John Mackswith,
Erik Robertson,
Hayward Parrott,
Chet Atkins
Born: March 22, 1936, Nairobi, Kenya
Active: '70s, '80s, '90s
Genres: Vocal Music
Instrument: Vocals
Representative Albums: "Greatest Hits," "Voyager," "New World in the Morning: The Encore Collection"
Representative Songs: "The Last Farewell," "New World in the Morning," "Mexican Whistler"
Biography
With his avuncular appearance and rich baritone, African-born British pop singer Roger Whittaker seemed like a late successor to Bing Crosby when he emerged into worldwide popularity in the '70s. Although his initial hits were self-written, he quickly turned largely to interpretive singing as he recorded prolifically. With the front line of the popular music business dominated by young performers playing pop/rock, he and his music soon encountered resistance from radio and the music press. Also, the U.S. was one of the last regions of the world to acknowledge him, and he never focused primarily on America, resulting in an underestimation of his stardom stateside, where he was thought of as a one-hit wonder for "The Last Farewell." But he maintained a large following in Europe and the Far East where he performed frequently, resulting in sales that were estimated at 40 million albums worldwide by the early '90s.
The son of immigrants from Staffordshire, England, Whittaker was born in Nairobi, Kenya, on March 22, 1936. His father, Edward Whittaker, owned a grocery store, for which his mother, Viola Whittaker, kept the books; she later worked as a teacher. He took up the guitar at the age of seven and learned to sing songs in Swahili, but did not think of music as a career until much later. In 1956, he entered the University of Cape Town, South Africa as a medical student, but flunked out in his second year and returned to Nairobi, where he taught primary school and performed in nightclubs. In September 1959, he moved to the U.K. and began attending Bangor University in Wales, where he studied science with the intention of furthering his teaching career. But he continued to sing in clubs, and in the early '60s, a few of his recordings were issued on flexi-discs included with a campus publication, the Bangor University Rag, and credited to Hank & the Mellomen, to raise money for charity. This brought him to the attention of Fontana Records, which signed him to a contract and released his first professional single, "The Charge of the Light Brigade," credited to Rog Whittaker, in 1962. His second single was a cover of American country singer Jimmy Dean's "Steel Men." It gave him his first chart entry near the bottom of the New Musical Express Top 30 in June 1962, just as he was passing his final exams. So, instead of going on for his PhD, he acquired a manager and turned to singing full-time, soon gaining a residency on This and That, a television show in Ulster, Northern Ireland. The next few years he struggled to make a living on the British cabaret circuit, but in the spring of 1967 he won a prize at the Knokke Song Festival in Belgium, leading to recordings of his composition "The Mexican Whistler" and his version of "If I Were a Rich Man" from the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Both became hits in Europe, breaking him as a headlining concert attraction on the continent.
By 1968, Whittaker had switched record labels to EMI, which released his discs on its Columbia imprint (no relation to the American Columbia Records). In the fall of 1969, he scored his first Top 20 hit in Britain with the self-written "Durham Town (The Leavin')." He was signed to RCA Victor Records for the U.S., and in the spring of 1970 another of his compositions, the sunny, uptempo "New World in the Morning," became a Top 20 hit on the American Easy Listening chart. At the same time, his British single was the melodramatic, anti-war original "I Don't Believe in 'If' Anymore," which reached the pop Top Ten. In the U.S., "I Don't Believe in 'If' Anymore" followed "New World in the Morning" and became a Top 30 Easy Listening hit that summer; in the U.K., "New World in the Morning" followed "I Don't Believe in 'If' Anymore" and became a Top 20 pop hit that fall. In the U.S., RCA released Whittaker's first American album, New World in the Morning, while in the U.K., an album titled I Don't Believe in "If" Anymore gave him his first chart LP as he accepted offers to host a children's television show and a radio series. ("New World in the Morning" went on to become one of his more valuable copyrights as a songwriter, earning covers by Eddy Arnold and Al Martino, among others.)
Whittaker continued his success on both sides of the Atlantic and, indeed, around the world, in 1971. The philosophical "Why?," for which he had composed the music to a lyric submitted by amateur writer Joan Stanton as part of a contest on his radio show, reached the American Easy Listening chart and the British pop chart, and it won the U.K.'s coveted Ivor Novello songwriting award for 1971-1972. Whittaker also returned to Britain LP chart with his New World in the Morning album and made the U.K. Top 40 with "Mammy Blue." He also released the album A Special Kind of Man, which included "The Last Farewell," a romantic ballad of war and separation he had composed and set to lyrics sent in by another amateur writer, Ron Webster, as part of the same radio competition that produced "Why?"
Whittaker had another British television series in 1972, this time one for grown-ups, and he continued to record and perform around the world over the next few years, though without coming up with another hit. Then in the winter of 1975 "The Last Farewell" belatedly began to attract attention in the U.S. after the wife of an Atlanta radio programmer heard it on vacation in Canada and induced her husband to put it on the air. The four-year-old track was released as a single that topped the easy listening chart and made the Top 20 of the pop chart, before going on to become an international hit with reported sales of 11 million copies. It peaked at number two in the U.K. during the summer and won Whittaker a second Ivor Novello Award. (It also attracted numerous cover versions, including one by Elvis Presley on his 1976 LP From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee.) Meanwhile, RCA (which had previously dropped Whittaker and then hastily re-signed him) released the compilation album The Last Farewell and Other Hits in the U.S., and the LP reached the Top 40 of the pop charts and the Top Ten of the country charts on its way to gold-record certification. In Britain, the compilation The Very Best of Roger Whittaker reached the Top Ten.
As he turned 40 in 1976, Whittaker undertook his first U.S. tour. "Durham Town (The Leavin')" belatedly made the easy listening chart, followed in mid-year by the Top 20 "The First Hello, The Last Goodbye," co-written by the singer. In the U.K., his chart LP for the year was The Second Album of the Very Best of Roger Whittaker. He returned to the American easy listening chart in February 1977 with "Before She Breaks My Heart," and while RCA's release of The Best of Roger Whittaker in March never made the charts, it sold well enough over the next several years to be certified gold in 1980. Meanwhile, he hosted another TV series, Whittaker's World of Music, in Britain in 1977.
From the late '70s into the early '80s, Whittaker continued to score minor chart entries in the U.S. and the U.K. while touring around the world. In America, his Easy Listening/Adult Contemporary chart entries were "If I Knew Just What to Say" (1978) and the self-penned "You Are My Miracle" (1979), while his albums When I Need You (1979), Mirrors of My Mind (1979), Voyager (1980), Roger Whittaker with Love (1980), and Live in Concert (1981) made the bottom half of the Top 200. In the U.K., the chart hits were all compilation albums: Roger Whittaker Sings the Hits (1978), 20 All Time Greats (1979), and The Roger Whittaker Album (1981). He also addressed his non-English-speaking audience by singing phonetically in other languages, releasing Mein Deutsches Album in West Germany in 1979, for example. In 1982, he scored a number one hit in West Germany with "Albany," and the same year he returned to Kenya for the first time in two decades, commemorating the occasion with the 1984 album and documentary In Kenya: A Musical Safari.
He had toured the U.S. in 1980, but he didn't return until 1983. In the late '70s, he had launched his own Tembo Records company (tembo is the word for elephant in Swahili). Tembo licensed his recordings to Main Street Records in the U.S., and the label made a push to establish him as a country singer, getting "I Love You Because" into the lower reaches of the country chart in late 1983 and achieving a six-month country chart run for All Time Heart Touching Favorites in 1984. But by 1985, he was back to releasing his records through RCA in the U.S. In the fall of 1986, he returned to the British Top Ten with "The Skye Boat Song," in a duet with comedian Des O'Conner, and he continued to chart LPs in the U.K. occasionally over the next decade: Skye Boat Song and Other Great Songs (1986), His Finest Collection (1987), Home Lovin' Man (1989), and A Perfect Day -- His Greatest Hits & More (1996). Often, his albums repackaged older recordings with perhaps one or two new tracks. Thus, if he did make a new album, it was an event. When Awakening appeared on RCA in the U.S. in 1999, a sticker affixed to the front cover proclaimed: "The first totally original Whittaker album in over seven years. Contains all new material!"
After completing a tour of Germany (by then his strongest market) in 2001, a 65-year-old Whittaker announced his retirement from performing and settled down with his wife of 37 years in Ireland. Like many musical performers, however, he was unable to hold to this declaration and was back on tour in Germany in 2003, with plans for more recordings and concerts planned years ahead. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
Roger Whittaker (born March 22, 1936 in Nairobi, Kenya) is a Kenyan-born English singer/songwriter and musician with worldwide record sales of more than 55 million. His music can be described as easy listening. He is best known for his baritone singing voice and trademark whistling ability.
Whittaker's parents, Edward and Viola, were originally from Staffordshire, England, where they owned and operated a grocery shop. His father was involved in a motorcycle accident, and the family moved to a farm in Kenya because of the warmer climate. That Whittaker would eventually become a musician was no surprise, since his grandfather sang in various clubs, and his father played the violin. Roger learned to play the guitar.
Whittaker was drafted into national service, and he spent two years in uniform in the Kenya Regiment. In 1956, he was demobilized and decided that it was time to concentrate on a career in medicine. He enrolled at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
He left the university after 18 months and joined the civil serviceeducation department to try teaching.
Recording and performing career
To further his teaching career, Whittaker moved to Britain in September 1959. For the next three years, he studied zoology, biochemistry, and marine biology at the University of Wales, Bangor and received a B.Sc. He was one of the brightest students in his class.[citation needed] He continued to sing in local clubs, and released some of his songs on flexi-discs included with the campus newspaper, the Bangor University Rag. Shortly afterwards, he was signed to Fontana Records who released his first professional single, "The Charge of The Light Brigade," in 1962.
In the summer of 1962, he appeared at a professional gig in Portrush, Northern Ireland. He landed his first major breakthrough when he was signed to appear on an Ulster Television show called "This And That." His second single, and the first to break into the UK Top 30 charts, was a Jimmy Dean cover of "Steel Men," released in June 1962.
In the spring of 1964, Roger met Natalie O'Brien, and they were married on August 15 of that year. They have five children: Emily (May 28, 1968), Lauren (June 4, 1970), Jessica (February 14, 1973), Guy (November 15, 1974), and Alexander (April 7, 1978).
In 1968, Whittaker had switched record labels, and in the autumn of 1969 EMI had released "Durham Town (The Leavin')," which became Whittaker's first Top 20 hit in Britain. In the spring of 1970, RCA Victor Records had released the uptempo "New World In The Morning" in the United States, where it became a Top 20 hit in the Easy Listening chart.
In 1975, Whittaker first recorded "The Last Farewell," which would become his biggest hit and a signature song, selling over 11 million copies worldwide. Whittaker also established himself in country music with "I Love You Because" entering into the country chart in late 1983. In 1979, Whittaker wrote the song Call My Name which reached the final of the UK Eurovision selection, A Song For Europe, performed by Eleanor Keenan and placing third. Whittaker recorded the song himself and the single charted in several European countries.
All of Whittaker's chart hits were issued by EMI. However, although the albums were issued in vinyl, cassette and 8-track versions during this timeframe, no CD version of these original albums has ever been issued. Most recordings currently available have been re-recorded and are credited to Whittaker's 'Tembo' label.
In the 1970s and '80s, Whittaker had a lot of success in Germany, with songs produced by Nick Munro. Whittaker couldn't speak German, but sang the songs phonetically. He appeared on German and Danish TV several times [1], and was on the UK Top Of The Pops show ten times in the early to mid '70s.
In 1986, he published his autobiography, So Far, So Good, co-written with his wife.
In March 2006, Whittaker announced on his website that a 2007 Germany tour would be his last, and he will limit future performances to "occasional concerts." It would appear he has learned to speak German, as he was seen singing and then being interviewed in German on TV (in Denmark) at the end of November (29th?) 2008.
In recent years he has been living in Ireland, close to the river Shannon.
Tours
In 1976, Whittaker undertook his first tour of the United States.
In 2003 he again toured Germany. After recovering from heart problems at the end of 2004, he started touring in Germany in 2005, and then in UK from May to July. During August this year Roger became a founder member and president of the National Society of Brown Bears. This is a philanthropic society created to provide financial and moral support to large mammals.
Awards
In his career to date, Whittaker has won over 250 silver, gold and platinum albums.
He was part of a successful British team that won the annual Knokke music festival in Belgium and won the Press Prize as the personality of the festival.
Ivor Novello awards (twice) for songwriting in 1971-72 and for The Last Farewell in 1975-76 (?) (unconfirmed - e-mail query pending)
Gold Badge Award, from the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters in 1988 [2]
Golden Tuning Fork (Goldene Stimmgabel in Germany) in 1986, based on record sales and TV viewer votes.
A Finnish band called Sleepy Sleepers recorded Kössi ja Roger (Kössi and Roger) as a tribute to Roger Whittaker. The story of the song involves Roger whistling while drinking and it leads to a heavy hangover. It also involves Kössi the Kangaroo and Roger escaping from the Mafia, which is led by Frutti Di Mare.
He recorded many of his hits in French, e.g. Durham Town became Mon Pays Bleu.
During the late 90's, several attempts were made by Native American run Barona Casino to recruit Whittaker as their spokesperson above famed musician Kenny Rogers. All attempts failed.
Despite the plethora of Greatest Hits CDs available, the original hit recordings of the songs Durham Town,The Last Farewell and New World in the Morning are available on only one known CD, 1997's New World in the Morning: The Encore Collection (BMG Special Products 44557-2, UPC 755174455728.) (This CD was also released in 2003 on the Collectables label as Collectables 9432, UPC 090431943229.) All other CDs contain newer, re-recorded versions of these songs.
The Last Farewell's instrumentals are used by WGN-TV, Chicago, as background for station breaks.
"New World in the Morning" is the theme music for Marcus Lush's breakfast show on New Zealand's Radio Live. Lush believes Whittaker has 'a song for every human emotion' and often takes listeners' calls about the singer.
In an episode of the TV series Life on Mars, DCI Hunt sheepishly admits to DI Tyler that he likes Whittaker's music, but not as much as his wife does. At the end of the episode, as Tyler is sleeping, his television suddenly flickers into life to show Whittaker performing "I Don't Believe In If Anymore".
The Swedish football team AIK uses the melody from "The Last Farewell" in its anthem Å vi e AIK. Before every game all the fans sing this anthem together as the team enters the field.
In 1982 Whittaker became the first artist to record Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley's "Wind Beneath My Wings." The song did not become a chart-making hit, however, until Gary Morris recorded it in 1983 for his album Why Lady Why, eventually peaking at #4 on the country charts.
During the last tour of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal at the end of the 1970s, the BBC produced a TV documentary of the men and the boat ("Home From The Sea"). The theme tune was of course "The Last Farewell," sung not by Roger but by the ship's crew and accompanied by the Royal Marine Band. It can be found on the album 'Top BBC TV Themes Vol.2'.
