RAY DORSET doesn't know what's hit him. Neither do PAUL KING, COLIN EARL or MIKE COLE. Last Thursday their single sold 8,000 copies before lunch, and their manager's telephone was red-hot with offers for Continental festivals and American tours. So who are they? The latest teenybopper confection or possibly a heavy band just surfaced from the underground? No. They're MUNGO JERRY, and they're a skiffle group. A WHAAAT??? You remember skiffle - LEADBELLY and DONEGAN, THE VIPERS and 'FREIGHT TRAIN' jugs and washboards. That's what MUNGO JERRY are about, and anyone who doubts that this mixture is commercially acceptable should have been at the Hollywood Festival, where they had more than 20,000 people on their feet and bopping merrily to the sound of such 1956 (not to say 1930) favourites as 'MIDNIGHT SPECIAL,' 'HAVE A WHIFF ON ME,' and 'BRAND NEW CADILLAC.' They were such a success on the Saturday afternoon that the promoters (who also happen to be the group's management) invited them to play again on the following day, when the atmosphere was even better. Visually, they're an amazing sight, Ray plays guitar and sings from behind a harness holding harmonica and kazoo, and he and Paul, the banjoist, and Colin, the pianist, all sit down to play, stamping their feet in time and drinking from large flagons between numbers. Mike plays bass, and is the most sober, at least superficially, of the four. "We were all very nervous about playing at the festival," says Ray. "although we didn't show it. We'd never played to that many people before, of course, and we were worried about the sound. "But when we got that fantastic reception it was too much to take at one time, for any of us. I know that we've gone down well practically everywhere we've played, but that...well, what can you say?" The band has had a long and chequered career, which takes a bit of understanding. It really began for Ray in 1967, when he answered an ad in MM looking for a "DOORS/LOVE type band." It turned out to have been put in by BARRY MURRAY, who is currently their producer at Dawn Records. "I think wanted to turn us into a psychedelic type of band - we had Colin's brother Roger, who's now with SAVOY BROWN, on drums. "They liked us, but I think we were probably too freaky and so we weren't getting any return gigs. Roger left and Colin joined, and we did the Middle Earth scene under various names, as well as backing JACKIE EDWARDS and MILLIE under the name of the SWEET AND SOUR BAND. Oh, at one time we were called CAMINO REAL. "Then somehow we lost the bass and drums, and I began working with JOE RUSH, a washboard player who'd worked with KEN COLYER and was into LEADBELLY and that kind of music. "We made a harp harness and went down to a pub to play, and got a bit pissed. We ran out of numbers very quickly and I had to start making them up...it was really friendly. "There was another gig at Oxford University, in this massive ball where everyone was wearing evening dress. We needed the bread and we went down a storm - we played for three hours, and at six o'clock in the morning they were still shouting for more. "So we thought, 'well someone must dig us', but the agencies still didn't want to know because we didn't have a drummer and they thought it was kind of weird. "Joe left and Paul came in, and he was very good. So we advertised in the MM for a bassist and Mike came along to a rehearsal which through a mistake turned into a stag party, and he played with us for beer money until the strippers came on. What a night! Since then we've had residencies at blues clubs, and we've gigged at a lot of places like the Northcote Arms, playing rock'n roll. It's funny but the rockers and the Hells Angels seem to enjoy our kind of stuff more than the real roc'n roll. We even got sacked from one place because the people wouldn't go home - they wanted us to carry on. "Anyway we decided to put some bread into it, and we advertised the group. Barry saw the ads, wondered what I was up to, contacted us, and signed us to Dawn and the Red Bus Company. We'd played for him with no amps or anything but he was really knocked out. "What we're about is everybody getting up and jumping about. We just want everybody to be happy. I like listening hard to bands, but on the other hand a lot of people do go along to be entertained and they can't get into it. "We go down well everywhere because we allow the audience to enjoy themselves as much as they want - we don't restrict them to sitting down and listening." After hearing them at Hollywood, a friend who was as gassed as I expressed the hope that the fame which will surely be theirs will not spoil the quality of outrageous enthusiasm which is their major asset. "I can't see us losing that," says Ray, "because we're too far into the music and we enjoy it so much. I don't think I could play at a gig where the audience didn't get into it. They're part of it themselves, you see." Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 6th June, 1970.

Many stars have packed up their jobs, put on their best smiles and set out for Hollywood to seek fame and fortune. MUNGO JERRY weren't looking for success. They'd been around far too long to expect anything else but a living and a lot of fun from their music. Hollywood? No, not the legendary film capital of the world, but a little known farming village near Newcastle Under-Lyme, where the first pop festival of 1970 was held at the end of May. Amid such famous names as GRATEFUL DEAD, GINGER BAKER's AIRFORCE and the re-formed TRAFFIC, it was MUNGO JERRY, with their good-time, jump-up-and-join-in music who stole the thunder and the next weeks music paper headlines. They didn't emerge as the latest teenybopper pin-ups ready to take up the crown abdicated by AMEN CORNER, not a progressive rival to JETHRO TULL and LED ZEPPELIN, but a skiffle group! For those of you too young to remember skiffle, it's a jolly, unthinking music, depending on a simple rhythm, some easily forgetable lyrics and some unlikely instruments like a washing board (ask your mum!) and an ordinary jug which is blown into. And as if that isn't enough, the group's first hit, 'IN THE SUMMERTIME,'has three songs on the disc and it's played at 33 1/3 rpm. "It's all happened so quickly and unexpectedly," said the group's curly headed young man with the thickest pair of sideboards you've ever seen. "Before the festival, no more than a handful of people over the country knew of our existence. A day later, thousands of people are talking about us, and a week later we were on Top Of The Pops with a hit record selling very well. "It's great of course, becomming a hit group, but we have no plans for becomming a group of pop stars, in the usual sense; all ego trips and taking it too seriously. We'll always want people to be able to enjoy our music just the same way we do." MUNGO JERRY - PAUL KING on banjo and acoustic guitar, COLIN EARL on drums (?) and MIKE COLE on bass - are certain their new found fame will make no difference to their biggest asset - their uninhibited style of playing, and obvious joy of performing. "If we had just happened overnight, just a couple of months say after being together, it might easily have changed us, but we're too far into the music for that. That's what comes first, second and last, so there's no danger of letting the money or any sort of image hang-up comes before the music. There can't be any other group who can explain what they are all about as easily as we can. What we set out to do is get everybody up and jumping about. "Make them happy, and we're happy. Sure there's lots to be said for hard bands and the progressive stuff, but so many people simply want to be entertained, and they find it difficult to get into the heavy music. They'd feel right idiots jumping about to most of the heavy bands, but the reason we go down well everywhere we play is that we allow the audience to enjoy themselves as much as they want to. "We don't restrict them to sitting down and listening, and because we don't hide our enjoyment, and make it obvious we want them to join in, they aren't embarrassed about getting up and having a good time. I think I would be more embarrassed if nobody started dancing and joining in, after all, what is the audience but a part of the group." Very refreshing words, and ones which some of our more introspective and pretentious groups might do well to take advice from. It's not always been as exciting as it is now for MUNGO JERRY. They've had several line-up changes, including ROGER EARL, Colin's brother who's now with SAVOY BROWN. "I answered an advertisment in a music paper back in '67, for a DOORS/LOVE type band," Ray said. "It worked out fairly well, but I think we were a bit too freaky for a lot of the places we played and we didn't get many return bookings. A couple of people left, and we changed our style to back people like JACKIE EDWARDS. "Then we lost our drummer - never to be replaced - and we worked in a pub. Later, because we needed the money, we did an Oxford University ball, were all the birds were in long evening dresses and the blokes in all the gear. We didn't go on until three in the morning and at six, nobody would go home, they were still shouting for more. "We've played blues clubs, rock'n roll venues, and have gone down great, which must prove that whatever type of music people really dig, they appreciate something played well and they like to know the group are enjoying what they are doing." It might be long before thay are back in the pubs, maybe up at Oxford again, or it may even be the Hollywood everybody knows, but one thing is certain, MUNGO JERRY will be inviting the audience to join in and have fun...and they will! Music Press, 1970.

Very anti becoming a teenybopper heart-throb group they don't pander to journalists and say the 'correct' answers to questions. They say what they think - and what they feel. Not deliberately being rude or vicious - just being themselves. Very together people are Ray, Colin, Mike and Paul - yet they've only been known as MUNGO JERRY for a few months - a name donned just prior to the Hollywood Music Festival. "You've can't say we've been MUNGO JERRY for years." RAY DORSET told me. "We've all been playing in various bands for years but the four of us together didn't have a name for ages. It was a question of if people wanted a band to play, then we played." Most gigs they played were colleges and places were they were appreciated. "We can't bear the thought of playing in plastic ballrooms. We're not a teenybopper band because we don't just record singles that are meant for the hit parade. We went into the studio to do an LP and came out with several tracks that might do for a single. That's why we released a maxi-single with three tracks on it." You feel you are doing them a great injustice if you label their music 'pop', progressive or even 'underground'. They don't want any tags at all. "People should be able to judge for themselves what kind of music we play, not take notice of tags other people have given us." Ask them personal questions and they get very evasive. Questions like 'are any of them married?' are answered thus; "Two of us are, but we're all confirmed bachelors." Or - 'how much money can they expect to get from a concert?' "Let's just say we now get a better class of peanuts." Then tongue in cheek they'll reply, "About twelve pounds as opposed to ten." Ray tends to take his musical influences from the early rock'n roll greats. Even confesses to being a bit of a rocker back in the old days. He's known Colin, the organist, for about ten years. "Colin was always fiddling around with the group years ago, Paul and Mike are the most recent additions. Mike joined the band about nine months ago. We put out an ad for a bass guitarist and then hired a hall to hold the auditions. When we got there the place had been double booked and we found a stag party already being held there. Anyway, they let us play and hold the audition, provided we stopped when their strippers came on! We stopped alright! Ever since then Mike has been one of the group. Don't ask me what differences the strippers made - I don't know. Maybe one of them fancied him!" The famous jug that was featured on 'SUMMERTIME' is from all accounts not widely used in their act. "We use a washboard and sometimes a jug. Paul who plays the jug on the record mainly plays banjo or guitar on stage. When we're up there on stage, we like to generate as good an atmosphere as we can. Sure we like people to join in, ask them to come up on stage and play the washboard or hold the jug. Audience reaction is very important to us." Ray penned 'SUMMERTIME' last March. "I think I was playing my guitar in my bedroom at the time. It took about half an hour to compose. Do I like the song? Of course. Even before we had MUNGO JERRY together we kept telling people how good we were - trouble was nobody believed us! It's funny really getting a record in the charts. We've all been playing for so long in different bands that after a while you tend to give up the idea of getting anywhere. Now it's happened but we don't feel any different. Maybe we will went the royalties start to come in." Ray is a great one for lyrics, remember that line, 'if her Daddie's rich, take her out for a meal' if her Daddie's poor just do what you feel'...is that philosophy as far as girls are concerned? "Why not? That's what you do isn't it? It's all in our songs really what we're about. Just listen!" Music Press, 1970.

Everybody has a point for losing their cool and MUNGO JERRY's came on Monday when their single, 'IN THE SUMMERTIME' took a phenomenal 15-place leap to the top of the NME chart, capping a three week period in which this previously unknown band had bee drooled over by music critics for their part in the Hollywood Festival and gone to the top of the list of every booker in the country. "It's fantastic. Terrific. It's moved so fast," was what RAY DORSET, MUNGO JERRY guitarist, was reduced to blurting out when I spoke to him on Monday at his home near London Airport, proving that in such situations the stock responses will always out. I'm almost tempted to say it's all happening this week for MUNGO JERRY, using what is a running joke at the NME as the stock cliche when stuck for an intro to a feature and as I've already done it, I'll make no apologies in this case because it really doesn'y happen much more than it's happened for MUNGO JERRY. Ever since Hollywood I don't think we've had a days rest," said Ray who was off on a well earned holiday the next day. "There've been interviews to do, gigs, radio, TV...it's amazing. The funny thing is that we had loads of work in after Hollywood before the record was even out. Promoters were booking us for big bread then, and the single wasn't released until the Friday after. "Hollywood was amazing. When we went on stage the first day the sun just suddenly came out from behind the clouds. It was like an omen. The first number got tremendous applause and with each one we did, it just grew and grew. I asked the audience to put their hands up in the air and thousands of arms went up, glinting in the sunshine. It was a tremendous sight. " On the second day, when we were re-booked, the sun was going down and they were lighting bonfires on the hillside. It was like an excerpt from a biblical film. We couldn't see what was going on but I asked them to bang things and make a noise and the whole audience just stood up and started banging coke tins together along with the music." Although the scale wasn't as big, MUNGO JERRY had had similar reactions at the college and club gigs they'd been doing pre-Hollywood. "I don't want to sound immodest but most places have gone mad in the same way," says Ray. But, he pointed out, no one believed them. "We'd phone up trying to get bookings and say we'd gone down great the previous night and they'd say 'Oh yeah, really.' But the thing about Hollywood was that there were so many name bands there, all the press and managers, and they all saw it actually happening." The group, which has always been London-based, has had a strange career, starting a year and a half back when Ray, 24, and MUNGO pianist COLIN EARL formed a three piece with JOE RUSH, who plays washboard occasionally for MJ - he sat in for Hollywood. "Joe and I had worked together a few years previously," said Ray, "and he just asked me one night to go down to this pub for a blow. Colin - he and I were in a group together - came along to make up the trio and it went down pretty well, with Joe playing double bass. "Our band was more or less breaking up and we had a gig booked at Oxford University - that was in December 1968 - and rather than blow it, we went and did it as the three piece. "We were supposed to be on at the finish of the evening to play people off home, but when we started everybody began coming back to listen and in the end we were on stage for an extra hour and a half. "But even after that we still had a job getting any more work and Joe, who is basically a traditional jazz man, decided to get back into that. We were not making much money." The band reached its present line-up when PAUL KING, banjo/jug player, tagged on after sitting in with them one night and string bassist MIKE COLE joined after answering an ad. Ray tells an amusing story of when the group were rehearsing its new line-up. They'd hired a hall but, when they arrived, found there had been a double booking and that a stag party was in full swing. Explaining that they were getting a new band together, the group asked if they could play and scored quite a success with the drinkers before having to make way for the strippers. Their repertoire then was wide, according to Ray, taking in, "hard rock, progressive rock, skiffle, blues, LEADBELLY numbers and country blues." So wide that they could play almost any gig and never fail to have something for that particular audience. Ray remembers playing rock clubs full of Teddy Boys and Hell's Angels and being praised for their warly Sun Sound." BARRY MURRAY, producer of 'IN THE SUMMERTIME,' was the first to listen and help them, initially when Ray and two others replied to an ad for a progressive rock band. Barry was interested but could do nothing when the other two left to join other bands. It was a year later, when Ray was working with the current MJ line-up, that BARRY MURRAY noticed his name on an ad they'd put in to try and get work. A recording contract with Dawn and a managerial contract with the Red Bus Company, promoters of Hollywood, were the results. They picked the name MUNGO JERRY only a fortnight before the single was released. Of their chequered past, Ray says, "It was a good thing having to do it really. It was valuable experience." Nick Logan, NME, 13th June, 1970