Engelbert Humperdinck Biography
Arnold George Dorsey, 2 May 1936, Madras, India. Raised in Leicester, England, and originally known as Gerry Dorsey, this singer had attempted to achieve mainstream success in the UK during the 50s. He was a featured artist on the television series Oh Boy!, toured with Marty Wilde and recorded a failed single, "I'll Never Fall In Love Again". It was during this period that he first met Gordon Mills, a singer in the Viscounts, who later moved into songwriting and management. By 1963, Dorsey's career had hit rock bottom. The beat boom hampered his singing career and to make matters worse, he fell seriously ill with tuberculosis. Mills, meanwhile, was beginning to win international success for Tom Jones and in 1967 decided to help his old friend Gerry Dorsey. Soon after, the singer was rechristened Engelbert Humperdinck, a name inspired by the composer of the nineteenth-century opera Hansel And Gretel, and relaunched as a balladeer.
Humperdinck's first single for Decca Records, "Dommage Dommage", failed to chart, but received considerable airplay. There was no mistake with the follow-up, "Release Me", which sold a million copies in the UK alone, dominated the number 1 spot for five weeks at the start of 1967 and, most remarkably, prevented the Beatles from reaching the top with "Penny Lane"/"Strawberry Fields Forever". The single also reached number 4 in the Billboard Top 200. Humperdinck's follow-up, "There Goes My Everything", climbed to number 2 in the UK and by the end of the summer he was back at the top for a further five weeks with "The Last Waltz". The latter once again sold in excess of a million copies in the UK alone. In a year dominated by psychedelia and experimentation in rock, Humperdinck was the biggest-selling artist in England. His strong vocal and romantic image ensured regular bookings and brought a further series of UK Top 10 hits including "Am I That Easy To Forget" (number 3, January 1968), "A Man Without Love" (number 2, April 1968), "Les Bicyclettes De Belsize" (number 5, September 1968), "The Way It Used To Be" (number 3, February 1969) and "Winter World Of Love" (number 7, November 1969). Although he faded as a hit-making artist after the early 70s, Humperdinck's career blossomed in America where he took up residence and became a regular on the lucrative Las Vegas circuit. "After The Lovin'" gave him a number 8 US hit in October 1976. Like his stablemate Tom Jones he went through a long period without recording, which ended in 1987 with the release of a comeback album, Remember I Love You, which featured a duet with Gloria Gaynor. In 1990, it was estimated that he had earned 58 Gold records, 18 Platinum albums, and several Grammy Awards. He was still selling plenty of albums, and filling venues such as London's Royal Albert Hall, well into the 90s and the new millennium. Like Jones he has also gained hip credibility in recent years, recording "Lesbian Seagull" for the cult movie Beavis And Butthead Do America, and collaborating with production duo Thunderpuss 2000 on an album of dance remixes. A new version of the evergreen "Quando Quando Quando" provided Humperdinck with his first UK chart entry since 1973, debuting at number 40 in January 1999.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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