Like a lot of 72-year-old guys, Engelbert Humperdinck loves to play golf. But when it comes to telling stories in the clubhouse, good luck trying to top him.

This senior has sold 150 million records worldwide, released his 77th album last year and is still performing, as he will Thursday at the Meyerson Symphony Center.

Few singers have had their clothes torn from their bodies, leaving them stark naked as they attempted to flee in a speeding limousine.

So, how many times has that happened?

"Many times," he says with a laugh, by phone from his home in Los Angeles. "But maybe it's good they don't do that anymore."

Not that he looks 72. He recently lost 30 pounds. He still has the same ink-black hair, the same Elvis-length sideburns (Elvis copied him , he says), and women still hurl their panties at him as he sings (and writhes) onstage. He recently gave a trunk full of those panties to the memorabilia collection of the Hard Rock Cafe.

The son of a British army veteran, Arnold Dorsey (his real name) was born in Madras, India, and didn't get to see his beloved Britain until he was 9. He leaped to the top of the charts in 1967 with the hit "Release Me," which temporarily knocked the Beatles from their No. 1 perch. He appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show three times.

But he was no overnight success. Before "Release Me," he spent more than a decade honing his craft in working men's pubs, "where they would throw things at you if they didn't like you."

In his 20s, he got tuberculosis, which halted his career for four years, six months of which were spent on his back. "I think God wanted me to do some other kind of work," he says, "because he saved my life."

In 1965, on the eve of turning 30, he hired Gordon Mills as his manager. Mr. Mills loathed the name Arnold Dorsey, so he named his handsome protégé Engelbert Humperdinck, in honor of a 19th-century German composer with the same name.

Two years later, Engelbert was touring the world with a ferocious guitar player named Jimi Hendrix. "He opened, and I closed. Can you believe it?" he says. "Jimi Hendrix opened for me. Jimi did not have a bad bone in his body. He was so nice to everyone. One day, one of my musicians didn't show up, and Jimi played for me. I actually had Jimi Hendrix playing in my band."

And then he laughs. He's able to laugh – now – about the road, which helped trigger more than one paternity suit. He and his wife, Pat, have been married more than 40 years and have four grown children. In 2005, she contributed a chapter to Engelbert: What's in a Name? The Autobiography, openly discussing her feelings about his infidelity.

He sighs and says: "It's all in the process of growing up, I think. You think you've missed something in your life, but you haven't. It's just that you think the grass is greener, but it's not. I just went through a phase where it was quite wild.

"The only toll it took was how it affected my family life," he says, "which was pretty badly. She's over that, and thank God, I've got a good woman and we're still together. And I love her very much."