Engelbert Humperdinck, a singer, credited karaoke with keeping his music “all these years” ahead of his 89th birthday.
The singer from Leicester, who was raised in the city, has said he will be celebrating his birthday with “family and a few friends” and that he may even participate in a karaoke performance.
After realizing he needed to continue singing after his final-year farewell tour with The Last Waltz, Humperdinck will perform more than 60 concerts around the world this year.
The Release Me singer said, “Some of my songs are as fresh as they were when I recorded them over 50 years ago, and I’m very big with karaoke,” about how his music has endured.
I’m very happy that most of my songs are available on karaoke because people enjoy singing them, which is what kept it going for so long.
He continued, “I try to sing somebody else’s songs,” referring to his own karaoke choices.
“I can recall that when we went out for dinner in a Japanese restaurant, the karaoke was being carried around to all the tables.
So I made the decision to sing a few of my songs, which was fantastic because it was my first time doing it for a while.
When British actress Patricia Healey, Humperdinck’s wife of 56 years, passed away at the age of 85 due to complications related to Covid-19, Humperdinck was heartbroken in 2021. She also had an Alzheimer’s disease.
He claimed that after his most recent tour, a long time spent at home had persuaded him to go back to performing.
I was climbing the wall in January, February, March, and a portion of April because of it.
I called my manager and said, “This is not going to work out,” and I responded, “I have to get back to work,” and I said, “I’m climbing the wall.”
“So anyway, I put a final note on The Last Waltz, and I’m back on my feet, ready to tour the world as long as God keeps my voice in tip-top shape.”
The singer, who was born in India, said he didn’t think his career would last forever when he first started out.
He continued, “I’ve been in the business 58 years successfully, and things are still looking up on me because I just finished recording this album with Cleopatra Records, which is unusual for me to do this sort of thing at this time in my life.
“But it all came to me all of a sudden, and I made the decision to do it,” she said. The album features songs by classic bands from the 1980s, including Aerosmith, Kiss, The Cars, Journey, and others.
I recorded the songs I liked from their albums.
After his 1968 song A Man Without Love was featured in an episode of the BBC drama Call the Midwife, Humperdinck, whose real name is Arnold Dorsey, said he had seen younger fans attend his recent concerts.
He continued, “It’s unbelievable because they used the song right away and right away in the show all the way through,” adding, “I recorded it 50 years ago.
“And the young people who were watching this program, who were seeing a lot of fresh faces in the audience, wanted to know what Engelbert Humperdinck was all about.
“And of course, I welcomed them into the Humperdinck trail, and as a result, I’ve gained a brand-new audience of young people for that particular song.”
Humperdinck is best known for songs like Release Me, The Last Waltz, and There Goes My Everything, which he has had on his way to a string of UK top 10 singles and two UK number one albums since beginning his career in the 1950s.
Humperdinck renamed himself Humperdinck after borrowing the same name from a well-known German composer. Before his manager Gordon Mills distributed the names of composers to his three artists at the time, he described himself as a “feeble young man looking for an opportunity to enter the show business.”
He described the encounter as “love at first sight” during a chance meeting with Healey, who was then 17 years old, when he first met his wife at the beginning of his career in 1953. He said in 2020, “I met her on a dance floor, and we’ve been dancing ever since.”
Before her passing, the couple split their time between their homes in the UK and California, where they later had four children.
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Source: Mirror
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