2008 Return
The hits slowed after 1967 and the band split in early 1970.
Clark kept going briefly as Dave Clark and Friends, then stopped.
Because he owned the masters, he simply took the catalogue off the market.
From the mid-1970s to 1993 almost none of the music was for sale.
A single compilation, "Glad All Over Again," came out in 1993, then it went quiet again.
The full catalogue did not reach Spotify until 2019.
That long silence is why the Dave Clark 5 faded while the Rolling Stones and other peers stayed famous.
The 2008 Hall of Fame Night
The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.
Tom Hanks did the induction.
Mike Smith died on February 28, 2008, 11 days before the ceremony.
Denis Payton had died in 2006, and Rick Huxley died in 2013.
At the show Joan Jett sang "Bits and Pieces."
She then joined John Fogerty, John Mellencamp, and Billy Joel for "Glad All Over."
FAQ
Are the Dave Clark Five in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Yes.
They were inducted in 2008, with Tom Hanks giving the induction speech.
Lead singer Mike Smith died 11 days before the ceremony.
Did the Dave Clark Five really knock the Beatles off number one?
Yes.
"Glad All Over" replaced the Beatles at the top of the UK chart in January 1964.
It was the group's first UK number one and sold more than a million copies.
Why did the Dave Clark Five disappear?
Dave Clark owned the master recordings and chose to keep them off the market.
From the mid-1970s until 1993 the music was almost impossible to buy legally.
It only reached streaming services in full in 2019.
How many times did the Dave Clark Five play the Ed Sullivan Show?
The band made 18 appearances on the show.
That was more than any other British Invasion act, including the Beatles.
What was the Dave Clark Five's only American number one?
"Over and Over" reached number one on the US chart on Christmas Day 1965.
Earlier US hits like "Glad All Over" and "Bits and Pieces" charted lower despite being bigger in Britain.
The Dave Clark 5 sold records at Beatles scale, then spent decades as the British Invasion's best-kept secret.
Its story runs alongside rougher British Invasion acts like The Animals, told act by act across the site.
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