MUNGO JERRY riding high in the charts with 'BABY JUMP,' have been hard at it, practically without a break since their early success last summer. Which is all very nice and proves that they're not one-hit wonders, but is also rather tiring. RAY DORSET collapsed a couple of weeks ago from exhaustion. And to meet MUNGO they're half the men they were last summer; tired and a bit listless. In short, there's been too much of the "all work and no play" adage. "I like playing music," protests PAUL KING, that amazingly good-looking bloke in the suede gear. "But I do like doing other things as well." We're talking in a crowded Fleet Street pub and although it's lunchtime, Paul has only just got up. He's paler and and slightly fatter-faced than last summer, and explains it's because there's always so much waiting around to do that he drinks to pass the time and that puts on weight. "I mean we've just come back from three weeks in Italy. We got off the Hovercraft, and went straight to a gig in the North. Then there was Top Of The Pops the next day. "You arrive at Top Of The Pops at eleven, you're needed for two minutes. That's what is so tiring." Paul says he found Italy rather trying too. Essentially, he says, MUNGO JERRY is a band for English speaking audiences, although 'IN THE SUMMERTIME' sold extensively over the Continent in its English version. "Somewhere between eight and ten million," says Paul reflectively. "That's a lot of of records to sell, and people expect us to be hugely rich, but the money's hardly started coming in yet. I've just about enough money to buy a Mercedes, but that's not really much use as I don't drive. And anyway, people don't consider you're rich unless you have a house and a villa and a yacht." Right now, Paul desperately wants a house in the Sunningdale area, but he's hardly had time to look. At the moment and his possessions are crammed into one room, where he's living with the guy who drives him around. "I'm losing touch with my old friends - I had a drink with some of them last night and that was the first time I'd seen them in six months. Then there's football - I love playing football and I don't have time. Primarily I'm an artist and I haven't touched a paintbrush in six months." He also designs and makes his own suede and leather stuff but has had no time to do that. In all, life's become a bit too much of a rush, and with 'BABY JUMP' high in the chart it dosen't look as if the pace will slacken much. But at least they'll be in this country for a while - their American tour has been cancelled so they can concentrate more on home ground, which they feel thay have neglected lately. Also there's the new album - 'ELECTRONICALLY TESTED - due out shortly. Alas Paul didn't finish writing and arranging his songs in time to get them on the album. "My songs are more folky - they're involved with people and life - not at all commercial and you can't really put the rest of the band on them." In what spare moments they have, the band don't tend to stick together. They're thrown too much on ech others company during gigs and touring for that, and they're all very different personalities. "And anyway," says Paul "we never rehearse, it all happens on stage. We rehearse in the studios for an album but otherwise it comes naturally. Ray plays something and we follow. "I used to go round folk clubs and they used to sit there and you could hear a pin drop. I was nervous then with only twenty or so people in the audience, because they were super-critical. They'd watch your every movement and most of them played guitar too. When there's four of you and you're playing to 50,000 or 2,000 or whatever it is - you don't feel nervous somehow." In the pre-MUNGO days, Paul used to busk round the South Of France and Europe. In Spain once he was put in prison and had his hair shaved off for being too long. He's slightly nostalgic about those days. "When we were in Italy recently we kept having to do interviews, and it was 80 degrees outside and I was thinking 'wow' I could be spending this time outside lying there getting a tan, instead of which we had to have our photos taken and you happen to scratching your ear, and next thing you know there's a poster plastered up saying 'MUNGO JERRY' with you scratching your ear." Music Press, 1971.

So MUNGO JERRY ain't just a bunch of chartbound hitmakers after all;or not if pianist COLIN EARL's tastes and musical idols are anything to go by. For a long time their enormous world-wide hit 'IN THE SUMMERTIME,'which after their sensational appearance at the Hollywood Festival (some say they blew the GRATEFUL DEAD off the stage) jetted them to fame in 1970, seems to have been a bit of an albatross around their necks. For they paid the price of instant success with an equally instant obscurity. Like 'A WHITER SHADE OF PALE,'it captured perfectly the mood and feel of that time and proved impossible to follow up. And it summarily put them, of course, into a single making bag. All very unfortunate. But the time has come, they reckon, for the real MUNGO JERRY to stand up and be judged on their own merits - as a good-time fun band purveying old-time rock'n roll, blues and jug-band music, not with any particular pretensions to authenticity or significance. "The essence of the band is playing for people," says Colin, a piano player with a touch of the flashy showman image of some of the old black pianists - OTIS SPANN, in particular. "OTIS SPANN is my hero, as far as blues piano goes. For me, he's the epitome of Chicago blues. He's got that natural showmanship that goes naturally with the blues - it's not just the music, it's everything that goes with it." Surprising, perhaps, for those accustomed to the sight of MUNGO JERRY on British TV (though they've had spots on German TV which Colin felt gave a rather more realistic impression of what MUNGO JERRY are about);who'd expect to hear them talking about de blooze? It's not just that he's done his homework;the names kept tumbling out, MUDDY WATERS, JESSE FULLER, SON HOUSE, SLEEPY JOHN ESTES, MEMPHIS SLIM ("there's basically so much truth in what they've got to say. All they care about is saying it through the music"). But he doesn't have an excessively purist approach. One of the numbers thay have played on German TV is 'GIMME THAT HARP BOY', the rocking DON VAN VLIET composition. Another BEEFHEART freak? "Yeah - we've played with him. He was great." That was at another sensational gig, at Middle Earth a few years ago when MUNGO JERRY had the dubious privilege of opening the bill. He recognises the heavy Delta blues base BEEFHEART takes off from;"We'd listened to him before, he's very interesting to listen to, so personal. He starts of from the Delta. We played two and a half hours that night and we were so shattered that we didn't have time to talk to him. At that time there was that weird rock and roll revival going, and we were playing all these numbers and everybody was dancing so we just kept on playing. We felt privileged to be on the same bill as him then;we would have had to go and see him anyway." But playing long sets is nothing new for MUNGO. Over years of playing in small clubs they developed of necessity a wide range of material (Colin laughingly admits that MUNGO leaned heavily on MUDDY WATERS, 'GOT MY MOJO WORKING'"), but when quizzed over what MUNGO play it's "kind of old blues, country, old rock and roll" (he's a freak for the old Sun stuff, and recalls Elvis's version of JOHN ESTES 'COW COW BLUES' and 'BABY LET'S PLAY HOUSE' - 'cos that's what I was listening to ten years ago.") One of his greatest regrets was that JESSE FULLER, with whom they had been scheduled to play at the Fillmore on their American tour, had been unable to make the gig because of illness. And finally, still into the idea of good times, he concluded;"We don't want to be like other bands. Obviously we prefer to play well rather than badly, but it really comes down to giving everybody a good time. But then you can't get the rapport with the audience unless you're all together." Martin Hayman, Music Press, 1971.

When MUNGO's JOHN GODFREY and I met up recently at the opening of Chappell's new record shop in the West End at 12.30 he was still suffering from a heavy night and I was still celebrating Chelsea's League Cup victory. John and I didn't really feel however that this was the right environment in which to do an interview, so we caught a cab for a safe pub in Covent Garden and took it from there. This didn't work either unfortunately, John is as keen a darts fanatic as I am, so we left the pub at chucking out time and strolled to an afternoon licenced establishment nearby. Finally I was able to ask John about MUNGO's new single, 'YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE IN THE ARMY TO FIGHT IN THE WAR.' "I personally believe it's one of the best singles we've done as far as being musically satisfied is concerned," he replied with some conviction. "I just like it. Again it's a happy-go-lucky MUNGO JERRY-type number, but again we've tried something different. Ray's tried a BOB DYLAN thing for a laugh, that's OK as long as it's not taken too seriously." MUNGO stick to the four members of the band on singles and augment themselves, but at the Weeley Festival, one JOE RUSH and roadie BIZZ joined in the act so had MUNGO had any thoughts about expanding the line-up permanently and, if not, why do so at Weeley? "Joe and his band have always been good friends of ours. He's a good character, whacking at the washboard, it gives a good atmosphere and makes it more jolly," John explained. "BIZZ often plays with us to get the audience to join in - they work in the factory all day and that gets the energy out of them rather than have a fight. If they come along to see us, they can clap or stamp or whatever and just generally have a good time. "Weeley was a festival atmosphere and we invited Joe because he's a nice guy to have around and his band COUNTRY JUG, plays similar to us and it's a nice kind of feeling." Is MUNGO JERRY then a good-time band and simply that? "Not a good-time band in the obvious sense like LOVIN' SPOONFUL, it's a fun band, we're there to entertain, we're paid good money to entertain, people can have a good time, enjoy themselves, clap their hands, for Christ's sake. "It's a bit of fun. After all the heavy dinosaur bands, you can clap your hands and have a laugh. "It's like a modern cabaret act but on a larger scale, we haven't got a drummer so the audience can add their own rhythms and shout abuse if they like, it really doesn't matter." Opening time had come around again, so we retraced our steps to the former pub and tried to settle down. No luck. Too may friends dropped in and the subject reverted to darts. It wasn't until we got to the Queen Elizabeth Hall prior to TERRY REID's concert that we resumed our interview - promoter PETER BOWYER doing his best to put a stop to it with large and voluminous drinks. Feeling the moment was right, I asked John about the solo album that RAY DORSET is making. A few weeks ago when my spies told me about it, MUNGO's publicist kept very shtoom about it, so I thought having John in the right frame of mind, I'd outdo Mr Trengo. "Oh yeah, Ray's doing one, there's no secret about that," John told me. "What I've heard of it is bloody good. Being a writer he can't do all the same things. I played on three tracks - one of them is a jazz track and being an old boozy jazzer I enjoyed it. "There's one track that if he doesn't put it out as a single he's out of his skull. It's called 'COLD BLUE EXCURSION.' I did the original demo with him years and years ago, but I'm not on the record." Would John like to do some things of his own? "I'd like to do a few things not with MUNGO JERRY because MUNGO JERRY is MUNGO JERRY full stop. Commercially it's acceptable, I hope, I think, I'm sure. I would never try to change MUNGO JERRY. I'd like to try my own thing, but that's in a nebulous state. I sound like EDWARD HEATH!" John is a young-old jazzer from way back, so does his music differ greatly from the rest of the band's? "In replacing a string player I had a problem," he admitted, "not so much in the band because it was quickly accepted that I could play the instrument, but we got over that. "I've come into my own recently as being a separate image for the band, I get drunk and it's acceptable. "The bands not a drug-taking band, but since I've been there it's definitely a drinkers band." After the concert, we caught a bus to John's local in Islington where he returned to the subject of his own plans and this led him on to quite a speech. "I'd like to do a few things which I wouldn't arrange myself," he explained. "I can arrange, but not that well. I'll get a few friends in and try a few things and see how the public take to it. I haven't had the time yet, but I shall." It must be noted, however that John won't just put out anything, though he feels that the long-suffering public is ready for almost anything. "The public will take anything," he commented without any feeling of bitterness, "look at 'CHIRPY CHIRPY CHEEP CHEEP' - it was an insult to the public. "I think the public given enough exposure to something on the mass media, will accept anything, so that any change through the musicians will be accepted by the public. "This, I think is why there is a growing tendency for groups to be quieter and for people like JAMES TAYLOR to become popular. You can't play at such a volume that it all blurs into one thing all the time. "You have to let people hear one note from another, there will now be a trend to go into the Taylor's of this world - they're writing good songs, you can't have a good song over a crashing crescendo of violence. You must cut down on quantity for quality. "People are beginning to think 'we hear the same thing night after night' and as bands go, we've only got a 500-watt PA which, compared to other bands is quite small. Imagine people clapping their hands to 10,000 watts, it's like playing Chelsea against the Third Reich!" Back to John's house for the night and, as if by magic, 'YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE IN THE ARMY' was on a late night radio show. It was the first time I'd heard it on the radio, but John said it's getting quite a few plugs. The mere mention of the radio set him off again. "What about TONY BLACKBURN! He plays DIONNE WARWICK, Tamla Motown and beautiful songs and all this bit and then he goes and slags himself to bits with this putrid thing he's recorded." He insisted, "He reviewed 'BABY JUMP' on his programme and said something nasty about it and wondered how others could buy it, then he brings out a song which compared to 'BABY JUMP' can never make the charts. "He's a sell-out man, the smile, the whole bit, and I'm sure a lot of the executives at the BBC will agree. Compared to ROSKO he's a non-starter - ROSKO is the nicest bloke you can meet but BLACKBURN is a jobsworth." And exhausted by all that, our hero retired for the night. Richard Green, NME, 1971.

RAY DORSET arrived for our appointment wearing his customary leather wide-brimmed hat and a tired smile. It was already eleven thirty in the morning but, as he quickly explained, he had been in the recording studios working on MUNGO JERRY's next single until five hours earlier! He fortified himself with a gin and tonic and we sat in a private booth where, among other things, we talked about the stresses and strains - both mental and physical - that befall a member of a busy group. It seemed an appropriate enough subject under the prevailing conditions. "You do eight months in a row and get a sore throat through screaming all the time and instead of going home to sleep after a gig I go to a club so I don't get that much rest and eventually it begins to tell," he pointed out. After a three-week tour in Italy, I drove fourteen hours non-stop while all the others slept and when we got back we had a gig that night in Kidderminster. Colin never got there and the others broke down on the way and arrived late and I had to get hold of an old guitar, which sounded awful, and we didn't have the stomp and all the little things we need like kazoo and that knocked me out after the night." He showed signs of waking up a bit and in an attempt to cheer him up even more I mentioned 'BABY JUMP' and wondered if he agreed with me that its success had silenced the 'one-hit wonders' brigade. "Yeah, we're a two hit wonder group now!" he joked. Then in a serious tone went on;"It takes more than a couple of hit records to consolidate a group, you've got to up and down the country and play in a lot of places. "When we had 'IN THE SUMMERTIME' we had hardly done any work in England at all and we didn't do a lot then. "Since 'BABY JUMP' we've been accepted by a lot more people and we're getting established now as a working band." Ray's publicist, the eccentric Rasputin Of Holsten, joined us and said that if the weather held for a few months there might be a chance of getting 'IN THE SUMMERTIME' back in the charts. Ray's well-chosen words sent him away again and we talked about the visual aspect of a group's performance. MUNGO, I told Ray, I found visual. "People say that but I don't know how we can be because we sit down," he replied. "Colin is quite visual on piano, he bangs his arms up and down, but it's more an entertainment. That's why I like THE WHO so much because they're good vocally and musically and they're very visual. The visual thing used to be light shows but that didn't last. It's all down to people really." MUNGO JERRY is a much-travelled band having taken in many thousands of American, British and Continental miles during its year-long run of success. There have been the usual hang-ups with promoters and hotels but a good deal of rapport with members of the public during off-duty hours. After a year in the big time - 'IN THE SUMMERTIME' was released at the end of May last year - the band has obviously learned how to deal with various situations. But does Ray feel that he, as an artist, has any responsibility towards his fans with his behaviour both on and off stage? "You can say that everybody should have a mind of their own and think for themselves but only ten percent do, they are bound to be influenced by the environment and what they see, so if there is someone in a band or a film that they like, obviously the things that person does is bound to influence them," he commented. "If that person starts smoking grass or going out laying a thousand chicks, the fan or whatever you'd like to call them, will think it must be okay and they may be tempted to try it themselves. "I try not to think about it because I've got my own life to lead, but I wouldn't ever want see anyone hurt. It does affect me 'cause on stage I say some pretty crude things and we get famillies in the audience and that has made me alter what I say a lot." He paused for a moment, then told me;"I have a hell of a job getting booked in hotels because other bands have been there and wrecked the place, that's what I don't like. "It's a hard thing for a band to be accepted anyway, a lot of the public have a bad opinion of musicians. You've got to be as civilised as you can when you travel round." Richard Green, NME, May 1st, 1971.

PAUL KING arrived for our interview slightly harassed, as he had one day left to find a house before he went abroad on tour. At the moment he's living in one room in Sunbury with the group's chauffeur, and is a bit cheesed off with looking after himself. "I want a big house with some grounds so I can keep a horse," he says, as if that wasn't such a tall order to have to find in Sunbury. Another urgency is that he wants his lady and their son to move in. Paul is wearing a beautiful chamois jacket, carefully patched jeans and pink lace up boots. There's a lady in our office who swoons at the sight of him, but he gets quite bashful if you mention his appeal and says that Ray is the idol of the group and he is merely the jug player. But he is terribly charming about it and laughs a lot. He's 23 and was born in Dagenham, Essex. He's got a younger brother and sister (the latter is an ace at breaking horses in). When he was quite small, the family moved to Stanwell and he went to Ashford Secondary Modern School, and he left when he was 16. "I always wanted to do art but I couldn't find the break to do it, so to begin with I tried unsuccessfully for a year to be a chartered accountant. Then I became a sculptor and designed for Bendy toys. I later went to Shepperton studios as a special effects man and worked on 'A Man For All Seasons' making old scrolls and things. I also worked on 'Casino Royale' and 'Half a Sixpence'." He learnt to play guitar during an attack of appendicitis. The inevitable period abroad followed, and he went round Greece playing for a meal. When he came back and got chucked out of home he went strawberry picking, then hod carrying. One day at the coast with a crowd of rockers he went over to France and busked round St.Tropez and Cannes for a bit. "That was one of the best times of my life," he recalls. A trip down to Spain ended him up in jail for vagrancy, then back to France where the same happened. The authorities shaved his hair off and he returned to England slightly shaken. Following a spate of gravedigging, Paul got himself a little studio and began sculpting for himself - doing decor work for pubs and restaurants and became quite successful. All this time he was still playing in pubs and folf clubs and that's how he met up with Ray and Colin. That was two and a half years ago, and when he first joined the band they were earning only £8 a week. Paul seems to have been very tied down by the band since their initial success. He doesn't begrudge it, but his horizons are much wider than being a member of a band. "I want to enjoy the world. I want a boat and I want to sail round the Greek islands slowly. People say, 'oh you're in a group what are you on about? Groups are always travelling,' but you can't SEE anything that way. And then I like playing football and I don't have time to do that. And I'd like to design the interior of my own house. I shouldn't think we've got much more than two or three years left to us as a group. I enjoy work and there's plenty of time left for everything else. It's not like a factory job where you say 'I'll retire when I'm 55.' This job you can work hard - work your guts out - and then retire and enjoy yourself while you're still young enough." On the other hand, he wants to make his own album soon, and says it will be more folky, less heavy and hard than the usual music of the band. "I wrote things from the word go really. I didn't know any tunes so I used to make them up - I only knew three cords. I used to make up a tune on the harmonica and then put words to it. I first got to like jug music because it was such happy music." The money aspect of the band doesn't worry him unduly. He's rich enough, he says, to buy a house outright, and when he's got his house and a bit of land he'll be happy. Also he wants his son to have more of a chance than he did. His son - JANGO ODYSSEUS ARAMIS - ("well it's different isn't it?") is going to be taught something like trumpet when he's about six months old so that he grows up to be very musical. His clothes - he probably takes more interest in them than anyone else in the band - are more of an artistic outlet for him than an exercise in vanity. He buys the ordinary thing then converts it to his own taste to ensure he never sees anyone wearing exactly the same clothes as himself. His latest purchase has been a pair of roller skates to keep him happy in hotel corridors while they're on tour. In a way the band lives up to its "have a drink and drive" reputation. Paul's first cry upon entering his managers' offices is "where's the drink then?" "Well we do drink quite a lot I suppose, but we don't take drugs of any sort. I can't hold smoke of ordinary cigarettes down for a start let alone anything else, and anyway the action is to slow people down too much - I prefer to be in control and have some fight left in me." He grins and you wonder why the hell he isn't beset with women 24 hours a day. "Groupies are bad in America - that's the only place you really notice them because they're so organised. You come offstage and they're sitting there waiting for you. I steer clear myself." He grins and goes rushing off to continue his never-ending search for a house. Disc and Music Echo, 25th September, 1971.

COLIN EARL is the sort of bloke you go to the pub with for a pint after work. He doesn't present the well-worn 'image' of a pop star when you're rabbiting about MUNGO JERRY. He answers questions about the group, its records, topics, but takes it all in in his easy-going stride. He is perhaps what MUNGO JERRY is all about. He laughs a lot and obviously enjoys life. Nothing pretensious, just honest-to-goodness, down-to-earth fun music. MUNGO JERRY - fun music? Why not? The group was rehearsing in The Phoenix at Staines - one of those nice locals where everybody knows everybody else and in the evening a bloke sits behind a piano and comes out with some lovely jazz. During a break in the backroom, Colin joined me in a glass or several of rose wine and we moved to the saloon bar. We began with the MUNGO JERRY-MIXTURES topic and I was surprised to find that Colin isn't the least put out by all the fuss. He took a sip from his wine and pondered my question about the origin of 'BABY JUMP,' replying after a moment, "It's based on the riff of an old rock'n roll tune, but revitalised. We've been playing it on stage for over a year and it's always gone down well. The words are relatively new but the the riff is relatively ancient. We do it on stage and we believe in what is popular with out audiences. We are very pleased with it." In the year since their initial success, MUNGO JERRY has travelled just about all over the world and become accustomed to an entirely different standard of living. Just how much difference has this made to them? "You get a bit overawed with it really," Colin admitted. "It's not particularly changed any of us. Basically, we're very much a band that plays for audiences, a working band and the hit was something of a freak record, ideal for the time. We tend to find a kind of fan mania thing especially in socially depressed countries like Spain and Portugal. In Germany there's a sort of violence that comes out in audiences, it's 'for you' violence in a way. In Holland they threw paper plates and in Germany they threw water bottles, there's the difference. I'm sure this a result of the suppression of the kids." "We all enjoy the pace we have to live at. It's like these conductors that live to great ages, they seem to enjoy it. I don't get a lot of time to myself, when I do, I like fishing in the country and getting lost." A photographer from an Italian agency was trying to persuade the group to pose at a nearby bus stop, at the bar and in the garden which backed on to a small river. We took a break for him to complete his work before dashing off for the airport and his duties completed, ordered more wine and resumed our conversation. Of the vast difference between the groups two singles, Colin said;"People have described us as skiffle, but on stage we love rock'n roll and blues and almost country-ish things. We release whatever pops out as an obvious single to us." The group is working on a new album, but how did they feel about the last one flopping? "We were disappointed," Colin admitted. "There are various reasons for it not being a hit - it was released on July 24th when people go on holiday, also it was late, a long time behind the single. We'd like to be known as an LP group." He explained that the group tries to retain its own integrity, adding;"It's an honest group if you like." Then we chatted about a number of things, ranging from maxi-singles to America. Colin is willing to talk about pretty well anything and has formed opinions of most topics. When I asked why the group had released another maxi-single, he replied;"I think it was obvious from a point of view of the last one being so successful. But if a person believes in them it is a good idea to give value for money. It's a little thing that seems to have evolved a little bit." MUNGO JERRY has had its fair share of knocks in the past, how does this affect the members now? "We find that recently, people tend not to be biased," Colin revealed. "A year ago, you were a heavy band or you were no good, but it seems to have changed. There was a natural evolvement from so many people having gone heavy, it was a natural thing that people would revert to acoustic and lighter things." The group has never really stopped globe-trotting since 'IN THE SUMMERTIME' became a hit and more travels are lined up. After a time, though it will spend more time in this country. "One of the great things about travelling is meeting people and seeing how they live, I'm very grateful for that," Colin said eagerly. "France I love as a European country, the quality of actually living there, their tastes, generally the way they live, they seem so happy to be alive. By and large we enjoyed America but there is so much sadness there with the drug scene and everything. I'm not pontificating or anything but is seems to make people so unhappy. We're going to America again soon but hopefully we'll keep playing as much as we can in Britain. We absolutely love being on the road here, going round everywhere and the audiences are good. Colleges have got money to spend on entertainment, for some odd there doesn't seem to be that much money in clubs these days. We'll probably carry on doing mainly colleges and universities, there's definitely not going to be a drop in students." MUNGO JERRY's stage act is going through a transition and in a few months should have changed quite a bit. Colin told me what plans are being made. "We all write and do as much as we can," he began, "Ray's plolific, Paul's prolific, I'm less prolific than Paul. I'm quite interested in Jews Harp playing. We're gradually evolving the stage act so that it's going to involve unusual instruments that we're interested in, Swannee whistles, all manner of little whistles, mandolin perhaps. We seem to have a wide audience. We heard that the underground, whatever or wherever it is, had gone of us but we did a couple of so-called underground clubs and went down very well. We don't believe in segregation of any kind. Richard Green, NME, February 13th, 1971.

Since their rise to fame following the Hollywood Festival of last year, MUNGO JERRY has been to practically every country in the world, apart from Luxembourg. However, this was rectified recently when the nominal leader, RAY DORSET, arrived there to be interviewed on 208. Ray had in fact just finished a gig in Belgium the day before the interview and flew to Luxembourg in one of the smallest planes he's ever been in - to be precise a 30-seater Fokker Friendship twin-prop. As he jokingly said, "Seeing as the country is so small, I suppose you have to go in a small plane! After over sixty jet flights, I must admit I was a bit wary. But when we touched down in Luxembourg I felt a bit better." In fact Ray has been a Luxembourg fan for some time. When he goes off for a gig he tunes into Radio Luxembourg as soon as the station starts up. "Another thing I like about Luxembourg is the KID JENSEN SHOW," he says. "He's got a very good show and seems to be able to play the new records before other dee-jays. He also plays great records by people you don't really hear much of. 'Kid' was one of the first people I met when landing in Luxembourg. The guy who came to meet TIM KNIGHT and myself was the station manager, the always-smiling JOHN BARTER. And as we were getting our luggage, we bumped into 'Kid' who was saying farewell to GARY BROOKER of PROCUL HARUM who had just done 'Kids' Dimensions show. Despite the smallness of the country, Ray was most impressed with what he saw, "Luxembourg really reminds me of a fairy tale land," he recalled. "It's very olde world and has got a mixture of many other European countries there. The main impression I got of the place was the sleepy atmosphere and everything being very relaxed. JOHN BARTER drove us to the Hotel Francaisse which is in the main square of Luxembourg we checked in, and went into the square for a drink. All round the square there were gaily coloured tables and shades - just the place to spend the afternoon relaxing. Then I met the other 208 dee-jays like PAUL BURNETT, MARK WESLEY, DAVE CHRISTIAN, BOB STEWART and also, of course KID JENSEN. Later we moved on to an English-style pub over a Wimpy Bar. Incidentally, the Wimpy Bars over there are much better than the ones here. In the evening we took a taxi over to the 208 studios. The studios are in the Villa Louvigny which was much bigger than I thought it would be. At one time, somebody told me, the Villa Louvigny was a fortress with a moat around it. You wouldn't think the Villa is the place where 208 comes from. But there they have television studios and radio stations for nearly every country in Europe. The studio where PAUL BURNETT interviewed me was fairly small and certainly didn't look as cheerful as the dee-jays sound. Paul is a really funny guy and kept me laughing with his jokes. "We talked on the air for about ten minutes and Paul played 'LADY ROSE' and two tracks from our album 'ELECTRONICALLY TESTED.' They told me the studio where the interview was, was the same one that LORD HAW-HAW used when he did his 'Germany Calling' broadcasts. "When the interview was over, we all went to Luxembourg's famous club, 'The Blow-Up.' We all had a good time with everyone being very kind and the owner buying us a few rounds of drinks!" Ray was unable to get a flight back the next day but looked on this as being quite fortunate in a way as he could have a good look round the town. "I got up fairly early as a brass band starts playing in the square every morning at 11.30," he admitted. "It was great to go there and meet all the dee-jays who do a great job playing terrific music late in the evenings which is easy to listen to when driving home from a gig. I'd like to go back there again soon and meet all the friends I made." Music Press, 1971.

And just to prove it, we sent MARK STUART along to watch the group in action and then backstage to hear their views on various subjects. They do say that imitation is probably the finest form of flattery, anyway, and their follow-up made the charts, so you think that the lads in MUNGO JERRY are the least bit worried about the success that the invaders from the Down Under have had with their sound, 'THE PUSHBIKE SONG', no chance! I went to see them at a London club the other night and the audience had been listening to some extremely heavy music which had put them in a serious, even sombre, mood. On stage came MUNGO, and within minutes the crowd turned into a throbbing, clapping, jumping mass of people who were really enjoying themselves, after all, that's what pop music is all about. "I think that people really like music that they can join in with," said Mr.MUNGO himself, RAY DORSET, the man that would lose the top half of his head if his grin was any wider. "I'm surprised that we're still so well known over here, we've been on the Continent for quite a long time and we've had some pretty fantastic receptions." 'IN THE SUMMERTIME' has, so far, sold over 7,000,000 copies and is still at the top, or near the top of many charts over the world. In fact, it is still selling so well that I wouldn't be surprised to see it top the 10,000,000 mark very shortly, which is an awful lot of records. Apart from touring, the group haven't been idle on other fronts. "Well, we've released 'BABY JUMP' and we're doing some music for a Watneys ad' on the telly and I hope to be entering a new song for the San Remo song festival. One of the things they aren't going to do, however, is to have a go at THE MIXTURES for copying their sound and depriving them of a big hit record. "Alright, so they copied us;we're very flattered, I think that people realise that the sound's ours, so when people copy us it's just the same as a few years back when everybody copied ELVIS and then THE BEATLES and then the STONES. As soon as a group comes up with an original sound you're bound to get copyists, although I'll admit that there aren't as many as there were a while ago." MUNGO have certainly received a good deal more acclaim than a lot of recently evolved groups, but it hasn't changed them apart from the fact that they're suffering the usual pop star type problems of not being able to go anywhere without being recognised, and of course, the money. "We used to have real problems in the old days," said Ray, talking as if those times were years and not months past. "You see, promoters around the country were wary of giving a three-piece drummer-less band, gigs. People tried to put us in the 'Summertime' bag, now, but that's partially why we've put 'BABY JUMP' out as a single. For a start it's part of the stage act, so the people should be familiar with it by now. We get asked for it quite a bit. The second point's got to be that it's nothing like 'Summertime' although it's still MUNGO 'goodtime' music. We have quite a range of different types of song now mainly because both Paul and I are writing. The stuff on our first album, for instance, was just put down more or less out of our heads. Now that we're doing the second album people who hadn't previously bothered, keep interfering and saying what we should be doing according to their theories. It's really difficult, because sometimes you haven't any idea what advice to take because obviously you can't please everybody." Ray is convinced of the international message that MUNGO are trying to put over, the idea is basically to forget your cares and woes and 'GET STOMPING'. "I don't care where I play, whether it's a small hall or a large festival. Whether the people speak English or can't understand a word, the message of our music isn't necessarily in the lyrics, it's in the rhythm, the movements, just the sound and it's a plain and simple 'Be Happy' message." I have the feeling that MUNGO JERRY are going to be keeping folks stomping for quite some time yet, in fact as long as RAY DORSET and PAUL KING can keep churning out those happy, happy songs. Music Press, 1971.

Those fascinating rocker birds in their studded leather jackets, short hobble skirts, motorcycle boots and long blonde hair have been the subject of various social surveys, films, documentaries and discussions round the vicar's tea table. Now they find themselves looking down from the top of the NME charts via MUNGO JERRY's current hit. "When we were doing rock'n roll gigs we started doing 'BABY JUMP'," RAY DORSET pointed out. "We just got the riff and went on from there. We did about seven festivals last summer and it went down well, they went completely mad. When it came to recording a follow-up to 'IN THE SUMMERTIME' we didn't want to do the same thing again, just something very different that was still us. We didn't have specific lyrics to it but the night before we went into the studio I was thinking about the rock'n roll gigs and the rocker chicks and this is how they are." MUNGO JERRY has just completed an album titled 'ELECTRONICALLY TESTED' and Ray hopes that this one will make some impression on the charts, the last one having failed to do so. "It's very different from the last one," he admitted. "It's got a couple of country blues numbers for example. The first time we recorded an album we just had some recording time, about forty hours in the studio and we had to do it all then. We recorded a lot of the stuff we've been playing. On this one we just happened to some things that are different including MUDDY WATERS, 'I JUST WANNA MAKE LOVE TO YOU'. "At the Whisky-a-Gogo in Los Angeles we had plenty of time to rehearse and we did it for half an hour on stage. When it came to recording, we just fitted various versions of it together." Like all the group, Ray is pretty easy-going, taking life much as he finds it, but there is a certain breed of people in the pop business that he can't stand. "I don't like hypercrits and there are so many of them in this business," he complained. "You get the bread by being a success and to be a success you've got to know something about the music. When you get more and more bread you get greedy and you put anything out. It's like people who talk about changing the world and they end up being the sort of person they're putting down. I don't think I'm going to be taken away from the pure musical enjoyment. Two months we started to do gigs all over the place and I began to wonder what was more important, just working all the time or playing gigs where we could enjoy ourselves. I used to get all my pleasure from playing in pubs. "Working in Portugal some weeks ago, we had a lot of free time and played in bars just sitting about and people would join in and start clapping and that's what it's all about. There's nothing like playing to a good live audience and having a good time, if the audience can dress how they like and sit where they like and do what they like, they feel a lot freer. We're just doing it to give people a good time, we're not there to adjudicate or anything. I prefer small clubs and colleges and we're never going to forget places like Bletchley and Borough College that helped us before we got going. Pop music is popular music and popular music is what people want to hear, so it's silly to say pop bands are no good. It doesn't matter if you're playing folk music or whatever as long as the people want to hear you." After that long tirade, Ray took off his enormous leather hat which - along with his sideboards - is part of his trademark and had a drink of orange juice, I asked him what had affected most about the group's huge success. "The most noticeable thing for me is I'd never been out of the country before, never been on a plane before, and in the last seven months I've been half way round the world," he replied. What had he been doing before MUNGO JERRY? "I started playing rock'n roll when I was about fourteen, that was pop music at the time," he began. "We carried on and on in various groups and as things changed, we changed. We had a residency at Southall and one at Richmond on Saturdays with THE STONES there on Sunday - we were called TRAMPS at the time. "Our manager had record shops with loads of old blues records and I took a liking to it. We used to get to gigs early and sit in the back of the van playing LEADBELLY things and crowds used to gather round. We weren't doing that type of thing on stage though, we did THE WHO type things and Tamla Motown. We changed our name to GOOD EARTH and the drummer and bass player left. I knew a bloke called JOE RUSH who had been in lots of skiffle groups and jug bands and I went to a pub with him and COLIN EARL to play, all of us going through one amp and it went down well. We got a thirty pound gig for GOOD EARTH and as it was getting near Christmas and we needed the bread, we went along as we were. KEEF HARTLEY was on with us and we thought 'Oh Christ'. We had to finish off and instead of the place getting empty it got packed and they had to cut the power off at six in the morning. We got a residency in a pub and as we had no more bread to buy LEADBELLY albums and learn his songs, I started to write numbers that sounded as though they were old. One number was 'MIGHTY MAN' which went down well but we couldn't get a recording contract and when we did 'MIGHTY MAN', it didn't come out as we wanted it or it might have been the single instead of 'IN THE SUMMERTIME'." Of those people who come on strong about 'heavy' lyrics and the worthlessness of anyone who doesn't write them, Ray says, "I believe music is to be enjoyed and people who play numbers that have to be listened to very closely put down every type of music but their own. I don't believe in age, I believe you're just as old as your head. TOM JONES is about thirty and ELVIS PRESLEY is getting on but they're both lively." Richard Green, NME, March 13th 1971.