A Quick note. Those covers I posted a while back? As I suspected, I got the track lists about 5 minutes after that post went up (OK, it was more like 2 days, but still...). Anyway, minus vids or audio, I didn't have anything more to say about them, so I'm just putting them up on the Previews page. Mitch Ryder and Thor are up there already. Martina McBride is coming, but I gotta be up early this morning. Haven't decided what to do with Shatner, yet. And we're still waiting for a track list from the Mavericks. Now, on to Engelbert.
Born Arnold George Dorsey on 1936, the immediate question that comes to mind is...why would you change your name to Engelbert Humperdinck? To the extent we have any answer to that, it's because Enge had been playing and recording as Gerry Dorsey for a decade and not making any headway. So the name change was meant as a way of shedding the past and starting anew with a name which would make people stand up and take notice. (An aside: I used to work at a radio station where the owner changed the call letters to something totally ridiculous. When he'd tell people at cocktail parties the name of the station he owned, they'd laugh out loud. When asked why he choose those call letters when people were laughing at them, he said it was better than getting no reaction at all, as the old call letters had.) The name is actually borrowed from a 19th century composer of operas.
1. Please Come Home For Christmas 2. Driving Home For Christmas 3. Christmas Song 4. I'll Be Home For Christmas 5. Snowy Christmas (Medley) 6. A Christmas For The Family 7. Silently Falls The Snow 8. O Tannenbaum 9. Still Still Still 10. Silent Night 11. Around The Christmas Tree 12. White Christmas 13. What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? 14. Leise Rieselt der Schnee |

Engelbert's first Christmas album, "Christmas Tyme", was released in 1977. There have been several Christmas titles since, but I couldn't tell you how many were all new or re-packagings. I don't think I have a single Engelbert track in my entire collection, Christmas or not. Just sayin'.
Now 82, Engelbert's vocals sound pretty much as strong as ever (at least from the light sampling I've done lately). So you know what you're in for on "Warmest Christmas Wishes".
There are two all new songs on "Warmest Christmas Wishes"--"Christmas For The Family" and "Around The Christmas Tree". Additionally, Engelbert wrote English lyrics for the German carol "Silently Falls The Snow". The "Christmas Song" you see listed as track 3 is not "Chestnuts Roasting", but Gilbert O'Sullivan's rarely covered Christmas song. Engelbert also covers Chris Rea's "Driving Home For Christmas" and Charles Brown's "Please Come Home For Christmas". If you want to hear that last one, Billboard has the exclusive audio.
"Warmest Christmas Wishes" by Engelbert Humperdinck will drop on October 12. And he'll have a PBS special later this year, as well (in which he'll sing some of his Christmas selections alongside some of his biggest hits). Since no one granted us an exclusive audio clip (sad emoji), I'm calling an audible and closing with the song I know and like, "After The Lovin'". Peace out, dudes and dudettes.