I guess it was the rock and roll artists around, like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent and er...Little Richard.

Well I was influenced by Lonnie Donegan too, and other skiffle groups that were around at the time; like The Vipers and Shirley Douglas. I remember listening to next door's radio through the wall and just loved anything that had a bit of rhythm or groove. Predominantly though, it was the rock and roll artists that I looked up to, but skiffle was something we could do ourselves. When I was about 14 or 15, I remember seeing a Fender Stratocastor in a shop window, the first I'd ever seen, for about 147 guineas. Now that's actually far more expensive than you can get them for today. The skiffle thing allowed people to perform with minimal or basic instruments. I suppose skiffle was to the '50s what punk was to the mid-'70s; home-made music. It came from something called spasm or junk band music which was popularised in places like New Orleans. There were a lot of poor people obviously, so when they got really hard-up they'd hold 'rent parties'. These parties were comparable, I guess, to the raves during the '70s summer of love with Happy Mondays or Stone Roses. [Er, doesn't he mean the '80s Ed?] People would set these gigs up in their houses; get their bootleg alcohol in, open their front door and invite loads of friends and neighbours around to dance around and jam on these home-made instruments. They didn't have any brass instruments, so they'd use kazoos! They wouldn't have had a bass, so they'd use a jug and hence the name of The Jug Band. This is what we used on 'In The Summertime' too, it was the kind of farting sound effect that we created using jugs. But, basically, that's where the whole skiffle thing came from; percussion created from household things. The lyrics often focussed on men at work, in prison, they were spiritual songs or songs about slavery. The white people would go to church, while the black folk worked the fields. The black slaves would pick up on the hymns being sung and add their own lyrics to the songs and, consequently, their own African rhythms and flavour. And this is what really inspired me and where rock and roll really came from. I've never been a big fan of pop music; I prefer something more organic and spontaneous. The pop industry now has become more about the business and it's not good for the art form. I'm not saying that there's not a lot of talent around, but because of fall in record sales, you can't guarantee you'll be around in five weeks, let alone five years.

Well yeah...I didn't have a career before then really. At that particular time, my career was electronics and I'd been working in a US research laboratory. It was a hobby that became a job, but I never imagined music would become my career. It was the first show we did as Mungo Jerry, we'd been called The Good Earth before. We'd done some successful shows before that; we blew the Moody Blues off stage once and played with Dick Abrahams' band. We travelled around London mainly, gigging at colleges and universities with what was considered quite strange music at the time. We hung out at some of pyschedelic clubs in London as well, like Middle Earth, Electric Garden and Roundhouse.

Yeah, it was! I'd love to go back to that time. It was the most exciting time, that was when everything started taking shape. Luckily a friend of mine, Barry Murray, formed a company with a business partner of mine, Elliot Cohen, who still is a business partner of mine after 35 years. Anyway, Barry, Elliot and another guy, Ellis launched their record company, Red Bus. They signed up a guy called Jackie McAuley and a singer, Judy Dyble, the one-time singer with Fairport Convention, and put together an album. To launch them they decided to set up the Hollywood Festival gig, in a little town in Newcastle-under-Lyne. With a bit of backing, they managed to set-up a brilliant line-up, including the Grateful Dead, Black Sabbath, Traffic, Free... For some strange reason though, Judy Dyble fell out. Barry had to start looking round for another act and he'd seen an ad that I'd put in Melody Maker. I had worked with him before, and he remembered one of the tracks that I'd done. He gave me a call and I explained that I'd changed from the pyschedelic stuff to the skiffle, rockabilly style. He seemed happy with that and offered me a contract. I played him some of my stuff and he decided 'In The Summertime' was going to be a hit...and of course, he was right. So we launched the single off the back of the festival and changed our name at the same time. Mungo Jerry was literally plucked out of a hat. Whoever it was that put it in there though had spelt it wrong; it should have been Mungojerrie!

Well John Peel had been at the Hollywood festival gig and had really liked us, so he plugged us on his show. The single came out and was the very first maxi single in the world. We went straight into the charts at No. 13. The first TV show that we did was Tommy Valance's Disco 2, the fore-runner to The Old Grey Whistle Test. We went to the studios and got into a lift there and someone squeezed into it at the last moment, and we all got stuck! We were just about to shoot for the broadcast and nobody could find us, because we were stuck in the lift. We finally got out and recorded for the show, which was broadcast later that Sunday night. The charts were compiled on a Tuesday in those days, so two days later the track hit the No.1 spot. We had to go down and do Top Of The Pops on the Wednesday, but I was still working with the electronics company then, so I had to ask my boss to give me the afternoon off. I arrived a little bit late, I had to stop-off and buy what I thought might be more suitable clothes, and I vaguely remember coming into the studio and seeing a cardboard cutout to fill my space on the stage. Anyway, we did the show and the track was No.1 for six or seven weeks. It just kept selling! I think it sold about 10 million in just the first few weeks, it was the fastest selling single in history in France and it was No.1 just about everywhere. Not Japan though. It was a tremendous experience.

It's good, especially since it's got my guitar and my 'ch -ch-ch oog'! And it's great to have two No.1s with different version of the same tune. I must say Shaggy did a good job. I've never actually met him though.

No, that's right, I wrote it for Elvis and sang it in an Elvis-style voice for the demo. Barry Murray agreed to get it all ready and send it off to Elvis. A few days later, I was at the bottom of my garden when I got this call. It was Barry and he said, 'Elvis has died!'...I couldn't believe it. After that I kinda put it to bed for a while. Kelly Marie had a few minor hits in France and had been around our office a bit, so we asked her to do it. Nothing much happened at first. Then, I went up to a club in Leeds and this DJ said he liked the track and asked to keep it. A few weeks later, it started to sell steadily, at first 20 or 30 a day. It just slowly started to happen for the track and then, about nine months after its official release, it got to No.1. It's just really unfortunate that DJs don't have their say these days.

I've got an album out at the moment, called 'Candy Dreams'. It's difficult to describe and pretty unique. It's kinda mixing old and new technology, but it's good! It goes on and on and on as well. I'm also recording a blues album at the moment and I'm releasing a version of 'Lady Rose' in Germany next month. That track's totally different again. It's a bit like DJ Otzi; it's a party track. I really don't care what kind of music it is that I do, I either like something or not. And I think that's the way people in the street are. So, I've got a lot of things on at the moment. I'm expecting to do a legends of British blues tour with Long John Baldry as well at the end of the year. I just keep pressing on!