So last night, as the New Year broke, our family found itself in a rare position. All together in front of the video screen watching actual TV, as opposed to a DVD. After the live fireworks from atop the Space Needle on a local channel - replete with some cool music from artists nominally connected with Seattle such as Jimi, and Ray Charles - and while surfing around a Discovery Channel tsunami documentary and the end of a great Allison Krause/Union Station concert on public TV - we stumbled across a scintillating 30-minute infomercial for a Time-Life 10 CD collection called "70s Music Explosion."

The air was thick with cheese, but Mom and Dad were singing along, and editorializing quite heavily on the tunes, hair, and clothes, to the great amusement of their progeny. I was able to briefly share my innermost feelings about Jim Croce, Don McLean, and especially Bread. (Anyone remember "Baby I'm A Want You?" No? OK, consider yourself blessed). Original grainy video - and some actual GOOD tunes added to the time-warp allure, as did, I suppose, the oleaginous presence of suave huckster Barry Williams, whom you may remember as Greg on The Brady Bunch.

A favorite clip of mine was the English band Mungo Jerry, singing "In The Summertime." Lyrics here, plus dynamic cellphone ringtone offer.

The song was a summer of '70 skiffle-inflected smash hit, which to date has sold a hefty 23 million copies, according to the Wikipedia link below. The band took their name from a T.S. Eliot poem titled, "Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer."

Ray Dorset was the famed mutton-chopped frontman, and while the Time-Life collection has the song and group filed under "one-hit wonders," this extensive Wikipedia entry on Mungo Jerry gives the lie to that.

After "In The Summertime," a number of other Mungo Jerry hits ensued. Dorset has had a rich recording career; and Mungo Jerry is still live and kickin, with - in the fine tradition of rock-star idolatry - pseudo-comprehensible fan Web sites following along.

But ain't nothin' ever gonna top that tune, and Ray's long-gone mutton chops. Play that funky mujik, white boy.

TECHNORATI TAGS: MUNGO JERRY, TIME-LIFE, 70s, MUSIC, ROCK, HITS

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at January 1, 2006 09:03 PM