ENGELBERT Humperdinck once had the world at his feet. It was all so easy, he hardly had to try and he was still the best. By his own admission - and he is not known for his modesty - he had what it takes.

But a touch of sadness creeps into his normally richly soothing voice when he recalls how, recently, it has not been going so well, or at least it didn't when a former world champion paid a visit.

"I thought I was the cat's whiskers at darts," he sighs. "But Eric Bristow came to my house and he played me five games and I only got one game out of five. He has always been a good player, but he was just dynamite that day.

"I don't know where I get my darts' skill from, because I don't practise, but I do have a dart board in my pub at my house in England. I have played with all the number ones - they came up to play in a tournament in Las Vegas. I beat them all."

Engelbert - or Enge to his friends, rhymes with Penge - has spent most of the last 30 years living in the United States as a tax exile but returns to Britain for three or four days every few weeks, staying at his house in Leicestershire, which comes complete with its own private pub. When I met him, in the Vermont Hotel in the shadow of Newcastle's High Level Bridge, he was in Britain to promote the forthcoming UK leg of his world tour, which sees him back in the North-East at the end of November.

Now 63, and sporting the deep tan of the year-round sunbather, he may dye his hair but he's looking very trim and his skin is remarkably wrinkle-free. He says he has never had plastic surgery, and wouldn't let a surgeon's knife near his face, but inherited his smooth complexion from his parents.

Last year Business Age magazine estimated he was worth £100m, but, like his darts, his career has seen highs and lows. Catapulted to fame by his first hit, Release Me, in 1967, he may have played to sell-out houses in Las Vegas, but in his homeland his profile dropped, a remnant of the Sixties and Seventies. But recent years have seen something of a renaissance in his career, partly helped by his ballad Fly High, Lesbian Seagull, which featured on the Beavis and Butthead Do America film soundtrack. "It got me on to MTV and a younger audience," he says. "And I did a dance album that went into the top five. Since then I have kept that contemporary mood. My audience is from the very young to the ageless - that is what has given me longevity in the business. It is like history repeating itself, like a style coming back into fashion.

"You just move with the times and find what is the most contemporary thing to do and go ahead and do it. Even if it is out of your style, you adapt it to your style. I had never done dance music before, but when I did the dance album I made it my style. I can sing any kind of music. I can even do a bit of rap, although it is not what I want my audience to hear. When I do a little rap on stage, they go crazy, but I don't think I'll make a rap album."

His tour coincides with a new album, including covers of I Want to Wake Up With You and Robbie Williams' Angels, as well as songs written by his daughter Louise, one of four children with his wife Pat, and he is clearly hoping this will strengthen his appeal to a new audience.

"As far as recording goes, you could call it a comeback," he says. "I haven't been in the charts every year, but people do have lulls in the recording industry. A rare appearance is a wonderful appearance: it doesn't make the public sick of you.

"If you have got a great album out or a great song, it will connect. It has an immediate impact with anybody who is listening. If there is a great song, you are going to like it and buy it, no matter who records it."

In his heyday, fans threw their underwear on stage. He says it still happens, although not as much, and he has now given away his collection. "It was a point of recognition, people trying to make themselves visible to me. It used to be pretty common and I had trunks full of pants at one time. It was memorabilia and then we sent them to Hard Rock Cafes. They keep the lid open and say this is Engelbert Humperdinck's collection of pants."

But, despite the adulation, there is another side to Enge as well as the man styled the King of Romance. The night before our interview, he had met Bob, a friend from their National Service days who still lives in Newcastle.

"Bob often comes over to my part of Leicestershire and never fails to visit with me," Enge says. "He is the only one who has stayed close. I would have loved to have seen some of the other guys, but maybe there is some sort of shyness. I don't think it is intimidation, I think it is a little shyness."

Bob had also turned up at the hotel that morning, and, as I leave, he tells me Enge hasn't changed and is still the same guy he knew in National Service days, although he knew him then as Arnold Dorsey. Arnold made way for Gerry Dorsey, until his manager told him even that name would have to go, and he hit upon a name originally held by a 19th Century German composer. But even then, success was not immediate, until Release Me kept Penny Lane from the number one slot in 1967, selling 80,000 copies a day.

"The good part of my career is that my first ever big hit gave me a global career," Enge says. "Some people get a song in their own country and never move out of it. Everybody has that, thinking 'I'm going to make it', but I think if you're a strong enough person and you keep at it and you believe in destiny, it can happen. But it was a tremendous surprise for me."

He still does about 140 shows a year, although 30 years ago it was 300, and he now plays Vegas only occasionally, although he does not spend as much time there as he did when he took it in turns with Elvis to play the International Hotel. He is also selling his Los Angeles house, once home to Jayne Mansfield, and is thinking of moving to Nashville. "That is the music capital of the world now - some of the best song-writers come out of there," he says.

But, fittingly for someone who worked so hard for success, he wants to carry on enjoying it for as long as he can, even if this means having to continually search for new audiences and reinvent himself to appeal to a younger generation.

"It is like being in a race, and you hope you will win the gold," he says. "There is a lot of very good competition and it is good to be in the race. It gives you something to strive for. I think everybody strives."

l Engelbert Humperdinck will be at the Telewest Arena on November 25