The night Jimi Hendrix saved Engelbert Humperdinck [Video]

Born in Madras, India, Engelbert Humperdinck (real name: Arnold Dorsey) began his singing career as a teenager, but struggled for the best part of a decade before releasing a cover of Eddie Miller’s Release Me. It transported Engelbert to the top of the UK chart, famously keeping The Beatles‘ classic Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane double-header from the number one spot.

The release coincided with a UK package tour in the company of The Walker Brothers, Cat Stevens and Jimi Hendrix, a run of dates that opened at the Finsbury Park Astoria, where Hendrix set his guitar alight for the first time. Later on the same tour, he came to Humperdinck’s rescue, as the crooner relates below. 

“A couple of Jimi’s musicians used to play with me before they were with him. In the early sixties, when I was becoming established in the United Kingdom, I had Noel Redding and the drummer Eric Dillon …