Reg presley biography for kids

More than 200 family and friends have attended the funeral of Reg Presley, the frontman of British 1960s band The Troggs.

Presley died from cancer in his home town of Andover, Hampshire, on February 4. He was 71.

The service at Basingstoke Crematorium featured The Troggs' most famous song, Wild Thing, as well as their other big hit Love Is All Around, which was covered decades later by Wet Wet Wet.

Fields of Gold by Sting opened the service, which was attended among others by Slade vocalist Noddy Holder and Bruce Welch from The Shadows.

Presley announced his retirement from music a year ago after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

Civil celebrant Lesley Nash, leading the service, described Presley's life from his early days as a bricklayer through his decades as a rock star to his peaceful home life with his wife of more than 50 years, Brenda, and their two children, Karen and Jason.

Mrs Nash described Presley as an "unlikely rock star".

"Reg was very normal and down-to-earth, that's why so many people loved him."

She said Presley's son, Jason, described his father as "the most un-famous famous person there has ever been".

Wild Thing was not written by Presley and was itself a cover version of the number penned by Chip Taylor, who also attended the funeral. It reached No 1 in the US and No 2 in the UK.

Presley, whose real name was Reginald Ball, also developed an interest in UFOs and crop circles, writing a book on the subject.

The family asked for donations to be made to The Stroke Association and The Countess of Brecknock Hospice Trust.

Reg Presley was born at 17 Belle Vue Road, in Andover, Hampshire on 12th June 1941. Reginald Maurice Ball was the youngest son of Grace and Ernest Ball. He had 2 older brothers, Eric who was born in 1935 and Ronald who was born nearly three years later.

 
He first sang in public as half of a duo with a fellow schoolmate from Andover Secondary Modern school. This took place in 1955 as part of the Andover summer carnival week and they sung ‘Unchained Melody’. The applause they received gave him the taste for performing in public.
He then purchased a saxophone and took some lessons, but as he only just about managed to get a tune out of it, he swapped it for a guitar, which he later admitted ‘was crazy as the sax was worth more than the little acoustic guitar’.

He then strummed a guitar for ‘The Incognitos’, a skiffle band, who only lasted as long as it took to rehearse and take part in a talent competition at a local cinema. It was a total disaster, they all wore masks as they were scared stiff.

In 1962 he married Brenda and they went on to have a long and very happy marriage. They have one son and one daughter.

By 1964 as well as having a ‘proper job’ by day working as a bricklayer Reg was the bass player in the first line up of The Troggs. When that formation disbanded Reg and the drummer Ronnie Bond joined forces with Chris Britton and Pete Staples the remaining members of a rival Andover band Ten Feet Five. Reg was persuaded to take on the lead singer and front man duties, which proved to be fantastically successful, as history has proved.

When The Troggs first hit single‘Wild Thing’ entered the charts in 1966 Reg was still working on a building site. But as soon as he heard on a workmate’s transistor radio that the record had shot up the UK charts he told his workmate ‘to share out his tools’ and left the site forever to be a fulltime professional musician.

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British singer (1941–2013)

Musical artist

Reginald Maurice Ball (12 June 1941 – 4 February 2013), known professionally as Reg Presley, was an English singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer with the 1960s rock and roll band the Troggs, whose hits included "Wild Thing" (#1 on the Hot 100 on 30 July – 6 August 1966) and "With a Girl Like You" (#1 on the UK Official Singles Chart on 4–11 August 1966). He wrote the song "Love Is All Around", which was featured in the films Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually.

Personal life

Reginald Maurice Ball was born in Andover, Hampshire, in 1941. His father was a milkman, later a bus driver, and his mother ran a cafe. He left school at the age of fifteen. He joined the building trade on leaving school and became a bricklayer. He gave up this job when the Troggs' song "Wild Thing" entered the top ten in the United Kingdom music charts in 1966.

Career

The Troggs

His first band was a skiffle group he formed with friend Howard Mansfield, with Mansfield on lead vocals and Reg on bass guitar. When Mansfield left, he moved to lead vocalist, and soon after Chris Britton joined on guitar, Pete Staples on bass, and Ronnie Bond on drums, and the group changed their name to The Troglodytes, and the classic lineup was formed. As the Troglodytes, they won a Battle of the Bands talent contest in Oxford in 1965, and sent a demo tape to the rock entrepreneur Larry Page, who shortened their name to the Troggs.

Presley, whose real name was Reginald Ball, was given his stage name in 1965 by the New Musical Express journalist and

The structure is simple, the guitar riffs basic, the lyrics at best inane, but the Troggs’ ”Wild Thing” remains a garage-rock classic more than 45 years after its 1966 release made the British group and lead singer Reg Presley international stars.

Presley, whose raunchy, suggestive voice powered the paean to teenage lust, died Monday at his Andover, England, home after a yearlong struggle with lung cancer, his agent, Keith Altham, announced. He was 71.

Part of the British invasion spurred by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the Troggs perfected a simple, hard-driving approach to the three-minute rock song that was miles away from the lyrical art-rock of the Beatles. This was rock music at its “boy meets girl” basics, with a caveman’s approach to romance.

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When the Troggs played the Whisky in West Hollywood in 1980, The Times noted that the concert opened and closed with the main chords of “Wild Thing” and called the song “that stripped-down, leering monstrous classic of demented rock.”

“Wild Thing” ranked No. 257 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 500 greatest songs of all time and became a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. It has been covered by hundreds of bands and given a psychedelic spin by Jimi Hendrix.

The song was written by accomplished American songwriter Chip Taylor, whose given name is James Voight. When he asked his brother, Jon Voight, for an assessment, the actor fell on the floor laughing. He then said, “‘It’s a hit! They won’t be able to get it off their tongues.’ It was such a fun song,” Jon Voight recalled in 2007.

More popular in their native England than in the U.S., the Troggs also found success with the follow-up single “With a Girl Like You” and “Love Is All Around”; the latter reached the top 10 in the U.S. in 1968.

The band faded in the 1970s but continued to perform over the decades to appreciative, if smaller, audiences — including Sting’s 1