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This weeks feature
Arnold Dorsey, alias Engelbert Humperdinck | The sixties may have been the decade of Bob Dylan, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones but it was also an era when a shy crooner, a generation removed from the flower children, sold millions of records and even kept the Fab Four off the top of the charts.
You suspect that no one was more surprised than Arnold Dorsey - better known as Engelbert Humperdinck - at the adulation, riches and fame that came his way, thanks to ‘The Last Waltz’ and ‘Release Me’, records that are, in their way, as iconic as any you care to mention from pop’s golden age. |
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“I’m basically a very shy person, so it’s not always been easy for me,” Engelbert said in a visit to the UK to promote his refreshingly candid autobiography, ‘What’s In A Name’. “At first I used to overcome my shyness by doing impersonations. It’s like an actor who loses himself in the character of the part they are playing - I would lose myself in the person I was imitating. I was totally inhibited and very shy and it was a way of escaping from myself.” |
His candid biography, 'What's in a Name' |
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Engelbert started singing seriously when he was 17, but always fancied himself more as a professional saxophone player. “The family was always singing around the piano and I could sing harmony very well, so I was the harmoniser in the family, but I never thought of myself as a singer.”
Engelbert’s career started when he won a pub singing contest, quickly gaining a reputation on the UK music circuit, going out as Gerry Dorsey. Only when he came under the wing of his manager, Gordon Mills, did Gerry become Engelbert, taking the name from a little-known German composer.
It was also mills who found the song, ‘Release Me’, that would make Engelbert a star. Originally performed by Esther Phillips, Engelbert made the song his own. “I performed it on a TV show broadcast from the London Palladium and immediately after that iwas was selling 80,000 to 90,000 copies a day.”
Engelbert’s autobiography reveals, with refreshing honesty, the temptations that were put in his way after his sudden success - the starlets, the Hollywood parties, the LA lifestyle. But at least he’s survived, which is more than can be said for his friend and idol Elvis Presley. |
Engelbert with Elvis |
“He was a wonderful man, and the greatest performer the world has ever known. I learned an awful lot from Elvis and, yes, I did steal a few things from him, but, if you’re going to steal from anybody, steal from the best. But then, he stole the sideburns from me, so it was a two-way thing!”
‘What’s In A Name’ published by Virgin Books, ISBN 1852272317 |
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