Dave Clark Five singer Mike Smith dies

By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Mike Smith, the lead singer of the 1960s band the Dave Clark Five, died on Thursday of pneumonia, his U.S. agent said.

Smith, 64, was admitted to Stoke Mandeville Hospital, on Wednesday morning with a chest infection resulting from complications of a 2003 spinal cord injury that had left him paralyzed from the waist down, his New York agent, Margo Lewis, said in a statement.

His death at the hospital, north of London, came just two weeks before the Dave Clark Five -- one of the leading bands of the 1960s "British invasion" -- was due to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in New York.

The Dave Clark Five, whose hits included "Glad All Over," "Bits and Pieces" and "Because," were one of the first British bands to find major success in the United States after the Beatles.

According to a biography of the band on the Web site allmusic.com, it was the Dave Clark Five who knocked the Fab Four's hit "I Want to Hold Your Hand" off the top of the British charts with "Glad All Over."

And they made more appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" than any other English act of their era.

Despite a string of more than 10 other hits, the group disbanded in 1970. It had sold more than 50 million albums by the end of 2007.

The Dave Clark Five was due to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at a March 10 ceremony in New York that Smith had hoped to attend despite his September 2003 injury.