Engelbert Humperdinck says karaoke kept his music alive ahead of 89th birthday

The Herald Scotland

01-05-2025

Humperdinck, who will celebrate his birthday on Friday, will perform more than 60 concerts across the world this year, after realising he needed to carry on singing following his The Last Waltz farewell tour last year.
Humperdinck said karaoke had kept his music alive (Chris Radburn/PA)
Speaking about how his music has endured, the Release Me singer told PA: 'Some of my songs are as fresh today as they were when I recorded them over 50 years ago, and of course, I'm very big with karaoke.
'Most of my songs are on karaoke because people love to sing them, and of course, that's what kept it alive all these many years, and I'm very happy about that.'
Speaking about his own karaoke choices, he added: 'I try to sing somebody else's songs.
'I remember once I was in Hong Kong, and we went to have a meal at a Japanese restaurant, and they had karaoke there, and they were bringing it around to all the tables.
'So I decided to sing couple of my songs, that was the first time for a long time I've done that, and people were coming in from the other room to hear me sing, which was fantastic.'
He said a long period of time spent at home after his last tour had convinced him to return to performing.
Humperdinck said: 'I've spent January, February, March, and part of April at home, and I was climbing the wall.
'So I got on the phone with my manager, and I said, 'this is not going to work out', I said, 'I've got to get back to work', I said, 'I'm climbing the wall'.
'So anyway, I put and end to The Last Waltz, and I'm back on my feet, ready to go and tour the world for as long as God keeps my voice in shape.'
The singer, who was born in India, said that when he started out, he did not think his career was 'going to last'.
He said: 'I've been in the business now 58 years successfully, and things are still looking up on me, because I've just finished an album with Cleopatra Records, and it's a different kind of music that I've recorded this time, and it's unusual for me to do this sort of thing at this time in my life.
'But it all of a sudden it came to me and I decided to do it, and it's all songs from the big bands of the 80s, people like Aerosmith and Kiss, and The Cars, and Journey and people like that.
'I've taken good songs off their albums and I've recorded it my way.'
Humperdinck, whose real name is Arnold Dorsey, said he had seen younger fans coming to his recent concerts after his 1968 song A Man Without Love featured in an episode of BBC drama Call The Midwife.
He explained: 'It's an unbelievable, because I recorded the song 50 years ago, and they used it in the show right at the beginning and right at the end, and they played the whole song all the way through.
'And the young people watched this program, and I was getting a lot of new faces in the audiences, and these young people wanted to know what an Engelbert Humperdinck was all about.
'And of course, I welcomed them into the Humperdinck trail, and I've got a brand new audience of young people now because of that, that particular song in that particular show.'
Since beginning his career in the 1950s, Humperdinck has had eight UK top 10 singles and two UK number one albums, he is best known for songs such as Release Me, The Last Waltz and There Goes My Everything.