The longtime frontman of The Troggs, Reg Presley, has revealed he has been forced to retire from the band he has led since the Sixties after being diagnosed with lung cancer.
Presley broke the news on the band’s official website, explaining how tests undertaken following an illness last month led to the diagnosis.
“I was taken ill whilst doing a gig in Germany in December. During my stay in hospital tests showed that in fact I have lung cancer,” he wrote. “I am receiving chemotherapy treatment and at the moment not feeling too bad.”
“However I’ve had to call time on The Troggs and retire. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the cards and calls and for your love, loyalty and support over the years.”
The Troggs have released 12 studio albums during their career, and are best known for the 1966 trans-Atlantic hit ‘Wild Thing‘, which was originally recorded by The Wild Ones a year earlier.
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Sad to hear the news about Reg Presley. While the Troggs pioneered Neanderthal rock with 1966’s “Wild Thing,” the song was first written by Chip Taylor for the Wild Ones, the house band of Sybil Burton’s NYC discotheque Arthur. On request, Taylor took three hours to write, record and deliver a demo of the song, complete with a whistling interlude by an engineer. The Wild Ones’ version suffered from too much orchestration and died a quick death. Rockaeology at http://bit.ly/m3B6c8 tells how the Reg Presley discovered the demo in London and reinstated the primitive sound of Taylor’s original, substituted an ocarina for the whistling and hit number one in a few weeks.