Roger Whittaker -- The Last Farewell

 

I'll be doing the weekly Reminiscings of Youth post today rather than the usual Thursday because there are some plans for tomorrow, and I did want to focus on one particular folk singer-songwriter. Roger Whittaker passed away about a week ago although I didn't find out about his death at the age of 87 until yesterday. I've often mentioned about seeing those old K-Tel record commercials hawking those disco hits on television when I was a child. Well, Whittaker was another subject of K-Tel as you can see above and yep, that's how I got to know him.

There was one song that I will always remember Whittaker for. "The Last Farewell" was a song that was released in 1971 and it stood out at that time among all of the sunshine pop, psychedelic rock and Motown soul that was inhabiting music. Created by the singer and Ron A. Webster, it was a heroic ballad about a man leaving the love of his life to head out to sea and to go into battle hundreds of years previously...with the hint that he probably won't be coming back home. Now, how did a song like that become a hit?

Well, reading the Wikipedia article about "The Last Farewell", I found out that Whittaker had hosted a radio programme in his native UK, and one of the things that he did was ask listeners to send any poetry or lyrics to him so that they could be made into songs. Silversmith Webster was one of the lucky ones to get through and "The Last Farewell" was created, becoming "...one of the fifty all-time singles to have sold 10 million (or more) physical copies worldwide".

I was in elementary school when I first heard the ballad and the part that always got me was the intro and the outro when those French horns played. It really felt like a heroic ship was about to weigh anchor for the voyage into glorious combat. Not surprisingly, a lot of people felt the same way. After that, I've placed French horns alongside the Fender Rhodes and a cool bass (wood and electric) as my favourite instruments to be heard. It's ironic then that my own personal experience with the French horn was so horrible in junior high school band class. I couldn't blast enough air through that miniscule mouthpiece to make any sound whatsoever and so I made my transition to the clarinet instead.

The other great instrument on display in "The Last Farewell" was Whittaker himself. His voice was so warm and oaken that it was the musical equivalent of a Normal Rockwell painting, and he could have rivaled Burl Ives over who would read "The Night Before Christmas" on Xmas Eve in my mind. That's probably why I had assumed that he was American instead of British for many years. As for the song, it hit No. 9 in Canada while in the United States, it reached No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 but it did reach the No. 1 spot on the Adult Contemporary chart there. My condolences to Whittaker's family, friends and fans.

There were a couple of kayo kyoku from that year which earned Popularity Awards at the Japan Record Awards.

Koji Tsuruta -- Kizu Darake no Jinsei （傷だらけの人生）

Masaaki Sakai -- Saraba, Koibito （さらば、恋人）