Mike Smith - Paralyzed

For those fans of 60s music who remember (and/or still listen to) the music of the Dave Clark Five: For me, the appeal of this group was and alway be the gritty vocals of Mike Smith. Unfortunately, I found out while surfing the web last year that Mike Smith suffered a fall in his home and is now permanently paralyzed from the neck down. Mike only released one solo album after the breakup of the DC5, mostly covers of 50s tunes, which he of course did an excellent job on. He had apparently come to the US to do some club dates, emerging from decades of silence when his son died suddenly in the UK - drowning, I think. He cut his tour short and rushed home. Within a year he suffered his fall. If it had been me, I would've been drinking heavily, but that's 100% speculation.Other than Mike, the rest of the group was pretty disposable. Dave Clark, of course, owns all of the master recordings of the group and, other than one 2-CD collection out of print, has never consented to the release of the group's material on CD. He also bought the back catalog of the British TV pop staple, Ready Steady Go, on which the Beatles and all the rest of the British invasion stars appeared multiple times. God knows why he continues to sit on all of this material as its potential audience goes grey. Maybe he expects to release it to retirement homes in 10 years. A damn shame.Anyway, I've seen very little of Mike Smith's situation reported in any U.S. media, and thought fans of the group might like (?) to know the bad news.Photos below: DC5 in 1964, Smtih at top right Mike Smith and Paul Shaeffer (David Letterman Show) recently