One-Hit Wonders: Roger Whittaker
Roger Whittaker, 2007 (Photo by Ralf Juergens/Getty Images)
Roger Whittaker is a singer and songwriter with an incredible knack for a melody, the capacity to whistle like a virtuoso and a baritone that makes easy listening fans quiver. Just ask your Mom: she bought a copy of his one Top 40 single, “The Last Farewell.”
A sea-worthy affair was “The Last Farewell,” a collaboration between Whittaker and a man he’d never met before the song was created.
It was in 1971 when Whittaker, while hosting a radio program in the UK, came upon the idea of having his listeners send in poems for which he would create music and play (with a full orchestra) on his show.
A silversmith from Birmingham named Ron A. Webster submitted the poen, “The Last Farewell,” Whittaker wrote the music, it became a regular piece played on his show and was included on his 1971 album, New World in the Morning.
It would be four years before the song would chart in the US, however, the result of an Atlanta radio programmer’s wife hearing the song on a Canadian radio station. She suggested to her hubby that it be added to his playlist and, within hours, the song was getting requests and word began to spread. By June, the record had gone national and peaked at the Number 19 position on the Top 40.
Since that time, it’s estimated that 11,000,000 copies of the record have been sold, making it one of the few to have sold in double-digit millions.
Tomorrow for old England she sails
Far away from your land of endless sunshine
To my land full of rainy skies and gales
And I shall be aboard that ship tomorrow
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