{"id":26674,"date":"2024-01-11T05:30:42","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T10:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=26674"},"modified":"2024-01-03T08:53:21","modified_gmt":"2024-01-03T13:53:21","slug":"engelbert-humperdinck-after-the-lovin-theres-still-more-lovin-part-1-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/11\/engelbert-humperdinck-after-the-lovin-theres-still-more-lovin-part-1-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Engelbert Humperdinck: After the Lovin\u2019 \u2026 There\u2019s Still More Lovin\u2019 (Part 1 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Romantic singer Engelbert Humperdinck is one of the most beloved singers in modern times. He\u2019s also one of the most prolific, with more than 100 albums released between his 1967 debut and today. His latest release, 2023\u2019s All About Love shows that time has not diminished the skills nor appeal of the Madras-born and London-raised singer. Today at age 87, Humperdinck still maintains a busy concert touring schedule, and there\u2019s a new documentary film chronicling his life and career. Ahead of a North American tour that takes him back and forth across the continent, Humperdinck spoke with me about his enduring passion for music and performance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Bill Kopp\/Musoscribe: On All About Love<\/i><\/b>, you manage the neat trick of sounding contemporary without pandering to trends. Do you personally choose the songs?<\/b><\/p>\n

Engelbert Humperdinck:<\/b> Well, I\u2019ll be honest with you: no. My producer [Jurgen Korduletsch] brings the songs to me, and he asks me, \u201cDo you think you\u2019d like this?\u201d He says, \u201cI think these are going to be good for you,\u201d and I listen to them, because he\u2019s the man who\u2019s making it happen for me. And I say, \u201cWell, some of them.\u201d There are some that he brings to me that I throw out. I pick the songs I think that would be appropriate, and we work together on it.<\/p>\n

On this particular one, all the arrangements were done in Nashville with Nashville musicians, and I wasn\u2019t there. I would have loved to have been there. It worked all right, but I\u2019d rather have been there with him. As I do with everything that I do in life, I like to put my little input in every now and again. I like to have my finger on every project, but this particular one, [Jordan] did it on his own. And it worked out.<\/p>\n

When there\u2019s a song that\u2019s suggested and you decide for one reason or another that you don\u2019t care to do it, what kind of reasons figure into that equation?<\/b><\/p>\n

If I listen to it, and I don\u2019t think it suits my style, I just say, \u201cIt\u2019s a \u2018no\u2019 on this one, but this<\/i> one looks good.\u201d I\u2019m very particular.<\/p>\n

When you sing a song that has already been a hit for another artist \u2013 which is the case with several of the songs on this new album \u2013 how much notice do you take of the style in which the song was cut before?<\/b><\/p>\n

I just give it my own stamp. And it\u2019s very hard to do, mind you. It\u2019s very hard to do after somebody else [puts their] stamp and style on it, but I do.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m singing a lot differently now than I did when I first began; my style has really changed a lot, because I\u2019m growing rather than standing still. And the way I read into a lyric now is differently than I did before, because a lot of things have transpired in my life that have been a bit hard. For instance, I lost my wife [Patricia, in 2021]. And so, when I read a lyric now, it\u2019s a lot different. Her image always comes into my head and my heart. So it comes out a lot differently.<\/p>\n

With regard to music, I sometimes think of method actors, even though that\u2019s a very different thing from singing. They immerse themselves in the character that they\u2019re playing. And I wonder if that approach would have value for a ballad singer. Your songs always seem to completely convey the mood that they contain. When there\u2019s a session, do you do any kind of emotional preparation ahead of singing a particular song to get into that headspace?<\/p>\n

I consider myself a thespian of song. Because I think you have to be. Like an actor, you have to read your lines the way it\u2019s written. And like an actor, it comes through your eyes and through the expression of your face and your body language and all those things that go along with portraying your subject matter.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what I do on stage now. I live the part, and then you can see it in my expression. You don\u2019t have to move a lot. An actor, if he moves like this<\/i>, he goes out of the shot. And it\u2019s the same thing when you\u2019re on stage. You have to let [the audience] recognize your moves, and the more you are steady, the more you get across, I think. When you\u2019re moving around, it\u2019s for a different kind of song; not for a ballad, not for something you\u2019re telling a story with.<\/p>\n

To be continued\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romantic singer Engelbert Humperdinck is one of the most beloved singers in modern times. He\u2019s also one of the most prolific, with more than 100 albums released between his 1967 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26676,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,51],"tags":[3359],"class_list":["post-26674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-pop","tag-engelbert-humperdinck","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26674","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=26674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26678,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26674\/revisions\/26678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}