Mike Smith, Dave Clark Five lead, Dead

Feb. 29, 2008, 12:09AM

Dave Clark Five lead singer Mike Smith died of pneumonia Thursday, less than two weeks before the band was to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was 64.

Smith died at a hospital outside of London, his agent Margo Lewis said.

He was admitted to the intensive care unit Wednesday morning with a chest infection, a complication from a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed below the ribcage with limited use of his upper body. Lewis said he was injured when he fell from a fence at his home in Spain in 2003.

Smith had been in the hospital since the accident, and was just released last December when he moved into a specially prepared home.

"These last five years were extremely difficult for Mike," Lewis said. "I am incredibly saddened to lose him, his energy and his humor, but I am comforted by the fact that he had the chance to spend his final months and days at home with his loving wife Charlie."

Smith wrote songs as well as singing and playing keyboards.

Dave Clark Five was one of many British rock acts whose music swept across the United States in the 1960s.

The Beatles are the best remembered, but the Dave Clark Five posed the strongest threat to their pre-eminence.