Engelbert Humperdinck will never take his appearance for granted.

Engelbert Humperdinck

Engelbert Humperdinck

The 81-year-old ballad singer is in great shape for his age and says the key to his well-kept physique is not letting himself go, and making sure he maintains his youthful looks in order to feel young "mentally".

Asked if it is a chore to keep up his good physical health, Engelbert exclusively told BANG Showbiz:

"I don't ever want to say I've had enough, because I'll never be that way, I think when you've had enough, you're finished, your body sinks into, it relaxes, and you've got nothing to look forward to, there's nothing new in your life."

The 'Release Me' hitmaker says that dyeing his grey hairs ever since he prematurely went grey in his "early 20s" has kept him "mentally young".

Asked if he has a special regime, he replied: "It's like grey skies, you look at grey skies it's dull.

"I don't really like the word grey because grey has a very bad meaning, so therefore, in my early 20s, I went grey, I went premature grey.

"And I said to myself, I don't want to old young, and I started dyeing my hair at that early age and I tell you something, I've never stopped and I think it has kept me mentally young, by not looking in the mirror and seeing grey. And that's my theory.

"I know we have to grow old, but we don't have to grow old.

"We have to make ourselves look younger than our age, I think, in order to keep that mental thing when you look in the mirror."

Engelbert releases his first album in over a decade, 'The Man I Want To Be', on Friday (24.11.17) on OK GOOD Records.

The record is a love letter to his wife of 53 years Patricia, who the 'Last Waltz' singer revealed has been living with Alzheimer's for the past 10 years.

Speaking about the personal collection of tracks, which also includes covers of Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars and Willie Nelson songs, Engelbert said: "I think it has great messages in there, it's very informative, it's very touching, it has a great deal of empathy, pathos in it you know.

"And it's a dedicated album, well people will say what do you mean dedicated, well it's to my wife who really doesn't comprehend completely because of her Alzheimer's, and I think it's helpful to other people to know that they're not alone."