{"id":14254,"date":"2018-03-22T05:30:29","date_gmt":"2018-03-22T09:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=14254"},"modified":"2018-03-21T20:58:45","modified_gmt":"2018-03-22T00:58:45","slug":"engelbert-humperdincks-enduring-love-for-recording-performing-and-his-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/22\/engelbert-humperdincks-enduring-love-for-recording-performing-and-his-wife\/","title":{"rendered":"Engelbert Humperdinck’s Enduring Love for Recording, Performing, and His Wife"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"When it comes to what was known in the rock era as \u201cadult\u201d music, there exists a pantheon of vocalists who enjoyed both critical success and staggering commercial achievements. British pop singer Engelbert Humperdinck is among the few to achieve that rarefied degree of notoriety. With a recording career that began with the 1967 hit \u201cRelease Me\u201d and continues to this day, Humperdinck has sold more than 150 million records. And at age 81, the preternaturally youthful singer has released The Man I Want to Be<\/i>, a musical love letter to his wife of 53 years. In support of what is nearly his 100th<\/sup> album, Humperdinck is currently on tour.<\/p>\n

The 14 songs on The Man I Want to Be<\/i> were selected to express Humperdinck’s enduring love for his wife Patricia, who is dealing with the effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. The singer credits Jurgen Korduletsch, the owner of his record label, for coming up with the album’s concept. \u201cI had no idea what the next album was going to be all about, but when he brought these ideas to me, it struck a chord,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The contemporary yet timeless-sounding record includes songs written by Willie Nelson, Ed Sheeran and others. \u201cHow Can You Live\u201d was written by Richard Marx and Fee Waybill; the song was first recorded by Waybill’s group The Tubes in 1996. Humperdinck’s reading is decidedly more romantic. Though he sometimes listens to previously recorded versions of songs (\u201cso I don’t copy their style,\u201d he says), in the case of \u201cHow Can You Live,\u201d he didn’t hear the Tubes’ original until he had cut his own version. \u201cI love their version, too,\u201d Humperdinck says. \u201cIt’s very rock’n’roll-ish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remarkably, Humperdinck’s voice doesn’t seem to have changed much in the half century since he scored with \u201cRelease Me\u201d and \u201cThere Goes My Everything,\u201d both Top 20 hits in the U.S. But he admits that he doesn’t do any special exercises to keep his voice in shape. \u201cI\u2019ve been very fortunate,\u201d he says. \u201cI think just to continue to work in show business and be onstage keeps me young and keeps my voice in line.\u201d He allows that he does change the key of a few of his older songs for live performance, dropping them by one step (\u201cwe call them tones<\/i> in England\u201d), but says that his range \u2013 three and a half octaves \u2013 remains virtually intact.<\/p>\n

Another way in which Humperdinck maintains continuity in his recorded music is in his choice of arrangers. Johnny Harris was the arranger on Humperdinck’s 1968 single, \u201cQuando Quando Quando.\u201d Some 50 years later, Harris is among the arrangers who worked on The Man I Want to Be<\/i>.<\/p>\n

And lest anyone think Humperdinck is a relic from a previous generation, it’s worth noting that he saw \u2013 and recognized \u2013 a leading light on today’s pop landscape when that singer was only 5 years old. Some 27 years ago Humperdinck was at a fan club party in Hawaii, celebrating the end of another successful tour. \u201cThe entertainment was Bruno Mars,\u201d he recalls with a smile. \u201cI said to him then, ‘Young man, you\u2019re going to be a big star.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The Man I Want to Be<\/i> features a vocal duet with another singer whom Humperdinck thinks has a bright future. His nine-year-old granddaughter Olivia guests on \u201cI’m Glad I Danced With You,\u201d another of the musical love letters that characterize the album. \u201cI think she’s going to be another Bruno Mars, if you want to know the truth,\u201d says the proud grandfather.<\/p>\n

When he’s not on the road, Humperdinck is at home caring for his wife. \u201cShe’s doing well,\u201d he says, noting that a newly-developed treatment is having a positive effect on her condition. Meanwhile, he hasn’t slowed down his schedule of live performances. While he considers studio work an expression of creativity, he loves being onstage, at once singing love songs for his fans and to his wife at home. \u201cI consider myself a thespian of song,\u201d he says. \u201cSo, when I\u2019m singing onstage, the lyrics mean something. I don\u2019t just sing them willy-nilly; I really know what I\u2019m singing about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to what was known in the rock era as \u201cadult\u201d music, there exists a pantheon of vocalists who enjoyed both critical success and staggering commercial achievements. British […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,51],"tags":[3359],"class_list":["post-14254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-pop","tag-engelbert-humperdinck","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14256,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14254\/revisions\/14256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}