20 Facts About Reg Presley

Reginald Maurice Ball, known professionally as Reg Presley, was an English singer and songwriter.

Reg Presley was the lead singer with the 1960s rock and roll band the Troggs, whose hits included "Wild Thing" and "With a Girl Like You".

Reg Presley wrote the song "Love Is All Around", which was featured in the films Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually.

Reg Presley's father was a milkman, later a bus driver, and his mother ran a cafe.

Reg Presley joined the building trade on leaving school and became a bricklayer.

Reg Presley gave up this job when the Troggs' song "Wild Thing" entered the top ten in the United Kingdom music charts in 1966.

Reg Presley's first band was a skiffle group he formed with friend Howard Mansfield, with Mansfield on lead vocals and Reg on bass guitar.

Reg Presley kept at his occupation of a bricklayer, until "Wild Thing" reached the top 10 on the UK Singles Chart in 1966.

Reg Presley was in the Troggs until 2012, when he announced his retirement from the music industry after suffering from a number of strokes.

Reg Presley's departure left only guitarist Chris Britton from the original Troggs lineup still remaining in the group.

In 1988, Reg Presley formed The Corporation with Tony Crane, Clem Curtis, Mike Pender, and Brian Poole, who all were the lead singers of other pop groups during the 1960s: The Merseybeats, The Foundations, The Searchers, and Brian Poole and The Tremeloes, in the same order as the members names were listed.

Reg Presley used the musical royalties he made from the Troggs' records and the royalties he made from the Wet Wet Wet cover to fund research on subjects such as alien spacecraft, lost civilisations, alchemy, and crop circles, and outlined his findings in his own penned book Wild Things They Don't Tell Us, published in October 2002.

Reg Presley claimed to have seen fourteen UFOs in his life.

In December 2011, Reg Presley was hospitalised in Winchester, Hampshire, with what was suspected to be a stroke.

Reg Presley was suffering from pneumonia and fluid around the heart.

Reg Presley had suffered a major stroke about a year before.

Reg Presley's wife said he first began to feel ill while performing in Germany on 3 December 2011 and had got progressively worse.

Just over a year later, on 4 February 2013, Reg Presley died from this cancer and, according to Altham, "a succession of recent strokes".

Reg Presley's music has influenced Iggy Pop and won praise from Bob Dylan.

Reg Presley appears as a character in Steve Erickson's novel These Dreams of You.