Reginald Maurice Ball (12 June 1941 - 4 February 2013), known professionally as Reg Presley, was an English singer-songwriter. He was the lead singer with the 1960s rock and roll band The Troggs, whose hits included "Wild Thing" and "With a Girl Like You" (they reached number one in the US and the UK respectively). He wrote the song "Love Is All Around", which was featured in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Career

Presley, whose stage name was given to him in 1965 by the New Musical Express journalist and publicist Keith Altham, was born in Andover, Hampshire. He joined the building trade on leaving school and became a bricklayer. He kept at this occupation until "Wild Thing" entered the UK Singles Chart in 1966. It reached No. 2 in the U.K., and No. 1 in the US, selling five million copies.

Presley wrote the hits "With a Girl Like You", "I Can't Control Myself" and "Love Is All Around". Wet Wet Wet's 1994 cover of the latter song stayed at No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart for fifteen weeks. Presley used his royalties from that cover to fund research subjects such as alien spacecraft, lost civilisations, alchemy, and crop circles, and outlined his findings in the book Wild Things They Don't Tell Us, published in October 2002.

Health problems and death

In December 2011, Presley was hospitalised in Winchester, Hampshire, with what was suspected to be a stroke. He was also suffering from pneumonia and fluid around the heart. Presley had suffered a major stroke about a year before. His wife said he first began to feel bad while performing in Germany on 3 December 2011 and had got progressively worse. "Doctors think he has had another stroke. He's not very well and I have no idea how long he'll be in hospital", she said. The following month, Presley announced he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and therefore decided to retire from the music industry. Just over a year later, on 4 February 2013, Presley died from this cancer and, according to Altham, "a succession of recent strokes." Presley was cremated at Basingstoke Crematorium, Hampshire.

Influence and legacy

Presley's music has influenced Iggy Pop and won praise from Bob Dylan. The rock critic Lester Bangs called the Troggs the "godfathers of punk" and compared Presley to Marcel Proust. Presley appears as a character in Steve Erickson's novel These Dreams of You (2012).

[ Source: Wikipedia ]