According to Wikipedia, the group name Mungo Jerry “was inspired by the poem Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer, from T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.” If you go to the Mungo Jerry website, you’ll read that “Ray Dorset is…Mungo Jerry…is Ray Dorset,” the fellow on the left in the photo. And looking at the list of all of the former members of the British group of the 1970s, that would be about correct.
The big hit was In the Summertime, which debuted on the charts on July 11, 1970, and went to #3. Here’s one video and here’s another.
Homepage of site: “Mungo Jerry Netherlands!”
I bet Mungo Jerry is popular in the Netherlands… š
In the Summertime is still a popular song that appears in tv adverts etc on those rare occasions when we actually have a summer!
Roger, even though the song is unbelievably sexist, I still catch myself singing it, with the heavy vibrato and everything. Funny, huh? Fave summer song: Nat King Cole’s “Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime” (wasn’t that Sly?), “Wipeout” (Ventures), and “Saturday in the Park.” That was when Chicago was really happening, with Terry Kath… before the reign of Peter “Yuck” Cetera, who is one big loaf of Wonder Bread.
My last post to you before vacation. Peace, Amy
Hot Fun was indeed Sly. I’m sure i’ve linked to it in the past. Nat Cole too.
I’ll defend Peter Cetera this much: he had a dynamite lead on “25 or 6 to 4.” Then again, he didn’t write it. (Robert Lamm did.)
And anyway, ’twas the Surfaris who came up with the original “Wipe Out,” though any Ventures cover — or for that matter, any Ventures original — is worth a listen.
I read your title in my Google Reader and immediately my mind went to the song, Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer, from CATS!