Dave Clark Five original albums on iTunes

Dave Clark, who owns his own recordings, has made the Dave Clark Five's first two albums available for download on iTunes. Sadly, Mr. Clark has chosen to replace one track on the "Glad All Over" album and THREE tracks on the "Return" album with other songs, mainly B-sides of singles that weren't originally on the albums.

Rumor has it that this is because they were written by the bandmate who sued him over royalties, and he doesn't want him to get any money off these iTunes issues. Whatever the case, it's quite ridiculous -- he even redid the arwork (which listed the songs on the album) to replace the old songs with the new.

Perhaps the Glad All Over album should be given the new title Bits And Pieces to more accurately (and figuratively) reflect its revised track listing. :)

Speaking of the DC5: Did anyone else ever think that Adam Faith's DC5-knockoff "It's Alright" actually was by the Dave Clark Five at the time? I'd completely forgotten about the song after it fell off the top 40 charts in 1965 until I went to see Good Morning Vietnam. I found myself singing along with the tune for about forty seconds when it suddenly dawned on me that I didn't know its title, then realized that it hadn't been on the 1974 Glad All Over Again double-LP or any other DC5 album. Needless to say, I paid special attention to the credits. The stereo mix of "It's Alright" sounds less like the DC5 than it did on the mono Amy 45.

When I burned my own version of The Dave Clark Five's Greatest Hits back in the '90s, I simply had to include "It's Alright." :)

My 2¢ worth here...
As annoying as Dave has been with his revisionist album line-ups and refusal to issue stereo mixes of DC5 songs, at least (to my knowledge) he's not tinkering with the actual song mixes as so many artists have done (Richard Carpenter is a blatant example) trying to "improve" them.

In as much as the DC5 was primarily a singles act, I wonder aside from a handful of collectors if anyone really cares about whether a particular album cut is included or if they're just interested in the hits. Even as a music collector I fall into the latter category.

Having both "The Hits" CD and "The History Of The Dave Clark Five" 2-CD set (Hollywood Records HR-61482-2), I would recommend the latter (which I think is also out of print but relatively easy to snag on eBay or half.com). "History" is a bit more comprehensive with respect to the A and B sides of the Epic singles that made the Hot 100 (and, although it doesn't have all of them, it has more than "Hits").

If he keeps up this pace every 10 years of switching formats we may never see the originals released. CD in the 1990's, Itunes in the late 2000's and now digital downloads in the 2010's.....