Ray Dorset

In The Summertime (1970) became an iconic number almost overnight, propelling the unknown Mungo Jerry – and the band’s creative force, Ray Dorset – to stardom.

- Interview: Nick Dalton

• 33½ minutes with...

The song, covered by everyone from heavy rockers to disco darlings, continues to be known around the world as Dorset rocks on. Now Mungo Jerry’s 1990 album, Snakebite, is re-released in deluxe, expanded form, with 24-page book, on the heels of 1971’s Electronically Tested, the album with that debut hit and followup No 1, Baby Jump. Dorset is still recording as Mungo Jerry, and there’s more to come.

Snakebite is a hard-rocking album, different to what people might remember as Mungo Jerry. Is it a big part of your history?

I suppose it must be! It’s all played live in the studio, which you can see as some of the tempos change, a bit different to how I record now but I have fond memories. It came out about the time of Aerosmith’s album, Pump, with the song Love In An Elevator – I’ve been comparing them, and I’m really impressed.

And did you aim for something different with that record?

I was doing loads and loads of gigs at that time, going down well. Great lineup, including Steve Jones from folk-rockers Heron on keyboards. But the band was getting, er, a bit volatile and I thought, before we split up it would be good to do some recording, stuff that we were doing on stage. (Ghost) Riders In The Sky was a song we used to play for a laugh, but I’ve got a massive repertoire of Woodie Guthrie, stuff like that, American folk. I was brought up on skiffle. And one of the album’s extra tracks, Psychotic Reaction, by Count Five – I loved the psychedelic rock box set, Nuggets.

So, do you get fed up of playing In The Summertime?