|
Roger Whittaker (born 22 March 1936) is an Anglo-Kenyan singer-songwriter and musician with worldwide record sales of over 55 million. His music can be described as easy listening. He is best known for his baritone singing voice and trademark whistling ability. American audiences are most familiar with his 1970 hit "New World in the Morning" and his 1975 hit "The Last Farewell," the latter of which is his only single to hit the Billboard Hot 100 (it made the Top 20) and also hit #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
Whittaker's parents, Edward and Viola, were originally from Staffordshire, England, where they owned and operated a grocery shop. His father had a motorcycle accident and the family moved to a farm near Thika, Kenya because of the warmer climate. 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 spent two years in the Kenya Regiment. In 1956 he was demobilized and decided 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 service education department to try teaching.
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 Bangor University and received a B.Sc. degree. 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 was a cover version of "Steel Men", released in June 1962.
Whittaker met Natalie O'Brien in the spring of 1964 and they married on 15 August of that year. They have five children: Emily (b. May 28, 1968), Lauren (b. June 4, 1970), Jessica (b. February 14, 1973), Guy (b. November 15, 1974), and Alexander (b. April 7, 1978). They now have nine grandchildren.
In 1966, Whittaker switched from Fontana to EMI's Columbia label. His fourth single for the imprint was "Durham Town (The Leavin')", which in 1969 became Whittaker's first UK Top 20 hit. Whittaker's US label, RCA Victor, released the uptempo "New World In The Morning" in 1970, where it became a Top 20 hit in Billboard magazine's Easy Listening chart.
1975 saw EMI release "The Last Farewell", a track from his 1971 New World in The Morning album. It became his biggest hit and a signature song, selling more than 11 million copies worldwide. 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 coming third. Whittaker recorded the song himself and the single charted in several European countries. Whittaker also established himself in country music with "I Love You Because" getting "into the lower reaches of the country chart" in late 1983. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Whittaker had success in Germany, with German language songs produced by Nick Munro. Unable to speak German, Whittaker sang the songs phonetically. He appeared on German and Danish TV several times, and was on the UK Top Of The Pops show 10 times in the early to mid 1970s.
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 that he will limit future performances to "occasional concerts". Now more fluent in German, he was seen singing and was interviewed in German on Danish TV in November 2008.
In recent years he has been living in Eyrecourt, County Galway, Ireland, close to the River Shannon.
|
