Dave Clark Five Singer Mike Smith, 1943-2008

Here's the official press release:

Mike Smith, the lead singer and keyboard player of The Dave Clark Five, one of the premier bands to emerge during the 1960’s “British Invasion”, died today from pneumonia at Stoke Mandeville Hospital outside of London. His devoted wife, Arlene, who is known as Charlie, was by his side. Smith was 64 years old.

Smith, who was due to be inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame with his band mates on Monday, March 10th, was admitted to the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit yesterday morning with a chest infection, a complication from a spinal cord injury he sustained in September, 2003 that left him a tetraplegic (paralyzed below the ribcage with limited use of his upper body). Smith had been in the hospital since the accident, and was just released in December 2007 when he moved into a specially-prepared home near the hospital with his wife. Prior to his hospitalization yesterday, arrangements were being made to transport Smith to New York so he could personally attend the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.

After his accident, Smith found tremendous support from his peers including Bruce Springsteen, Little Steven Van Zandt, and Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits, who helped defray his medical costs through donations and fundraisers. Long-time fan and “Late Show” bandleader, Paul Shaffer, helped organize a benefit concert in New York in August 2005, which featured many of Smith’s fellow “British Invasion” stars, including The Zombies and Peter & Gordon. A DVD of the benefit, Paul Shaffer and his British Invasion: A Tribute to Mike Smith will be released in March by VDI Entertainment.

According to Smith’s agent, Margo Lewis of TCI in New York, “These last five years were extremely difficult for Mike. I am incredibly saddened to lose him, his energy and his humor, but I am comforted by the fact that he had the chance to spend his final months and days at home with his loving wife, Charlie, whom he adored, instead of in the hospital, and that he was able to attend a recent concert in London by his good friend, Bruce Springsteen. He was extremely excited and honored to have been inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame and I am glad that he will be remembered as a “Hall of Famer,” because he was in so many ways.”

Now here's some video:

Sunday Morning Gospel - The Highway Q.C.'s

Sunday Morning Gospel - The Dixie Hummingbirds

The Dixie Hummingbirds, singing "Bedside of a Neighbor." These are the guys that sang behind Paul Simon on "Loves Me Like a Rock."

Marty Stuart, Glasgow, Kentucky, 2/1/2008

I've heard of people feeling like a performer was singing right to them, but I've never had the experience of feeling like someone was playing an entire show just for me. But that's exactly what happened last Friday night when I saw Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives play the Plaza Theater in Glasgow, Kentucky.

My father's from Glasgow, about 80 miles north of Nashville, and my 86-year-old grandmother still lives there. When I was little, I used to occasionally see movies at the Plaza, which sits near one corner of the town square, but it had been shuttered since the ’90s. That abandoned movie house haunted me for years: Often, I asked my grandmother to introduce me to the person who owned the property, hoping I'd be able to convince him to let me have the ticket kiosk, or at least talk my way into an afternoon scavenging the property.

A renovated Plaza re-opened a couple years back, but I hadn't had a chance to visit it. I figured a concert by Marty Stuart - whom I'd often seen perform at the Grand Ole Opry but had never seen do a full show of his own - would be the perfect excuse. So I took my grandmother, my wife, and two of our kids.

Marty couldn't have played a better show for me if he'd let me pick the set list myself. He played the two songs my 6-year-old daughter, Gracelyn, had latched onto during the drive from Nashville - "Hillbilly Rock" and "Tempted." He played "Dark as a Dungeon," a song I've head him do at the Opry but which I don't think he's ever recorded. A coal mining song by the late Merle Travis, "Dark as a Dungeon" was Gracelyn's lullaby as a baby. Marty's performacne put her right to sleep.

Marty also performed his "Dark Bird," which uses the crows that favor the property Marty bought from the Cash estate as a metaphor for the Man in Black's soul. "I like crows," Marty said. "They're really weird birds, and they dress like Johnny Cash."

I'd never heard "Dark Bird" before, but I've associated Cash with crows since the last time I interviewed him, when we sat on the porch of his house and listened to the birds.

"Every time I sit out here and talk to somebody," Cash told me, "crows start up. I have a crow caller. I'll start calling them, and they'll start circling over here to see where the crow is. Because I make it sound like a wounded crow." Cash loved messing with the crows.

Cash tied into Marty's show in another personal way for me when Marty played Bill Monroe's "My Last Days on Earth." It's a relatively obscure instrumental, one of my favorite Monroe tunes, and Johnny Cash is the person who introduced it to me. I'd never heard it performed live.

Marty knew that I was at the concert and in his encore, he gave me a shout out from the stage and dedicated a song to me - "Me & Hank & Jumpin' Jack Flash," which segued into Ola Belle Reed's "High on a Mountain Top." Now, "High on a Mountain Top" may not have been the first Marty Stuart record I ever wrote about, but it was the one that made me a lifelong fan some 15 years ago. If Marty knew that, I'm astonished at his memory. If he didn't, then I'm a little bit spooked.

Marty not only did my favorite hits, he did some of my favorites that he'd never recorded, one my favorites that I didn't even know he played, and a new favorite that I didn't even know he had written. Before the show, I noticed a set list on the audio console and took a peek. Some of the songs he performed that meant the most to me weren't on it. So I think I'm a little bit spooked anyway.

Sunday Morning Gospel—The Blind Boys of Mississippi

I recently found some treasure troves of old gospel video clips on YouTube. I'm a huge fan of Golden Era gospel - especially the quartets of the late ’30s through the mid-’60s - but had almost never seen footage of them performing. So these clips came as something of a revelation to me. I hope you'll enjoy them, too. If I can get in the habit, I'm going to post one each Sunday.

This first clip comes from the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi (not to be confused with the Five Blind Boys of Alabama). This particular clip comes from the mid-’60s and features Henry Johnson on lead. The Blind Boys original lead, Archie Brownlee, was one of gospel's great hard shouters (check out "Our Father," one of my very favorite performances, to see what I mean), but he died in February 1960. I think you'll like Johnson, though.

Enjoy - and if you know of more clips likes this, please let me know.

This Week's Mix - Feb. 1, 2008

1. Kathy Mattea, Coal (Captain Potato)
2. Dengue Fever, Venus on Earth (M80)
3. Bob Mould, District Line (Anti-)
4. Van Morrison, Keep It Simple (Lost Highway)
5. The Cat Empire, So Many Nights (Velour)
6. James McMurtry, Just Us Kids (Lightning Rod)
7. U2, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (Island)
8. Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend (XL)
9. Ryan Adams, Rock N Roll (Lost Highway)
10. Ryan Adams, Heartbreaker (Lost Highway)