There are some 'funny stories' about this guy and the way he ran his band yet very little is written about him or the DC5 other than carefully worded and ridulously OTT statements of their achievements.
Anybody got any opinions on him?

Yes Mike, Dave was known as pretty ruthless but very bright. He bought up, and still owns, the rights to all existing Ready Steady Go shows.

I always got on fine with him in the 60s.

Rumour has it that he tried an experimental form of a Botox type treatment which went badly wrong decades ago, which is why he became a recluse.

But that could just be a rumour.

Rumour has it the rest of the DC5 were on wages with Clark having complete control over everything they did. Certainly, other than a few bland quotes from the late Mike Smith, after Clark called time on the band in July 1970, all but Smith retired from music & they never ever spoke of their time in the band to the press which suggests some kind of confidentiality agreement was also in their contracts, probably to protect Clark from personal & professional expose. The only person I've read of speaking out against him is the songwriter Ron Ryan who authored a lot of songs Clark claimed as his own

Check this out...

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-53...tox-bits-pieces.html


Doesn't Dave now resemble someone?
My eyes say Warren Beatty.

Rick Huxley lives in Harlow, Essex and regularly gigs with a local band around the area.

I asked him about the band and he confirmed that Dave Clark put the band on wages in the 60's, up to when they split up. He is a nice guy and their was not a lot of bitterness regarding that, he pointed out that Mike Smith had more of an issue with it than anyone else.

Since they split up, he rarely saw Dave Clark until the Hall of Fame ceremony in USA. When I last saw Rick Huxley, he did comment on the plastic surgery and found he had nothing in common with him now.

I would hardly say that Huxley was poor, but he ended up doing regular jobs and got nothing in royalites, however, he pointed out that wrote none of the songs.

It strikes me as very odd that 3 musicians in a much travelled & very successful world reknown band would all simply leave the music business when their 'boss' called time on the band. One maybe, two at a push... but all of them? It wasn't as if they had to endure years of 'dumperdom' struggling, they were still having hits in 1970, and yet all of them somehow just turned their backs on music with Clark keeping Mike Smith duty bound to front the contractually-obligated 'Dave Clark & Friends' project.
Lenny Davidson is now apparantly a guitar tutor, so they are both playing still yet not as professional musicians... curioser & curioser. I reckon there's a lot more to the story of the Dave Clark Five than meets the eye, yet there's nothing on the interenet except Clark-sponsered hyperbole

I don't think the story of the Dave Clark Five is much different from the stories of lots of other bands.

The main difference is that the (backing) musicians were "exploited" by a drummer, not by a manager or a record company.

I don't like the term "exploited" DJ. Most musos sink without trace. Those who get some success often do so because of one individual's drive and ambition - and, sometimes, talent.

Dave was the driving force behind the group. I suspect Mike was the talent but only when Dave picked or found the right songs etc.

Managers and labels are frequently painted as "villains" but the truth is that the vast majority of musos never get any success because they are not lucky enough to link up with someone who powers the projects through to success.

The "front men" get most of the credit but thy often only supply the image and the basics.

I bet you the Dave Clark Five would have been huge with an entirely different team of musos as long as Dave was part of the project.

The 'exploitation' aspect of the DC5 is more to do witht the innate secrecy surrounding the true mechanics of the project and the iron rod of control Clark has exercised since - the only person to speak out in all these years has been Ron Ryan - uncredited author of many of those great early DC5 tunes - who has stated Clark reneged on a gentleman's agreement that he would let Clark take the credit if he was thus paid the royalty but he was reluctant to issue writs at the time due to Clark controlling the livlihood of the other 'members' of the band who were his friends (www.ronryanmusic.com), but there a subsequent court case.
Even now almost 40 years since they split, all we really have info-wise on the DC5 is OTT hyperbole exagerating everything from their international impact to actual record sales. From what I can work out, it appears the svengali aspects of Clark admirable at the start descended somewhat into meglomania. Most of the songs were Mike Smith co-writes - how much more comfortable would have his life been had those popular tunes been available for more than just 1 year in the past 30?