Today Engelbert Humperdinck returned to HPR’s All Things Considered for a conversation with Honolulu Host Dave Lawrence ahead of his Saturday Blaisdell gig, even offering an impromptu poetry reading!
After recording a PBS-TV special here last year, Engelbert is back with his Angel On My Shoulder tour, named after a track on the new release Reflections, an EP that also includes Don’t Let The Old Man In and You. He performs Saturday at the Blaisdell Concert Hall as part of ANA Honolulu Music Week, but we get him first!
The gifted storyteller offers some memorable experiences with Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Jr, Dean Martin, John Lennon and other luminaries, plus a riveting tale about his early 1970’s Houston Astrodome concert, which saw Engelbert enter on horseback.
MORE ENGELBERT:
Hear the complete new interview:
Read the complete text to Engelbert's new poem, "Hawaii", that he read during the interview:
Hawaii
On approaching the magnificence of nature’s blessed land, the ever-present aroma of scented flowers garland the moment with its special aromatic presence, romantic melodies filling the air, attaching itself to the shapely, tanned, colourful attired body lines of the islands.
Beautiful people using sensitive gestures, as figures of beauty sway to the rhythm of that special harmonious sound.
Eyes feast as Hawaii feeds visitors in awe of one of the wonders of the world, sea breezes find a way to wander all day and into the stealth of night, comforting, exhilarating, exciting, enchanting, sending a perfume off the highest mountain with a scintillating fragrance as heads raise to capture the moment, and the beaches caress the feet with shoes of white sand, as you walk down towards the shores listing terrain, to cool one's being in its oceanic magnificence.
So my plea is ... don’t just fantasize, experience it, for this land is a more than dream.
-Engelbert
See Engelbert with Dave in a 2018 hotel interview:
https://youtu.be/YVHLLJYXrR8">Hear a May 2018 interview with Engelbert and Dave.
https://youtu.be/MkOSlEl_0eY">Hear a July 2018 interview with Engelbert and Dave.
See his new video for "You":
Find more interviews and features from Dave Lawrence.
