One of the
Dave Clark Five's finest hours,
American Tour (so named in commemoration of their first U.S. tour -- it's not a live album) is excellent from start to finish. The album encompasses slightly retrograde instrumental rock & roll, like the "Green Onions"-styled "Move On," in addition to the sophisticated pop/rock and driving garage rock of their vocal cuts. "Because" was one of the band's biggest American hits and, like everything on the album, was composed by its members. The mixture of jazzy chords, straight-ahead rock, and saxophone (which was pretty passé in 1964) is an interesting one, making the group less enigmatic than
the Zombies and more obviously rooted in earlier rock traditions than
the Beatles. Despite the adventurous construction of their vocal songs, they're willing to use standard chord progressions for their instrumentals. In that sense, the
Dave Clark Five bridged the gap between the music of
Bill Haley, the
Bill Black Combo, and
the Beatles in a way that few other British Invasion acts did. ~ Greg Adams