Tuesday, March 4, 2008

RIP Mike Smith

If you don't recognize the name, he was the lead singer of The Dave Clark Five (the guy the band was named after was actually the drummer), a famous band from the 60's that you've probably heard on the oldies stations or elsewhere, as they've had quite a few hits that are still played today. He passed away on Thursday; sadly, it was less than 2 weeks away from the band being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This made me realize that by posting a more obscure song from the band due to the death and the ceremony being a week away, I'd kill 2 birds with 1 stone, as I've realized it'd be interesting to spend some time this week talking about the more obscure people getting inducted into the Hall. Everyone knows the songs of Madonna and also John Mellencamp, but even I am not that familiar with most of the famed tunes from The Ventures, and I know nothing from Leonard Cohen at this time, not to mention legendary harmonica player Little Walter.

I was on MP3 Rocket and found this song at random. It was one of a few I downloaded. I picked this one as a lyric and the message of the song is rather interesting. The tune is known as You Got What It Takes and it mentions that no matter what (such as her being poor and having a crappy car; I'm paraphrasing here), the lead singer loves his lady. However, one lyric, which is repeated more than once, goes, "Nature didn't give you such a beautiful face." To me, that means she's ugly! I don't think a guy saying that to his lady will make the lady very happy, but maybe things were different in the late 60's…

But hey, this was the last hit of any note they had in the U.S. and much to my shock, their albums today are pretty rare and hard to find (you'd think that sometime soon a company will put out at least a 1 CD retrospective set of their biggest hits), so hopefully you'll enjoy this as a curio, if nothing else.

As a side note, Jeff Healey passed away yesterday. He was famous in the 80's for being a blues-rock guitarist, being blind and playing the guitar by laying it across his lap. If you've seen the classic Road House, you probably remember him from there. After that, he actually was more of a jazz musician. Dying at the age of 41 is awfully sad, and him dealing with cancer his entire life is even worse.

Dave Clark Five-You Got What It Takes (2.74 MB, 128Kbits/second)

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/12/28/1667157/Dave%20Clark%20Five%20-%20You%27ve%20Got%20What%20it%20Takes.mp3

I'll be back Wednesday night with a song from another band going into the RnRHoF, and it actually goes along with the preceding paragraph. This time I'll try to be a little more punctual.

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