Almost sixty years ago Englebert Humperdinck enjoyed the biggest hit of his career with a grand tearjerker of a ballad called ‘Release Me’. In 1967 it hit #1 in eleven countries and spent fifty six consecutive weeks on the UK charts. Now Englebert is embarking, at 87 years young, on The Last Waltz Farewell Tour, which is quickly selling out venues all over the country.
On a video call from his home in America, the singer still looks a million dollars. The American sunshine is a lifetime away from where he began his career in the working men’s clubs of Britain.
“I started off doing an engineering job,” Englebert recalls today. “My Dad said ‘You need a proper job’. That lasted a year and I said ‘Dad, I can’t do this’. I started singing in a working men’s club. Everyone was having a pint of beer and then getting up to sing. I thought I’d have a go. When I’d finished I had people all around me asking me who my agent was. I was only seventeen. That gave me the courage to sing. If you can sing in a working men’s club and please them, you can please a crowd anywhere. They’re a tough mob. If they didn’t like you, they’d throw a pint over you.”
Englebert slogged it out for years in those clubs waiting for his big break. He wanted to emulate the great Nat King Cole, because he felt Cole “knew how to mould a ballad to suit his voice”. While waiting to find his own ballad, a shot at the big time almost didn’t happen.
On his manager’s advice he changed his name from Gerry Dorsey to Englebert Humperdinck and eventually cut ‘Release Me’. On release, the song appeared on Jukebox Jury and the panel voted a resounding ‘no’ with regards to it being a hit.
“I thought it was a hit from the get-go,” explains Englebert, “but after Jukebox Jury it sat on the shelf for about three months, and I was wondering if it was going to take off. It had some promotion prior to being released, but never something really big. That finally came with a television appearance on a program called Sunday Night at the London Palladium. A friend of mine Dickie Valentine got sick and I took his place at that particular show and the very next day it started selling 80, 000 copies a day and then 90, 000 copies a day. It went up to 127, 000 copies a day.”
Famously the song kept the Beatles juggernaut double A-side ‘Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane’ off the top spot and led to a slew of hits for the singer that included ‘The Last Waltz’, ‘There Goes My Everything’ and more.
Despite his reputation as a balladeer, Humperdinck had some serious rock n’ roll friends. Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page worked as a session guitarist on ‘Release Me’ and Englebert also shared the bill on a tour with Jimi Hendrix. One night when Englebert’s guitarist fell ill, Jimi stepped in.
“He said ‘Don’t worry man, I’ll play for you’,” laughs Englebert at the thought. “I told him he couldn’t do that, he was a star. So he stood behind the curtain with his music laid out and played. It sounded like three guitars back there. He was a lovely person, he’d give you the coat off his back. In fact, I complimented his army tunic one day and he offered to give it to me!”
At the height of his fame Englebert counted Elvis Presley as a friend, and his stable mate Tom Jones as a sometimes friend and sometimes rival. It irked him when the manager Englebert shared with Jones, Mills, ‘didn’t show the same care; for (my) career as he did for Jones or Gilbert O’Sullivan”. Jones was often given ‘most of the good songs’, or Mills threw film scripts pitched to Englebert in the bin without the singer seeing them as he wanted him in a studio rather than on set for six months.
It’s a frustration that continues to this day. Englebert recently discovered the mega-selling Gorillaz tried to get him on a song and were told ‘No’ by Englebert’s management. The move led to Englebert finding ‘new management’. Still, little dampens the singer’s enthusiasm.
“What’s happen is in the past. What’s gone is gone. I live in the now. I don’t regret anything that has gone bad … and I was taken for a lot of money.”
The singer is still keen to record new material and is currently working on a new album, the details of which are hush-hush.
“I’m working on a concept record,”: he says. “It’s out of my comfort zone, but we’re working on it right now. By the time I get to Australia I’ll have part of it finished. I’m hoping the whole album will be finished in two or three months. It’s different. I can’t tell you too much.”
As for the tour, Englebert will keep singing for audiences as long as he is physically able.
“I really don’t know,” he muses. “We’ve called it “The Last Waltz”. People have their last tours and they tour it for five years. Cher’s been on her final tour for about six years. It’s important to keep a good mindset.
With me it’s in the lap of the gods. How far it goes? We’ll see.”
Sean Sennett
ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK TOUR DATES 2024:
Monday 13 th May
QPAC, Brisbane QLD
***NEW SHOW JUST ANNOUNCED***
Tuesday 14 th May
QPAC, Brisbane QLD
***SOLD OUT***
Thursday 16 th May
The Star, Gold Coast, QLD
***FINAL TICKETS***
Saturday 18 th May
Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide SA
***SOLD OUT***
Monday 20 th May
Sydney Opera House, Sydney NSW
***SOLD OUT***
Thursday 23 rd May
Hamer Hall, Melbourne VIC
***SOLD OUT***
Saturday 25 th May
Riverside Theatre – PCEC, Perth
