‘Weird Fact Wednesday: Bro. Mungo’

     

Actually, the Brother’s name is Ray Dorset, and it was his band that was named Mungo Jerry, and this edition of Weird Fact Wednesday commemorates the 50th anniversary of their hit song “In the Summertime.”

The band’s name derives from the T.S. Eliot character Mungojerrie in his poetry book Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, which you may know through the stage musical Cats, but that’s a whole other story.

Courtesy Chelsea 3098

Dorset, Wakeman, and Jensen.

Bro. Dorset is at labor in Chelsea Lodge 3098 under the United Grand Lodge of England. This is the lodge founded in 1905 by brethren who worked in show business. He was initiated in 2014. The lodge typically confers two degrees during its afternoon meetings, and David “Kid” Jensen was Passed to the Degree of Fellow Craft that day. Rick Wakeman was Master!

Here in America, “In the Summertime” debuted at 32 in top 40 on July 18, 1970. It skipped up and down the list for 13 weeks, and reached as high as No. 3 on September 12 of that year. The group fared much better in their home country, where the song reached No. 1 and remained there for seven weeks. Mungo Jerry had another No. 1, “Baby Jump,” in 1971, and had a number of other hits in the U.K. through the 1970s and ’80s.

The group is still working, with Dorset being the only original member, and you can see them live at dates in the U.K. and Europe scheduled into next August. (Wakeman’s still at it too.)