Gig Stream/ Engelbert live

By Narendra Kusnur 

Event: Engelbert Humperdinck live from.home
Date: July 23
Genre: Evergreen
Rating: ****

(Link below)

At 84, singer Engelbert Humperdinck shows no signs of slowing down. We caught him suddenly on a live YouTube show which he gave from his home on Thursday, and for 40 minutes he sang to tracks and jived along.

Dressed in black, those characteristic sideburns unchanged, he began with his super-hit ‘Release Me’, which he described as a song which could apply to any situation. Besides his other hits ‘How I Love You’ and ‘The Last Waltz’ (“a song which people have danced to all over the world”), he presented his own interpretation of Bob Dylan's ‘Forever Young’, Bruno Mars’ ‘Just The Way You Are’ and Toby Keith's ‘Don’t Let The Old Man In’ (which has also been covered by country legend Willie Nelson on his new album). The free gig concluded appropriately with Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Smile’.

A couple of months ago, Canadian star Neil Sedaka, known for his smash ‘O Carol’, did a similar live performance from his home. Overall, Humperdinck’s songs were more familiar, though one enjoyed both shows for their own reasons.

A rage in the 1960s and 1970s, Humperdinck was born Arnold George Dorsey in Madras. This writer met him at the Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai, in 2005 on the eve of his concert at the Jamshed Bhabha Hall. The interview was fixed up at short notice and there wasn’t any time to arrange a CD to be autographed.

To jot down notes, I was using a pen with a red refill, and I requested him to sign at the back of the publicity photograph. He said for reasons of superstition, he never used a red pen. It took a few minutes to arrange a pen with blue ink, but he waited patiently, narrating stories.

His show was a memorable experience. I had a press pass and next to me was an elderly lady ticking off one more entry from her bucket list. “Aren't you too young for Engelbert?” she asked before the show began. Once the show began, I'm sure she had another opinion, and I was lucky she didn’t drag me to dance in the aisles.

The treats that day were ‘The Last Waltz”, ‘Release Me’, 'Spanish Eyes', ‘Love Will Set You Free’, ‘Quando Quando Quando’ and a mind-blowing version of Frank Sinatra's ‘My Way’. Even 15 years later, one gets gooseflesh just thinking of his ‘My Way’ and playing it in your inward mind.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v9mzgbar9vQ&feature=youtu.be