The “Golden Hits Of The 70s”
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MUNGO JERRY
“IN THE SUMMERTIME”
(Ray Dorset)
Janus 125
No. 3 September 12, 1970
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Ray Dorset (vocals, guitar, casaba, feet) was born March 21, 1946, in Ashton, England. For years, Ray
played any kind of music that might put food on his table. In 1968, “Mungo” Dorset was a member of a
starving London-based progressive-pop band called Camino Real. Their future looked bleak, when out of
the blue, things took a turn for the worse. The band’s bass player walked off, and Dorset sacked the drum
mer–but replacements couldn’t be found in time for a gig at Oxford University.
Ray and his diminished Camino cluster, bassless and drumless, nonetheless put on a fine show. Dorset,
piano man Colin Earl (b. May 6, 1942, Hampton Court, England), and a washboard player named Jo Rush
explored the terrain of their new musical turf as The Good Earth Rock & Roll Band. Before he left the
group, Rush turned them on to the sounds of Leadbelly, Willie Dixon, and Britain’s banjo-beating skiffle
king, Lonnie Donegan.
A “goodtime”/jug band/country-blues sound was coming together. Banjo-picking and jug-blowing Paul
King (b. Tan. 8, 1948, Dagenham, England) and the bass-bashing Mike Cole were soon added to the roll
call. A magazine plea for a manager garnered the group sometime-producer Barry Murray. After Mungo
Terry successfully opened for Traffic and the GRATEFUL DEAD at London’s Hollywood Music Festival,
Murray was able to secure a contract for the group with England’s Dawn label. “In the Summertime” was
their debut disk, and the first of what would total a towering 10 Top 40 45s in their homeland. In England,
they were a pop phenomenon; pundits talked of “Mungo-mania” and publicity hand-outs labeled them
“The New Beatles.”