Engelbert Humperdinck

• Genre: Vocal-Pop
• Hometown: Madras

About

As the butt of innumerable grade-school jokes and generally considered the cheesiest of all pop music cheese-brokers, Engelbert Humperdinck's incredible, seemingly unstoppable popularity among women of a certain, uh, advanced age is something of a marvel. It could be the rough-hewn looks and tight pants but more likely what draws the crowds is Humperdinck's singular voice and natural talent for performing. With a vocal range perfectly suited to his material (the best of which has always been slicked-up versions of country ballads), this velvet-tonsiled Big and Tall preferred customer is well aware of his kitsch status, and he embraces it con gusto, paradoxically making him one of the more unaffected performers in the MOR milieu. Laugh all you want, but Humperdinck has been selling out concerts for some thirty years now and his fan club is the largest in the world, topping them all with a staggering eight million registered members. As they say, eight million fans can't be wrong.

- Mike McGuirk