60s pop star Dave Dee dies

2009-01-09 17:01

London - British 1960s pop star Dave Dee, whose band briefly rivalled The Beatles in the charts, died on Friday after a three year battle with cancer, a business associate said.

Dee, who was 65, had continued playing with his band - Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich - until recently, said Sean Cooney.

"He didn't let it get him down, he was defying it," he said.

Dee, whose real name as David Harman, was a former policeman whose hits included Hold Tight, Bend It, and The Legend of Xanadu.

The band enjoyed success in Australia and elsewhere, as well as in his homeland.

In the late 1960s the band spent more weeks in the British pop charts than the Beatles, according to the BBC.

Last year they released a 22-track Best Of compilation, which a BBC reviewer called a "colourful and tuneful, if unrelentingly loud and exhaustingly fast-paced, reminder" of the band's repertoire.

- AFP