Singer Engelbert Humperdinck has credited karaoke for keeping his music alive “all these years” ahead of his 89th birthday.
The Leicester-raised singer has revealed he will be spending his birthday with “family and a few friends” and said he may even take part in a spot of karaoke himself.
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.
Speaking about how his music has endured, the Release Me singer said: “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.”
Humperdinck was left heartbroken in 2021 when his wife of 56 years, British actress Patricia Healey, died aged 85 due to complications related to Covid-19. She had also been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
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.
Humperdinck took on his famous stage name in 1965 after borrowing it from a famous German composer with the same name. In a previous interview, he described himself as a “struggling young man who was looking for an opportunity to get into show business” before his manager Gordon Mills handed out the names of composers to his three artists at the time.
He first met his wife at the start of his career in 1953, describing the moment as love at first sight during a chance meeting with then 17-year-old Healey. “I met her on a dance floor, and we’ve been dancing together ever since,” he said in 2020.
The couple went on to have four children together and split their time between their homes in the UK and California before her death.
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