The British singer-songwriter was known for his wistful blend of folk and pop, including on the songs “Durham Town” and “The Last Farewell.”
He also scored a belated U.S. hit with “The Last Farewell,” which climbed the Billboard Hot 100 four years after its release in 1971, following its rediscovery by an Atlanta radio programmer. Its lyrics, about a sailor bidding goodbye to his lover before boarding a man-of-war bound for England, were written not by Mr. Whittaker but by a British silversmith who responded to a radio contest in which Mr. Whittaker invited listeners to send in verses, with the best put to music.
The song was covered by Elvis Presley, much to the delight of Mr. Whittaker, who often performed a version of “Hound Dog.” Interviewed by Britain’s Express newspaper, he recalled how Presley’s “drummer told me that, when they were preparing to record anything, Elvis would play my version of ‘The Last Farewell’ about 20 times over to people in the studio, and he’d say, ‘And that’s how we should make records.
The younger of two children, Roger Henry Brough Whittaker was born in Nairobi on March 22, 1936. His father, a grocer, moved to Kenya from Staffordshire, England, after he was injured in a motorcycle crash and sought a warmer climate for his recovery. His mother was a schoolteacher.In 1989, a gang of burglars broke into his parents’ home in Nairobi, torturing his mother and killing his 84-year-old father. “It will affect me for the rest of my life,” Mr.
A tune he wrote for a student concert made its way to a British music publisher, leading to the release of his first single, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” in 1962. The song flopped — Mr. Whittaker later lamented that he had “tried to sing like Mario Lanza,” the operatic tenor — but later that year he released a version of Jimmy Dean’s “Steel Men,” which rose up the charts just as he earned his degree.
Its success led him to trade teaching for music, kicking off a years-long period in which he apprenticed at pubs in northeastern England, trying to entertain miners as they knocked back pints after work. By 1967, his fortunes were beginning to change, as he helped England win the Knokke song contest in Belgium with his performances of “Mexican Whistler,” which featured his signature warble, and “If I Were a Rich Man,” from the musical “Fiddler on the Roof.
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