Did You Know...

Well, he changed it to Engelbert Humperdinck! He was born Arnold Dorsey in 1936, and since Dorsey was a pretty big music name as he was growing up, you have to wonder why he didn't stick with it. Instead, he took the name of a 19th-Century German composer best known for the opera Hänsel und Gretel. Since the mid-1960s, he could have called himself anything, and his good looks, onstage charm and rich voice would still have endeared him to his legion of fans.

Engelbert was born in India, while his father was in the military there. The family relocated to Leicester, England as he was approaching his teens, and young Arnold took up the saxophone. His first vocal performance, on a dare, was an impersonation of Jerry Lewis. Once people knew he could sing, they forced him to give up the sax and start belting out tunes. He might have hit the big time a few years sooner, but a bout of tuberculosis set him back in the early '60s.

When he first became known to American fans, it was as the melancholy mirror image of Tom Jones. Engelbert's first Top Ten single, from the summer of 1967, was 'Release Me (And Let Me Love Again).' He and the 'other' dark crooner from Great Britain took the American charts for their own through roughly 1970, with Tom Jones singing the saucy tunes, and Engelbert caressing his fans' ears with the songs of romantic tragedy. He logged big hits with 'There Goes My Everything,' 'The Last Waltz,' 'Am I That Easy to Forget' and 'A Man without Love.' There were as many tears as ticket stubs on the floor at Engelbert concerts in the late '60s.