Dorset’s ‘celebration of life’ among biggest sellers ever
ONE of the biggest selling singles of all time was riding high at the top of the UK charts fifty years ago this week.
Mongo Jerry’s debut single celebrating the carefree days of summer spent seven weeks at No 1 in the UK and reached number 3 in the Billboard Hot 100 across the Atlantic.
Since then the song has gone on to sell in excess of 30 million copies, a feat only bettered by Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’ and Elton John’s tribute to Princess Di, ‘Candle In The Wind 97’.
Remarkably, ‘In The Summertime’ was written in just 10 minutes by Mungo Jerry lead singer Ray Dorset. He was working in a lab at Timex when the single started to gain popularity and had to ask his boss for time off to appear on Top Of The Pops.
Dorset had been hooked on music from an early age. He formed his first band, Blue Moon Skiffle Group’, at the age of 11 with a drummer called Phil Collins (but not THAT Phil Collins).
A year earlier Dorset had been given a sign that music would be his destiny. In a 2014 interview with the Express, he recalled: ‘I received a spooky prophecy from a fortune-telling slot machine on Hayling Island when I was only 10. The message read, “The happiest part of your life is going to be mixed in music, you’ll write songs”.’
Dorset would go on to have more hits with Mungo Jerry, including another UK No. 1, 1971’s ‘Baby Jump. In the late seventies he wrote ‘Feels Like I’m In Love’ for Elvis Presley but he passed away before it could be recorded. Scottish singer Kelly Marie took the track to the top of the charts for two weeks in 1980.
‘In The Summertime’ was not only one of the world’s first maxi singles (a single with more than one track on each side), it was also released in a very rare format, playing at 33 1/3 rpm instead of the usual 45 rpm for singles.
Ray Dorset has spoken many times of his pride in penning one of the most popular songs of all time. In that Express interview be said: ‘I reckon In The Summertime is probably the best-known song around the world, apart from maybe Happy Birthday and White Christmas. When Clive James was asked to choose a world anthem, he chose In The Summertime. It does bring a lot of people together. It’s a kind of celebration of life.’