NEWS

Warren Kurtz September 13, 2021 Goldmine Magazine

​​Engelbert Humperdinck’s 2006 twenty-one song live CD Totally Amazing has just been re-issued on gold metallic vinyl as a double album, from a 2005 concert at the Casino Rama Resort in Orillia, Ontario, sixty miles north of Toronto. The collection is released on Goldenlane Records, part of Los Angeles’ Cleopatra Records.

GOLDMINE: Congratulations on the Totally Amazing double vinyl release and welcome to our 5th annual Goldmine Fabulous Flip Sides interview. Before we get to Totally Amazing, let’s go back to 1980 to your Love’s Only Love album, one of your records which Joel Diamond produced. It included the single “Any Kind of Love at All,” written by Ray Dahrouge, with a touch of a Bee Gees sound, which I love. A live version of the flip side is also on Totally Amazing, “A Chance to Be a Hero,” about seeking to make it, written by Paul Brower, and sounding like something Lionel Richie might have written. I love this one, too.

ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK: It is such a great story because it typifies my life. I started my singing career at the age of seventeen, as the lyric says, “When I was only seventeen, I knew just what I wanted to be. On the stage, on the front page, with the spotlight shining, the spotlight shining on me.” For this person to write the lyric in such a way that it tells my story all these years later is amazing. 

GM: It is amazing. The next song on the live album is “There’s No Good in Goodbye,” originally on your Let There Be Love album. It has a tender opening, which builds to a powerful chorus and an equally powerful ending.

EH: That title rings hard to me now due to the recent passing of Patricia. 

GM: Engelbert, like I wrote earlier this year, I am terribly sorry. I know that you and Patricia married in 1964, so for those of us who began buying your records in the 1960s, it was always you and Patricia, to us. Again, I am so sorry. I know how close you were.

EH: Thank you. Oh yeah. It has changed my life. It makes the reading of lyrics a lot different from how I read them prior to this happening. Now the words become more vivid and real, and my expressions are more visible. In depicting these songs, it is like an actor changing to become Marlon Brando, delivering deep impact. I don’t know how it is going to show on stage, because I haven’t done a show yet this year, but I know that I read the lyrics differently now. I’ve always said that I am thespian of song and let’s hope that people like what they are going to see and hear when I return to the road next month.

GM: Let’s talk about another family member, your daughter Louise, who you co-wrote the title song “Totally Amazing” with.

EH: My daughter has been very instrumental in my life. She brings out the young version of what I should be doing, and of course she has a daughter now, Olivia, who is an outstanding singer, at just thirteen, an unbelievable vocal talent. I was delving into songwriting a bit and I was always using the phrase “totally amazing,” so I thought that I should write a song with that phrase. I wrote the line, “Totally amazing, that’s what you are,” and I played it to Louise and her partner Tony Toliver and between them and myself we wrote the song “Totally Amazing.” I believe at some point there will be another version of this song which will be a hit for sure, ha ha.

GM: You feature a lot of your hit songs in the concert. When I put on the second record, it opened with you saying, “This is not my song, but I like it.” It is Keith Urban’s “Somebody Like You,” with a wonderful tempo.

EH: My conductor at the time was Jeff Sturges. We no longer have him, but he was very instrumental in my life. We worked together so much, and he knew me like the back of his hand. With arrangements, he could read my mind. Jeff brought me this song and said, “You’ll love this song,” and I did, and of course, I recorded it. Jeff would bring his old tape recorder when we worked together, which was a $30 machine he bought from Radio Shack and I liked it so much that he bought me one, and I still have it to this day, still use it, and it is always a memory of Jeff when I take it out. 

GM: What is interesting to me when I listen to that song now, which was recorded in 2005, I am reminded of something you recorded more recently, which is Bruno Mars’ “Just the Way You Are,” from your 2017 The Man I Want to Be album, which we have discussed before.

EH: I think Steve Anderson did an incredible arrangement of that Bruno Mars song, totally different from Bruno’s chart, and I use it on stage so much. It is very effective. 

GM: Another song from the album, which I learned first from someone else, is “Too Young.” I know it is older than Donny Osmond, but I was introduced to it through his 1970s Top 40 record. Your version is wonderful.

EH: I learned it from Nat King Cole’s record, seventy years ago, “They try to tell us we’re too young.” I love that particular song. When it was brought up for me to record it on my Love Unchained album with the great arranger Bebu Silvetti, who is probably the greatest string arranger God has ever created, who I did five albums with, it was a joy working with a musician of that quality. I miss him so much, because in today’s world you are always looking for a great arranger, and I miss the ones who I have used in the past. 

GM: Going back to the Nat King Cole era, filled with standards, “I Wish You Love,” is also on the album, which sounds like a romantic movie song for a Valentine’s Day.

EH: Oh yeah. I was in Paris with a friend of mine, Frank Namani, who owns a clothing business, and we were sitting, having dinner at this restaurant and three violinists came along and start playing “I Wish You Love.” Frank said to me, “Why don’t you sing it for the people?” I said, “I can’t sing in a restaurant.” He said, “The people will love it.” So, I started singing “I Wish You Love” with the three romantic violins playing and who should be sitting at the next table but Charles Trenet, who wrote the song. It was so wonderful to know that a legendary writer like that was sitting at the next table while I am busking in a restaurant. I enjoyed it so much and it prompted me to continue to sing that wonderful song in my show.

GM: The album ends in a patriotic way with “Columns of Gray,” including bagpipes, which must have been something to see in the show. Wow! What a finale.

EH: This was written by one of my guitar players who I have used in the past, Mike Egan, and he was originally from Scotland, and he is a wonderful man, a great talent, a great guitarist, and has a flair for writing great songs. He lived in Belgium and saw all the graves in Germany and decided to write this song. I told him I loved it so much, that I wanted to sing it, and did a video of it as well. It is a reminder of what went on in the past. I used it in my show for quite some time and now it has come out on this vinyl release, and probably my first vinyl album in thirty years. If you go to a shop now, turntables are in the front and CD players are in the back. Everyone is buying record players again. 

GM: Going back to the original vinyl era, there is a string of songs at the beginning of the concert album where I just love the order, “Am I That Easy to Forget,” “The Last of the Romantics,” “A Man Without Love,” which comes through with a fun bounce, and then “After the Lovin’,” which I certainly remember from late night radio in the mid-1970s. It is a wonderful sequence.

EH: I am pleased with the variety. “You Make My Pants Want to Get Up and Dance” is a fun song. That was done many years ago by a rock group. Do you remember them?

GM: Yes, it was Dr. Hook, from their album Pleasure & Pain. We would play that album and your Last of the Romantics at the record store where I worked in 1978.

EH: Yes. You are right. You’ve got a great memory, my gosh.

GM: You were given a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire award on Queen Elizabeth’s birthday this year. Congratulations.

EH: Thank you. I am so grateful. They are behind at The Royal Palace in physically giving out the honors due to the pandemic. Thank you again for this annual visit and all your support of my music.

https://www.goldminemag.com/columns/fabulous-flip-sides-of-engelbert-humperdinck

https://www.goldminemag.com/columns/fabulous-flip-sides-of-engelbert-humperdinck

LuAnn M. Thibodeau WickedLocal.com Sept. 23, 2021

"Tell everyone in town that Engelbert is back."

Those song lyrics say it all — Engelbert Humperdinck returns to The Chevalier Theatre on Oct. 3 for his only performance in Massachusetts on this East Coast tour.

So what has he been up to since the pandemic halted live concerts in March of 2020? Well, never having been one to rest on his laurels and prior success, Engelbert, at the young age of 85, is as popular as ever, with fans of all ages.

Through innovative ways, such as his weekly Tuesday Museday and Flashback Friday episodes that he shares on YouTube as well as his social media pages, and his website that keeps fans informed of news and tour information while also providing multimedia files of concerts and a discography section of his music through the years, he keeps in touch with fans around the world.

Engelbert also had a live online YouTube concert in the summer of 2020, as well as his first ever Christmas concert last December-broadcast online from his beautiful home in California, after which fans had the opportunity for live one on one video chats with him. He also is on Cameo.com, a site from which fans have a way to receive a personalized video from him.

And on Monday, Sept. 13, he was live on YouTube, updating fans about his tour schedule, announcing the 2nd annual Christmas special which will be happening this December, and also receiving an award from YouTube for reaching 100,000 subscribers. In addition, the song that he recorded with Janet Devlin (a young singer/songwriter from Ireland)during the pandemic(he was in California and she was in Ireland when they recorded it) — “Can’t Help Falling In Love “ — has been viewed over 2 million times!

The Legend, The King of Romance, will perform two shows before he returns to The Chevalier Theatre, then four more East Coast stops before he heads back to California for a show there.

After that, he jets off to perform several concerts in the United Kingdom in late October and November, and then back to California, performing in early December. How does he do it? Well, he follows the advice of one of his song titles — "Don't Let The Old Man In"... and he certainly doesn't.

His show at The Chevalier Theatre in May of 2019 was “Totally Amazing”(another of his song titles), and the Oct. 3 show promises to be that and more, as Engelbert plans to include a song that he wrote for his wife many years ago — "Everywhere I Go" — which will undoubtedly be tough for him, as Patricia, his wife of over 50 years, passed away in February of this year, from COVID.

It definitely is a show not to be missed.

For more tickets and information, log on to the Chevalier Theatre's website.

https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/medford-transcript/2021/09/23/engelbert-humperdinck-returns-chevalier-theatre-medford-oct-3/8379501002/

Here are 49 amazing archive pictures of Arnold George Dorsey, the Leicester legend better kbnown as Engelbert Humperdinck.

Engelbert was born in Madras as one of ten siblings, and moved to Leicester at the age of 10 with parents Mervyn and Olive. He took up playing the saxophone and worked in clubs in the early 1950s before taking up singing in his late teens where his impression of Jerry Lewis led friends to call him Gerry Dorsey.

He would go on to use this as his stage name for almost a decade.

After being conscripted to the army he signed a deal with Decca records in 1958 with his first single I'll Never Fall in Love Again.

His big break came in 1965 when he teamed up with music manager Gordon Mills who also looked after Tom Jones. It was him that suggested the name change to Engelbert Humperdinck - borrowed from a 19th century German composer.

Things started to move on a pace and by 1967 he was keeping the Beatles off the top chart position with his version of Release Me that stayed in the Top 50 for 56 weeks, selling 85,000 copies a day at its height.

This set of pictures charts some of those early days events of Leicester's much loved son.

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/history/gallery/way-used-be-49-archive-5924736

In celebration of hitting 100,000 subscribers, Engelbert will be doing a special YouTube Live session on  Monday, September 13th 12:15 PM PT, along with a few other announcements and surprises.

If you haven't subscribed to his YouTube channel, you may do so here:

https://www.youtube.com/EngelbertHumperdinckTV

For the first time ever, the Royal Albert Hall has released three prints from Engelbert's 2015 tour on its official website. Taken by London-based music photographer Christie Goodwin, these prints are available to bring home. Each purchase benefits The Royal Albert Hall.

https://shop.royalalberthall.com/collections/engelbert-humperdinck

Dear Fans,

It’s possible that an imposter contacted you, trying to scam you using my name or avatar, asking for money, donations or other currency. This person is not me. I have not and will not contact individuals and ask for any money or donations. 

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) provides guidance on what to do if you have wired money to a scammer.  You can visit https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/before-you-wire-money for more information.  Included below are the FTC’s recommendations on initial steps you can take:

If you sent money using a wire transfer company like MoneyGram or Western Union, contact that company right away. Tell them it was a fraudulent transfer. Ask them to reverse the wire transfer and give you your money back.

MoneyGram at 1-800-MONEYGRAM (1-800-666-3947)

Western Union at 1-800-325-6000

If you sent the wire transfer through your bank, contact them and report the fraudulent transfer. Ask if they can reverse the wire transfer and give you your money back.

You can also file a report online at https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/.  And, as a reminder, you can avoid a money wiring scam by never wiring money without first speaking to the person directly to confirm that both the request and the account information provided are valid.

Stay safe,

Engelbert Humperdinck

* This email is intended solely for informational purposes and is not intended to provide any legal advice. Engelbert Humperdinck has no ability to return any funds you have transferred to an individual or company impersonating Engelbert Humperdinck. Engelbert Humperdinck shall have no liability for your interactions with any imposter, including any transfer of funds.

He was determined to return to the UK after his worldwide tour was cancelled last year due to Covid-19

By Asha Patel Leicester Mercury

Leicester's Engelbert Humperdinck is returning to his hometown for a one-night-only performance this year.

The singer, now aged 85 is set to perform at De Montfort Hall in November this year as part of his 2021 Autumn tour. 

Following the cancellation of his 2020 worldwide tour due to the Coronavirus pandemic, Engelbert was determined to return to the UK as soon as possible and extend his tour dates. 

With a career spanning over 50 years, the singer has sold more than 140 million records worldwide and stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Las Vegas Walk of Fame, and, of course, the Leicester Walk of Fame.

Engelbert also received a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) award for his services to music earlier this year. 

He came on to the music scene with The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Widely regarded as a heartthrob, he was catapulted almost instantly to world icon.

His first single in the charts was “Release Me,” which went into the Guinness Book of Records for achieving 56 consecutive weeks on the charts and was a number one hit in 11 countries.

Showing no signs of slowing down, Engelbert released his new EP 'Sentiments' in November 2020, prior to which he hosted his first-ever live-streamed concert on YouTube.

As well as his voice, the singer's personality has won him a loyal fanbase over the years with whom he has stayed connected through his YouTube vlog series and social media.

Engelbert will join his UK for his UK tour this November, performing at Leicester's De Montfort Hall on November 20.

This the full list of tour dates for 2021:

• 31 st Oct Liverpool, Philharmonic 

• 3 rd Nov Aberdeen, Music Hall 

• 4 th Nov Dunfermline, Alhambra 

• 6 th Nov Newcastle, O2 City Hall 

• 7 th Nov Manchester, Bridgewater Hall 

• 9 th Nov Cambridge, Corn Exchange 

• 10 th Nov Birmingham, Symphony Hall 

• 11 th Nov Ipswich, Regent Theatre 

• 13 th Nov Norwich,Theatre Royal 

• 14 th Nov Sheffield, City Hall - Oval 

• 16 th Nov Bournemouth, Pavilion 

• 17 th Nov Basingstoke, Anvil 

• 20 th Nov Leicester, DeMontfort Hall 

• 21 st Nov Aylesbury, Waterside

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/engelbert-humperdinck-return-leicester-part-5644718

By Nigel Barlow - July 13, 2021 About Manchester

In a career spanning over 50 years, Engelbert has generated sales in excess of 140 million records, including 64 gold albums and 35 platinum, four Grammy nominations, a Golden Globe, and stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Las Vegas Walk of Fame, and Leicester Walk of Fame.

He has performed for the Queen four times, several presidents and many heads of state. He has recorded everything from the most romantic ballads to movie theme songs, disco, rock, and even gospel. His unique voice has charmed millions of fans around the globe.

However, it’s not just the voice, but the man himself. He is well known for his endearing sense of humour and self-deprecating jokes. Engelbert has managed to strike a new chord with a younger generation, appearing on MTV several times.

Engelbert exploded on to the music scene with The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Widely regarded as a heartthrob, he was catapulted almost instantly to world icon. He became great friends with Elvis and the two legends often performed each other’s songs. His first single in the charts was “Release Me,” which went into the Guinness Book of Records for achieving 56 consecutive weeks on the charts. It was No. 1 in 11 countries. The following decades saw Engelbert constantly touring the world to sell-out crowds. He takes great pleasure in every moment on stage.

Engelbert’s music has transcended time and his voice continues to reach out to people now – serving to transport and inspire, to embrace and to provoke feelings and emotions…ingredients that are no doubt the essence of his long-lasting success.

Engelbert was just awarded the Honour of Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) by Her Majesty the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2021.

Following his sell out show destined for 2020 at The London Palladium being rescheduled to 25th April 2022, Engelbert was determined to return to the UK as soon as he could and extend his tour dates, for his fans across the UK to enjoy.

7th Nov           Manchester, Bridgewater Hall

https://biglink.to/EHTickets

https://aboutmanchester.co.uk/engelbert-humperdinck-comes-to-manchester-this-autumn/

For those of you using download & streaming services, I’m delighted to announce a new digital-only compilation of lost B-sides & rarities that Universal Decca will be releasing September 3.

Forgotten Promises [1967 – 1975] showcases a wealth of recordings from throughout this era that have never been released digitally, many of which having only ever been released on original 7” vinyl.

We’ll be dropping one track every two weeks up until release for you to get a taste for the compilation & all it has to offer - this week it’s Our Song (La Paloma), the B-side to my 1970 single, My Marie.

Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/ 

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/forgotten-promises-1967-1975/1573618993?ls=1 

iTunes: https://music.apple.com/us/album/forgotten-promises-1967-1975/1573618993?ls=1&app=itunes

By Danica Ollerova June 28, 2021, 11:45 am The Press and Journal

Engelbert Humperdinck, who recently turned 85  shows no signs of stopping just yet,  announced his new tour including an Aberdeen date.

Engelbert, born Arnold George Dorsey, will kick off his 14-date tour in Liverpool on October 31 and will perform for north-east audiences on Wednesday November 3. The gig will take place at 7pm at the Music Hall.

In a career spanning almost five decades, Engelbert has generated sales in excess of 140 million records, including 64 gold albums and 35 platinum, four Grammy nominations, as well as a Golden Globe. The singing legend also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

He is best known for his ballads such as The Last Waltz and Spanish Eyes, with one of his greatest singles titled Release Me keeping the popular The Beatles’ song Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane off the top in the 1967 music charts.

Engelbert Humperdinck was recognised by the Queen and released new album

The chart-topping singer has also recently been recognized in the Queen’s Birthday Honors List and has been given an MBE for services to music. He had previously performed for the Queen four times.

Engelbert’s newest album Sentiments – a collection of new recordings including covers of songs by Elton John, Elvis Presley and Charlie Chaplin – was released in November 2020.

The iconic vocalist had to cancel his last year’s tour due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, but is now excited to embark on the UK tour later this year.

The upcoming tour is dedicated to his wife, who lost a battle with coronavirus in February. The couple had been married for 56 years.

Engelbert said: “This will be a sentimental journey. What has transpired in your life and mine in the past one and a half years has been quite traumatic.”

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeen/3269209/release-me-singer-engelbert-humperdinck-to-perform-at-music-hall/