Comments on: DAVID WHITFIELD - ‘Answer Me’

By: wichita lineman

wichita lineman — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:55:44 +0000

I was in Sounds Original in Ealing last week. The owner said he knows someone in the David Whitfield fan club. They meet once a year, so this chap and his (we can assume long-suffering) wife, not being that wealthy, have their one annual holiday in Hull. Best not tell them that DW sings like a rubber puppet.

I hope I’m not talking out of turn when I say DW apparently became a heavy drinker, as did Ruby Murray, when their careers started to slip. Just as much ‘victims of rock ‘n’ roll’ as the slightly more fabled 27 club.

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:27:51 +0000

DW went to school in Leeds with Wally, one of my office colleagues in my first NHS job who is (a) the last person to see Jimi Hendrix alive and (b) the unknowing model for Wally Klemmer on ILx (apologies Wal if you’re still out there and accidentally come across this on Google). To my ears this type of belting canto has dated far more audibly than Al Martino but he did carry on for quite a while; he was also I think the first chart beneficiary of Opportunity Knocks (it might still have been on radio only at that time, on Luxembourg if I’m not mistaken) and certainly appeared on the programme as a guest in the seventies. Not long after that he emigrated to Australia but sadly a heart attack did for him in early 1980, aged fifty-four. He makes a couple of bizarre appearances in the Kenneth Williams Diaries; they were in the forces in Singapore together during t’war.

By: intothefireuk

intothefireuk — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:36:12 +0000

I’m familiar with this song and I suspect only from the Babs Dixon version in the 70s. Whitfield’s AM is somewhat overwrought and he relies far too much on his vibrato for my liking. I am not a fan of operatic covers of pop songs (hello Il Divo !) so I’m inclined to give this one a miss and move onto the original (US) version.