Changes and Release Me
In 1965, Dorsey teamed up with his former roommate, Gordon Mills, who had become a music impresario and the manager of Tom Jones. Aware that Dorsey had been struggling for several years to become successful in the music industry, Mills suggested a name-change to the more arresting Engelbert Humperdinck, borrowed from the German 19th-century composer of operas such as Hansel and Gretel. Mills also arranged a new deal for him with Decca Records. Dorsey has been performing under this name ever since, although in Germany he only uses Engelbert as his stage name since Humperdinck's family disallowed him to use the last name on stage.
Humperdinck enjoyed first real success during July 1966 in Belgium, where he and four others represented England in the annual Knokke song contest. In October of the same year, he was on stage in Mechelen. Humperdinck also made a mark on the Belgian charts with "Dommage, Dommage" and an early music video was filmed, with him in the harbour of Zeebrugge.
In the mid 1960s Humperdinck visited famed German songwriter Bert Kaempfert at his house in Spain and was offered arrangements of three songs - "Spanish Eyes", "Strangers in the Night" and "Wonderland by Night". He returned to London where he recorded all three songs. Realising the potential of "Strangers in the Night" he asked manager Gordon Mills if it could be released as a single, but was refused since the song had already been requested by Frank Sinatra.
In early 1967 the changes paid off when Humperdinck's version of "Release Me", recorded in a smooth ballad style with a full chorus joining him on the third refrain, made the top ten on both sides of the Atlantic and number one in Britain, keeping The Beatles' adventurous "Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane" from the top slot in the UK. Another groundbreaking video showed Engelbert tied up with a lasso. "Release Me" spent 56 weeks in the Top 50 in a single chart run. "Release Me" was believed to have sold 85,000 copies a day at the height of its popularity, and for years, it was the best known of his songs.
Humperdinck's easygoing style and good looks, a contrast to Tom Jones's energetic and overtly sexual style, earned Humperdinck a large following, particularly among women. His hardcore female fans, who included the young Princess Anne, called themselves "Humperdinckers". "Release Me" was succeeded by two more hit ballads, "There Goes My Everything" and "The Last Waltz", earning him a reputation as a crooner, a description which he disputed: "If you are not a crooner," he told The Hollywood Reporter writer Rick Sherwood, "it's something you don't want to be called. No crooner has the range I have. I can hit notes a bank could not cash. What I am is a contemporary singer, a stylised performer."
In 1968, the single "A Man Without Love" reached number two in the UK Singles Chart and the album of the same name reached number three. By the end of the 1960s, Humperdinck's roster of songs included "Am I That Easy to Forget", "A Man Without Love", "Les Bicyclettes de Belsize", "The Way It Used To Be", "I'm A Better Man", and "Winter World of Love". He also recorded, during this time, a number of successful albums that would form the bedrock of his fame, including Release Me, The Last Waltz, A Man Without Love, and Engelbert Humperdinck. His own television programme, The Engelbert Humperdinck Show, was less successful, being cancelled after six months.
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