Engelbert Humperdinck (singer)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the 19th-century composer of this name, see Engelbert Humperdinck.
| Engelbert Humperdinck | |
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Engelbert Humperdinck performing in Las Vegas, 2009
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Arnold George Dorsey |
| Also known as | Engelbert |
| Born | 2 May 1936 Madras, British India |
| Origin | Leicester, England |
| Genres | Traditional pop, easy listening |
| Occupations | Singer |
| Instruments | Vocals, piano |
| Years active | 1956–present |
| Labels | Decca Records Epic Records White Records |
| Website | www.engelbert.com |
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Born in Madras, India, Dorsey moved to Leicester, England, as a child with his family, where he took an early interest in music. Initially playing the saxophone in nightclubs, he soon started singing, releasing his first single, "I'll Never Fall in Love Again", in 1958. After struggling with tuberculosis, in the mid-1960s Dorsey returned to his musical career, adopting the stage name "Engelbert Humperdinck" after the German 19th-century composer of operas. Signed to Decca Records, he gained early success in Belgium after representing England in the 1966 Knokke song contest there. On his return, he released a string of singles that proved commercially successful, both domestically and in the United States. Gaining a devoted fan following, he also fronted a short-lived television series, The Engelbert Humperdinck Show.
Ever since, Humperdinck has continued producing music, to varying critical and commercial success. He represented the United Kingdom in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, in Baku, Azerbaijan, with Love Will Set You Free, where he came in 25th place out of 26 with 12 points.[1]
Contents
Early life
Arnold Dorsey was born in Madras, India in 1936,[2] as one of ten children to British Army NCO Mervyn Dorsey and his wife Olive. His mother was of German descent.[3] Dorsey's family moved to Leicester, England, when he was ten. He soon showed an interest in music and began learning the saxophone. By the early 1950s he was playing saxophone in nightclubs, but he is believed not to have tried singing until he was seventeen, when friends coaxed him into entering a pub contest. His impression of Jerry Lewis prompted friends to begin calling him "Gerry Dorsey", a name he worked under for almost a decade.[4]Though Dorsey's music career was interrupted by his national service in the British Army Royal Corps of Signals during the mid-1950s, he got his first chance to record in 1958 with Decca Records after his discharge. His first single, "I'll Never Fall in Love Again", was not a hit, but Dorsey would record for the same company almost a decade later with very different results. Dorsey continued working the nightclubs until 1961, when he was stricken with tuberculosis. He regained his health and returned to nightclub work, but with little success.
Changes and "Release Me"
Humperdinck enjoyed first real success during July 1966 in Belgium, where he and four others represented England in the annual Knokke song contest.[5] In October of the same year, he was on stage in Mechelen. Humperdinck also made a mark on the Belgian charts with "Dommage, Dommage" and an early music video was filmed, with him in the harbour of Zeebrugge.[6]
In the mid-1960s Humperdinck visited famed German songwriter Bert Kaempfert at his house in Spain and was offered arrangements of three songs - "Spanish Eyes", "Strangers in the Night" and "Wonderland by Night". He returned to England where he recorded all three songs. Realizing the potential of "Strangers in the Night" he asked manager Gordon Mills if it could be released as a single, but was refused since the song had already been requested by Frank Sinatra.[7]
In early 1967 the changes paid off when Humperdinck's version of "Release Me", recorded in a smooth ballad style with a full chorus joining him on the third refrain, made the top ten on both sides of the Atlantic and number one in Britain, keeping The Beatles' adventurous "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" from the top slot in the UK. Another groundbreaking video showed Engelbert tied up with a lasso. "Release Me" spent 56 weeks in the Top 50 in a single chart run.[8] "Release Me" was believed to have sold 85,000 copies a day at the height of its popularity, and for years, it was the best known of his songs.
Humperdinck's easygoing style and good looks earned Humperdinck a large following, particularly among women. His hardcore female fans called themselves "Humperdinckers".[9] "Release Me" was succeeded by two more hit ballads, "There Goes My Everything" and "The Last Waltz", earning him a reputation as a crooner, a description which he disputed: "If you are not a crooner," he told The Hollywood Reporter writer Rick Sherwood, "it's something you don't want to be called. No crooner has the range I have. I can hit notes a bank could not cash. What I am is a contemporary singer, a stylised performer."
In 1968 the single "A Man Without Love" reached number two in the UK Singles Chart and the album of the same name reached number three.[10] By the end of the 1960s, Humperdinck's roster of songs also included "Am I That Easy to Forget", "Les Bicyclettes de Belsize", "The Way It Used To Be", "I'm A Better Man (For Having Loved You)" (penned by Burt Bacharach and Hal David), and "Winter World of Love". He supplemented these big-selling singles with a number of equally successful albums. These albums would form the bedrock of his fame, and include Release Me, The Last Waltz, A Man Without Love, and Engelbert Humperdinck. His own television program, The Engelbert Humperdinck Show, was less successful, being cancelled after six months.
1960s and 1970s
By the start of the 1970s, Humperdinck had settled into a busy schedule of recordings, and a number of signature songs emerged from this period, often written by noted musicians and songwriters; among them, "We Made It Happen" (written by Paul Anka),[11] "Sweetheart" (written by Barry Gibb and Maurice Gibb),[12] "Another Time, Another Place," and "Too Beautiful To Last" (theme from the motion picture Nicholas and Alexandra). By the middle of the decade, with his style of balladry less popular on the singles charts, Humperdinck concentrated instead on selling albums and on live performances, developing lavish stage productions that made him a natural for Las Vegas and similar venues. He performed regularly at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas through the early years of the decade, recording a live album at the venue with The Three Degrees as backing singers.[13] During this period, he also toured with Quiet Elegance as his backing group.In 1976 Humperdinck's commercial credentials were buoyed by "After the Lovin'", a ballad produced by Joel Diamond and released by CBS subsidiary Epic. The song, a top ten hit in the US,[14] was nominated for a Grammy Award, went Gold, and won the "most played juke box record of the year" award. The album of the same name reached the top twenty on the US charts,[14] and was a Double Platinum hit for the singer.[15] Rounding off the year, Humperdinck made his first appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson with a live performance of the hit single.[16] Joel Diamond went on to produce a series of albums recorded by Humperdinck for Epic, including This Moment in Time from 1979 (the title song topped the US adult contemporary charts)[17] and two Christmas albums (Diamond and Humperdinck have remained good friends).
It was a conscious effort to update his music and his image. "I don't like to give people what they have already seen," Humperdinck was quoted as saying in a 1992 tourbook. "I take the job description of 'entertainer' very seriously! I try to bring a sparkle that people don't expect and I get the biggest kick from hearing someone say, 'I had no idea you could do that!'" He also defended his fan mania, which helped him continue to sell records when radio play largely ended for him. "They are very loyal to me and very militant as far as my reputation is concerned," Humperdinck had told Sherwood. "I call them the spark plugs of my success."
But he later revealed that he had little if any say in the selection of songs for his albums. As his career moved on, however, Humperdinck began gaining more creative freedom, and his latter-day albums came to include genres of song other than the love ballad. Nevertheless, he has kept romance at the core of his music, and his fans have long tagged him, "the King of Romance".
1980s and 1990s
In the 1980s, approaching his fiftieth birthday, Humperdinck consolidated his discography, recording regularly, while performing as many as 200 concerts a year. In the early and mid 1980s, he made a number of special appearances as an actor on popular television dramas of the time, including The Love Boat, Hotel, and Fantasy Island.Following his stint as a recording artist with Epic, he released what William Ruhlmann has called an "an ambitious double album,[18] " titled A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening (1985). Ruhlmann goes on to commend Humperdinck for recording this album of standards from the American Songbook, noting that it "was a long time coming".[18] In the following years, Humperdinck continued with studio recordings, including a duet with Gloria Gaynor for his 1987 album Remember, I Love You[19] In 1989, he recorded Step into My Life (released as Ich Denk An Dich in Germany). Songs on the album were written by songwriters and musicians like Dieter Bohlen and Barry Mason. It spawned several singles, "Red Roses for My Lady", "I Wanna Rock You in My Wildest Dreams", and a version of Dieter Bohlen's first hit, from the album Modern Talking, "You're My Heart, You're My Soul".
Humperdinck was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1989 and won a Golden Globe Award as entertainer of the year, while also beginning major involvement in charitable causes such as the Leukemia Research Fund, the American Red Cross, the American Lung Association, and several AIDS relief organisations. He wrote a song for one charity-group, titled "Reach Out" (released in 1992, on his studio album Hello Out There[20]). "He's a gentleman," longtime friend Clifford Elson has been quoted as saying of him, "in a business that's not full of many gentlemen."
Musical appraisals of Humperdinck's career in the 1990s point to him earning a "a new hip cachet" during the Lounge Revival, and note the success of new artistic ventures, like his recording of Lesbian Seagull for the soundtrack of the 1996 film Beavis and Butt-head Do America, and his dance album from 1998.[19] 1995's Love Unchained, produced by Bebu Silvetti, peaked in the UK Top-20 album charts, marking a return to form in his home country.[21] He retained a public profile during these years, making numerous appearances on radio and television, including the Late Show with David Letterman and The Howard Stern Show, and in events like the 1996 Daytona 500, where he performed The Star-Spangled Banner.
In 1988, Humperdinck filed a libel suit against the National Enquirer. The origin of the libelous statements was said to be Kathy Jetter, the mother of Humperdinck's illegitimate child, and were made in an affidavit filed by Jetter in New York Family Court in an effort to increase child support payments from Humperdinck. Jetter lost the action.[22] Jetter had successfully brought a paternity suit against Humperdinck following the birth of her daughter Jennifer in 1977.[23]
The 21st century
Well into his fourth decade as a successful entertainer, Humperdinck enjoys an annual schedule of international concert dates. He has performed in a range of venues and events. For instance, in 2009, Humperdinck performed at Carols in the Domain, a popular Christmas event held in Sydney, Australia. The following year found him in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the prestigious Orchestra Hall, in a performance on October 2010. In November 2010 he returned to Australia for a number of concerts, while adding a new studio album, Released, to his discography.[28] Despite international tours, Humperdinck frequently returns for concerts in the United Kingdom. His latest concert in his home country is scheduled for May 2014, when he plays the London Palladium, in a special performance with the BBC Concert Orchestra.[29]
Humperdinck's current recording project is a new studio album of duets. The double-CD, Engelbert Calling, was released in the UK on 17 March 2014, and has debuted in the UK Top-40 Album Charts at #31.[30] The album finds the singer in duets with an array of music legends: this includes, Charles Aznavour, Elton John, Il Divo, Johnny Mathis, Lulu, Willie Nelson, Olivia Newton-John, Cliff Richard, Smokey Robinson, Kenny Rogers, Neil Sedaka, Ron Sexsmith, Gene Simmons, and Dionne Warwick, among others.[31]
Eurovision Song Contest 2012
On 1 March 2012, the BBC announced that Humperdinck would represent the United Kingdom in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, to be staged in Baku, Azerbaijan, on 26 May. The song, "Love Will Set You Free" was unveiled on 19 March 2012, produced by Grammy award-winning music producer Martin Terefe and co-written by Sacha Skarbek. The song was recorded in London, Los Angeles and Nashville, Tennessee and was mixed by Thomas Juth in London.[32] When Humperdinck's participation was announced, he was set to become the oldest singer to ever participate in the contest at the age of 76.[33]During the final allocation draw, the United Kingdom was drawn to perform first.[34] Humperdinck eventually finished in 25th place, coming in second to last in the voting, with 12 points.[33]
Personal life
In 1964, Humperdinck married Patricia Healey.[2] They have four children. Through the years, Humperdinck has maintained a strong family life, even as the family alternated between homes in England and in southern California. In addition to being a popular singer, Humperdinck is also a successful real-estate entrepreneur and businessman. He invested in prime real estate properties in Hawaii, Mexico and United States. In the 1970s he bought the Pink Palace,[35] previously owned by Jayne Mansfield, in Los Angeles, which he resold in 2002 for $4 million.[36]Humperdinck retains firm ties with Leicestershire, where he spent much of his youth. In August 2005, he auctioned one of his Harley-Davidson motorcycles on eBay to raise money for the County Air Ambulance in Leicestershire. In 2006, the University of Leicester awarded Humperdinck with an Honorary Doctorate of Music.[37] On 25 February 2009, Leicester City Council announced that Humperdinck would be given the Honorary Freedom of Leicester alongside author Sue Townsend and former professional footballer Alan Birchenall.[38] In 2010, Humperdinck was one of the first nine people to be honored with a plaque on the city of Leicester's Walk of Fame.[39]
Discography
Further information: Engelbert Humperdinck discography
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