Mike Smith | British rocker, 64

Mike Smith, 64, lead singer of the Dave Clark Five, died of pneumonia Thursday at a hospital outside of London, less than two weeks before the band was to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, said his agent, Margo Lewis.

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 rib cage with limited use of his upper body. Lewis said he was injured when he fell from a fence at his home in Spain in September 2003.

Mr. Smith had been in the hospital since the accident, and was just released in December when he moved into a specially prepared home near the hospital with his wife.

He wrote songs, sang and played keyboards for the Dave Clark Five, one of many British rock acts whose music swept across the United States in the 1960s during the so-called British Invasion.

The Beatles are the best remembered, but at the time the Dave Clark Five posed the strongest threat, commercially and critically, to their preeminence.

The band's U.S. hits included "Because," "Glad All Over," and "Bits and Pieces." By 1966, it had made 12 appearances on

The Ed Sullivan Show

, then a record for any British group.

- AP