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Great Performances: Glad All Over — The Dave Clark Five And Beyond

Bios Dave Clark

The Dave Clark Five’’s unique brand of music sold in excess of 100 million records. They were the very first English group to tour the United States, spearheading the British Invasion. During their first two years in America, they scored no less than 15 consecutive Top 20 hits, more than any other artist in the world except the Beatles. They took the world by storm and helped change the rock scene, with hit after hit over the world’’s radio airwaves. Clark was Britain’’s first independent artist/record producer.

Clark produced all the DC5’s records and co-wrote most of them, and he also managed the group at the same time. “Glad All Over” generated in excess of two-and-a-half million copies, followed by “Bits and Pieces,” which repeated that success.

Throughout the DC5’s record-breaking tours, Clark was often overwhelmed by the caliber of stars who opened the DC5 concerts. Artists such as Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, Neil Diamond, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Sonny and Cher, the Young Rascals, the Kinks and the Bee Gees were among those who opened their act. The DC5’s songs and style influenced and inspired many American artists as well as heavy rock groups like Kiss, Cheap Trick and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

The DC5 appeared in two Royal Variety Shows before Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and HRH Prince Phillip. They topped the bill at the London Palladium; made six sell-out tours of the United States; appeared 18 times on “The Ed Sullivan Show” (with its 70 million viewers each week), a record for any British group; broke the house records at Carnegie Hall; toured the world playing to capacity audiences; and had over 30 global hit singles. The group disbanded in May 1970, while enjoying yet another million-seller.

The DC5 starred in the film Catch Us If You Can/Having a Wild Weekend, directed by John Boorman at the start of his career. Clark wrote, produced, directed and starred in the acclaimed TV special, “Hold On - It’s The Dave Clark Five.” During the 1960s, Clark pioneered the art of promotional videos. He studied drama and theater at London’s Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, as well as the Actors’ Studio in Hollywood under the direction of Lee Strasberg.

Rolling Stone published a critical illustrated history of Rock ‘n’ Roll that said of the DC5 “... all the Dave Clark Five singles were marked by a large, thick yet expansive wall-of-sound production that made them not only distinctive in their day, but ensured that they would sound exciting — more than mere period pieces — to this day. And that’s something that can be said of almost none of the hits of their contemporaries. Clark himself sang, composed, played drums, produced and even managed the group which has, over the years, been severely underrated.”

Also during 1985, Clark returned to the recording studios to produce a galaxy of stars for the TIME concept album, which includes performances by Laurence Olivier, Cliff Richard, Freddie Mercury, Julian Lennon, Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach, Ashford and Simpson, and Stevie Wonder, which sold in excess of 12 million albums and singles throughout the world. As well as devising, creating, co-writing the book, music and lyrics and producing TIME The Musical — both on record and on stage — Clark had the distinction of directing Olivier in his final theatrical performance.

The stage version had its world premiere in London’s West End in 1986, breaking all box office records during its two-year run and seen by more than one million people. In December 1989, Clark introduced the American television premiere of the classic British series “Ready Steady Go!” for which he had acquired the exclusive rights, on the Disney Channel; it ran until 1991.

Of the DC5, John Travolta has said, “They were a big influence on me … and America. Their records still sound great.” And Tom Hanks, who in 2008 inducted the group into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, avowed, “I was always a big Dave Clark Five fan and still am. They made fantastic records. They were awesome.” John Lennon went on record saying, “The Dave Clark Five were the biggest challenge to the Beatles.”

Stephen Segaller, Executive in Charge

Stephen Segaller joined WNET in September 2008. He has primary responsibility for the coordination of all national and local programming from WNET’s producing subsidiaries – THIRTEEN, WLIW21 and Creative News Group. Among the acclaimed productions Segaller oversees are: Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, Secrets of the Dead, PBS NewsHour Weekend, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, Cyberchase, NYCArts, Reel 13, Women, War and Peace, and Shakespeare Uncovered.

Segaller has been a journalist, producer, director, writer and author whose work has been broadcast and published on both sides of the Atlantic and all over the world. In the U.K., he worked for London Weekend TV and Granada TV in current affairs, and then spent six years as an independent producer making documentaries for Channel 4. In the U.S., he worked at WGBH and supervised national production for Oregon Public Broadcasting – producing for PBS, CNN, Discovery, TLC, Channel 4, and other networks. In 2008-09 he was executive-in-charge of Worldfocus, a daily global news program built on new technology, content partnerships and web-transmission. In 2010, he spearheaded the development and launch of Need to Know, a weekly public affairs program airing nationally on PBS stations, which ended its third season run this past June. The series, a single-topic, 30- minute format that featured in-depth reports focusing on how policies set in Washington actually affect “ordinary Americans” on Main Street, wrapped up its run with three News & Docs Emmy nominations – two for “Crossing the Line at the Border” (Outstanding Investigative Journalism in a News Magazine and Best Report in a News Magazine) and one for “The Massachusetts Mandate” (Outstanding News Discussion and Analysis). In 2013, Segaller helped oversee the expansion of the PBS NewsHour broadcast tradition with a PBS NewsHour Weekend newscast on both Saturday and Sunday. The half-hour program is anchored by Hari Sreenivasan and produced at the Tisch WNET Studios at Lincoln Center. Each weekend broadcast will contain original, in-depth field reporting on topics including education, healthcare, the economy, energy, science and technology, religion, finance and the arts.