Folk artist Roger Whittaker dies at 87. He was well known for his 1969 hit Durham Town and his amazing whistling.
Wind Beneath My Wings from 1982, Durham Town, The Last Farewell, and New World in the Morning are some of his best-known songs. He began writing songs and giving performances at Welsh folk clubs in the summer of 1962, when he was 26 years old and enrolled at the University of Bangor to study zoology, biochemistry, and marine biology. He has sold almost 50 million albums globally since then.
The request to appear on the Northern Ireland television programme This and That Ulster was Whittaker’s first significant break.
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A talented whistler whose amazing song Mexican Whistler eventually made its No. 1 debut in three different European countries.
But it wasn’t until he released Durham Town (The Leavin’) that he achieved a Top 20 hit in the UK.
He questioned the song’s success online. Someone stated, “I really didn’t have any faith in that music at all.”Far from marketing the single in Britain, I left for a cabaret season and television appearances in Finland.
In November, Durham Town had already started to rise in the British charts when he returned.
His English parents introduced him to East African music. He was born in 1936 in Nairobi. After 30 years of singing and performing, “the wonderful drumming and those marvellous, infectious rhythms have played a great part in everything I have ever written and sung.”
Whittaker’s wife Natalie, whom he married nearly 60 years ago after a brief courtship, and with whom he had five children—Emily, Lauren, Jessica, Guy, and Alexander—survive.
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