Mungo Jerry – In the Summertime

“In the Summertime” – Single by Mungo Jerry from the album Electronically Tested
B-side “Mighty Man”
Released 1970
Label Dawn
Songwriter Ray Dorset
Producer Barry Murray
Charted No.1 in UK; No.3 in US; No.1 in Sweden; No.1 in West Germany; No.1 in Italy; No.1 in Mexico; No.1 in Australia; No.1 in Italy

Written and composed by the band’s lead singer, Ray Dorset, while working in a lab for Timex, the lyrics of the song celebrate the carefree days of summer. The track was included on the second album by the band, Electronically Tested, issued in March 1971.

There is some very interesting instrumentation on this track. Ray Dorset did the vocals and played guitars (acoustic and electric), as well as a shaker instrument called cabasa. Paul King played banjo and jug; Mike Cole played string bass; Colin Earl played piano.

Note that there are no drums, although you can hear Dorset stomping his foot to the rhythm. This was influenced by John Lee Hooker, who often used his foot as a percussion instrument.

Another structural anomaly: the title is repeated just twice in the song.

The band was known as Memphis Leather and The Good Earth before getting a record deal and changing their name to Mungo Jerry (after the character Mungojerrie from the T. S. Eliot book Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats – later the basis for the Broadway play Cats).

Barry Murray, a producer at Pye Records, was a friend of Ray Dorset’s and signed the group to the label’s more adventurous imprint, Dawn Records, which released “In The Summertime” as their first single. The song took off, going to #1 in their native UK and making #3 in America. The UK fortunes of the song were aided by the group’s appearance at the Hollywood Music Festival in Staffordshire England on May 23, 1970, shortly after the song was released. Playing on low on a bill with the Grateful Dead, Black Sabbath, Free and Traffic, the song got the attention of the 35,000 or so fans in attendance, giving it a huge lift.

Ray Dorset – vocals, electric guitar, 6-string acoustic, cabasa, stomp
Paul King – banjo, jug
Colin Earl – piano
Mike Cole – string bass