Mungo Jerry Mungo Jerry Mungo Jerry are a British rock group who experienced their greatest success in the early 1970s, with a changing line-up that has always been fronted by Ray Dorset. The group's name was inspired by the poem "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer", from T. S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats". The group's biggest hit was "In the Summertime". They had nine charting singles in the UK, including two number ones, and five top 20 hits in South Africa. Mungo Jerry came to prominence in 1970 after their performance at the Hollywood Festival at Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, on 23 May, which
T. S. Eliot however much Eliot may have been compromised as a person, as we all are in our several ways, his greatness as a poet remains." In another review of Raine's 2006 book, the literary critic Terry Eagleton also questioned the validity of Raine's defence of Eliot's character flaws as well as the entire basis for Raine's book, writing, "Why do critics feel a need to defend the authors they write on, like doting parents deaf to all criticism of their obnoxious children? Eliot's well-earned reputation [as a poet] is established beyond all doubt, and making him out to be as unflawed