Customer Reviews

Engelbert Humperdinck Greatest Hits

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Born in Madras, India, in 1936, Arnold Dorsey, a.k.a. Englebert Humperdinck, became one of the best pop singers of the late 60's through the 70's, and even up to the present. This collection contains his greatest hits between the period of 1966 to 1969, plus 5 songs that weren't released as singles but were still very popular during that time...and of course, they still are. These are songs that will always be good to listen to. Booklet contains a 2 page essay about E.H, plus a U.K. & U.S. Singles Chart History, which is very informative.

This was released in 1986 by PolyGram/London, and while it has a few more tracks than the typical 10- to 12-track volumes that flooded the market at the dawn of the CD era, not to mention liner notes (two pages written by John Tracy), and a complete U.K./North American discography of the contents, it also has four selections (tracks 2, 4, 5, and 12) that were not among his "greatest hits" plus one (Ten Guitars) that was the uncharted B-side to Release Me (And Let Me Love Again), his first hit and a # 4 Billboard Pop Hot 100/# 38 Adult Contemporary (AC) in spring 1967.

With 33 such hits from that point to his last in 1983 (Til You And Your Lover Are Lovers Again - # 17 AC/# 77 Hot 100) it's not as if they didn't have 14 legitimate hits to draw upon! Even if they wanted to restrict the selections to the Parrot releases, 21 of his hits came out on that label.

Had they included these five in place of the ones mentioned above it would have been a 5-star release: My Marie (# 2 AC/# 43 Hot 100 in summer 1970); Sweetheart (# 2 AC/# 47 Hot 100 in November 1970); When There's No You (# 1 AC/# 45 Hot 100 in spring 1971); Another Time, Another Place (# 5 AC/# 43 Hot 100 in Late summer 1971); and In Time (# 12 AC/# 69 Hot 100 in summer 1972).

The AAD sound quality is excellent.

Engelbert is long overdue a three disc box set to contain some of the fantastic songs from the first dozen or so years of his nearly four decade long career, those melodies that hold so many memories, sung to perfection by "The King of Romance"; for now they are scattered among dozens of CDs, and to get all one's favorites means purchasing multitudes of compilations. Though practically all will include "Release Me", there are lesser known beauties that are "must haves". This is a terrific grouping, and the rarity on it is "Ten Guitars", and to a lesser extent "Everybody Knows (We're Through)", which is sung from a woman's point of view, and from his first "Release Me" LP, the wonderful Herman's Hermits hit "There's a Kind of Hush (All Over the World)", and "My World" (sometimes listed as "Il Mondo").

Also included is the song I could listen to for hours, "The Way it Used to Be", the exquisite "Les Bicyclettes de Belsize", and the waltz to end all waltzes, "The Last Waltz". These are all the original recordings, and the sound is O.K., though not as good when compared to "Ultimate Collection" or "Greatest Love Songs", which are two compilations that are on the top of the heap for excellence, and deserve to be in every Engelbert collection.
The booklet insert includes a mini bio and most appreciated, a U.K. and U.S. singles chart history from 1967 to 1970, and total playing time is 43'19.

The CD arrived very quickly before the reported date. I was happily surprised, CD was in excellent shape came to me as described. Look forward to doing more shopping from this buyer and Amazon.