#Roger whittaker roger whittaker professional#

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.

#Roger whittaker roger whittaker professional#

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. 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. and began attending Bangor University in Wales, where he studied science with the intention of furthering his teaching career. 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. 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. His father, Edward Whittaker, owned a grocery store, for which his mother, Viola Whittaker, kept the books she later worked as a teacher. The son of immigrants from Staffordshire, England, Whittaker was born in Nairobi, Kenya, on March 22, 1936. 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. 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. Although his initial hits were self-written, he quickly turned largely to interpretive singing as he recorded prolifically. 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.