If you wanted to be considered uncool in the '80s, '90s, and '00s confess that you were a Carpenters fan. They were white bread, they were vanilla, elevator music, pop crap, etc. Fortunately, I have always been uncool so there was no lowering of my stature whenever I announced that I love Karen Carpenter's voice and didn't care who knew it? She was an extraordinary singer.
It only took about 40 years but people who are just discovering them are coming over to my side. Karen is starting to get the recognition she deserves and should have had all along. Recently, I discovered this YouTube video of today's generation hearing her for the first time. I love their reactions. You will too.
Karen Carpenter rocks!
62 comments :
Adam Sorkin is doing a remake of "The Karen Carpenter Story" culminating in their hit song "If I Had A Hammer"
Those who dismissed the Carpenters in the 1980's as "pop crap" are now Heavy Metal deaf.
PS: How does it feel that you will never work for CBS Again? -
If you've still got your Paramount passcard from "Cheers" you'll still be able to visit.
You're right, Ken. Karen Carpenter had an incredibly beautiful voice. Gone too soon. I still listen to The Carpenters to this day and, yes, I've been accused of being uncool for it.
A song written by the great Paul Williams who most people know as Little Enos Burdette from Smokey and the Bandit.
To be a Carpenters fan means accepting Richard Carpenter's too-lush orchestral arrangements (although in "Goodbye to Love," the distorted electric guitar solo on top of all that was pretty cool). Richard was also responsible for the occasional lead vocal (e.g., "Druscilla Penny," "Saturday") and instrumental ("Flat Baroque"), which were too-cute even in the early '70s. Admittedly Richard's arrangement of "Close to You" got them to number one for what seemed to be the entire summer of 1970, but it would have been nice if Karen had recorded a bunch of tracks with just guitar or piano accompaniment.
I loved all their hits, especially We've Only Just Begun. Paul Williams was a songwriting dynamo.
Love it!
Karen Carpenter's voice was the first I recall ever being able to convey resignation, flickers of happiness, and sadness at the same time. Such a deceptively complex singer. I got roped into attending Vacation Bible School one summer and the bus driver played the radio as the yellow bus barreled through town picking up kids from different districts.
A girl with bangs so long I couldn't even see her eyes (at least that's how I remember her) got on the bus and sat next to me. "This song just makes me want to say hi to people," she said when "Rainy Days and Mondays" began to play. Not sure if she was churchy-y or just liked the song, but I always think of Karen Carpenter's voice as a welcoming sound.
I didn't much like it at the time, but their recording of Klaatu's Calling Occupants is mesmerizing.
Love the Carpenters. No shame in that at all.
Friday question: Any thoughts or memories of PJ O'Rourke?
Goodbye to Love is amazing, not just because of the guitar (which many fans hated but Richard and Karen loved), but also because of the technical ability Karen needed to be able to sing those *long* lines. You wonder when she was able to breathe.
I used to be embarrassed for loving Burt Bacharach music until I found that the people that are considered hip, also like that music.
I've always tried to not like the Carpenters, but at my age, I can now admit to being a Carpenter fan.
By the way, as mentioned above, Paul Williams wrote that song and on You Tube, does an amazing rendition of Rainy Days and Mondays https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_91GYkVl3k
One of he greatest voices of all time AND a great drummer. Gifted people will always draw criticism due to jealousy.
Never cared for those who put down music or songs that aren't their taste. There is plenty of music all over the world, why waste your time telling us what you don't like?
Middle aged and old men especially seem to think their opinion matters to us and spend an inordinate amount of time telling us about what they don't like, which is ridiculous when the subject is art.
Karen Carpenter falls into that group of people who have had success and recognition but deserve even more. I would include Chuck Berry and Roger Miller in that club.
@Mike Barer - Why on earth would you care what people "that are considered hip" think about anything ?
Karen Carpenter's singing voice was as close to perfect as you can get.
Just because of the cassettes my parents played in the car when I was a kid, her voice will also mean "Christmas" to me. Interesting to see people whove never heard it before react as if they were hit with a wave of nostalgia lol
Fantastic vocals and terrific drummer who always smiled her way through performances. Several Youtube videos showcase her percussion skills.
I recently saw this Youtube analysis video that shows a live performance of "Close To You" by Karen was even technically better than the recording. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWB96ZLWUUw
Karen was remarkably expressive in her vocals. There was a poignancy, a heart-twinging moment in almost every one of her hits. That's the embodiment of being soulful, regardless of one's ethnicity.
It's to our enduring sadness that she could not overcome her own personal demons and serve up more recordings that touched our souls.
Somewhat crude, but bear with me.
The ultimate three way. One voice beside you in bed is Karen Carpenter's. The other is Marilyn McCoo's. Orgasm before there's any physical contact. It just gets better from there.
I'm just repeating what other commenters already said, but I've always thought Karen had the best female pop voice ever, completely independent of the songs themselves. Number One. So rich and expressive.
She's also the reason my sister played drums in high school band, when being a "girl drummer" was weird. That kind of representation matters.
At the start of the '70s, many of us "hip" teens perceived the Carpenters as too "white bread," the Nixon daughters of music. Yes, they took material from top-tier composers -- Bacharach-David, Paul Williams, Leon Russell -- but the end result wasn't generally all that exciting.
That all changed with mid-1972's "Goodbye to Love," for multiple reasons. First, the lyric was exceedingly cynical by Carpenters standards (and Karen sings the hell out of it). Second, the guitar solo that ends the song, as if Richard is telling us in the anti-Carpenters camp, "You want 'heavy'? You'll get 'heavy'!" (Note that it closes "Goodbye to Love," and more than a few middle-of-the-road stations simply didn't air that segment. Very crafty, Richard.) After that, I thought more highly of them; they continued to issue some superb songs.
BTW, I just saw an ad for Peter Dinklage's "Cyrano" on CNN. Lord, I hope it's good.
Also: Karen was a helluva drummer.
Agreed!
i get the whole "Black folks diggin' white music" gimmick (there's another one you should see, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" by The Righteous Brothers, experienced by many of the same people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWXc55tVPxM ),
But I was just knocked out to watch the reaction of one Morenikeji Taiwo. From the first three notes of "We've Only Just Begun", observe as she is just straight up transported elsewhere, and her emotions jump the screen to the viewer. My knee-jerk impression is that she's a singer, the way she relates to the music.
Believe it or not, though, there are about a hundred Morenikeji Taiwos online! Don't bother trying to find out more about her. I tried :-(
But given her rapture upon hearing Karen and Richard and that mind-boggling arrangement, one of my all-time personal fave hits BTW, I would have loved to have seen her face and reaction when someone told her that she was listening to a reworked bank commercial!
The band Sonic Youth, whose sound is about as far from the Carpenters as you can get, were such fans that they not only recorded a version of Superstar (with a video shot in Downey) but wrote a tribute song called Tunic (Song For Karen).
Not only does my ipod have several Carpenter's hits like FOR ALL WE KNOW and RAINY DAYS & MONDAYS but I have insisted for years that they are responsible for the best Christmas album ever released.
There is a nice display of their memorabilia at the Carpenter Center at Long Beach State.
Yes, I owned albums by all the rockers and soul artists. And the Carpenters. https://www.rogerogreen.com/2014/01/28/c-is-for-the-carpenters/
She was at her best when singing at the low end of her range. As she herself said, the money is in the basement. And total agreement with Craig Gustafson for praising Marilyn McCoo.
Great music is timeless.
2 points to make:
1. My music diet in high school during the 1980s was 20 years before my time. I was teased and kidded a lot for loving The Beatles, Monkees, Motown, and practically all popular music that came before 1973. I've now discover that a lot of the people I went to high scholl with have embraced that music. One should never criticize another's taste in music no matter how much you may dislike it. Sooner or later they will come around.
2. Every time I hear this song I think of an interview Herb Alpert did on CBS Sunday Morning a few years ago. To this day he still gets emotional when he listens to this song and Karen Carpenter's singing. A great example of how powerful music is.
A voice to rank with Garland and Fitzgerald,
far above the Streisand or Merman bray
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_recorded_by_The_Carpenters
• They recorded works by Rodgers & Hart, the Gershwins, John AND Hank Williams,
and even John Lennon’s “Good Night”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBCypQmlFOQ
• They won three Grammys
• They shared a Rolling Stone Magazine cover story—Issue No. 164 July 4,1974
• In 2003, their second studio album was ranked #175 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time,
• She sang with Ella Fitzgerald (whose 8 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Ella_Fitzgerald_Song_Books albums have yet to been surpassed)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDp9b9eYoLM
So, why the “uncool” labeling?
• As others noted, her producers and orchestrators oft did her no favors. Very much worth hearing are the Youtube posts of Carpenter hits where backing tracks have been stripped, allowing the excellence of the tunes and her isolated voice to shine unimpeded: e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlgP3JYgFZw
• Her rep was unfairly but irreparably damaged — then and now — by an occasional too-sappy un-ironic lyric, ESPECIALLY Hal David’s
“On the day that you were born the angels got together
And decided to create a dream come true
So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold and starlight in your eyes of blue…”
• They were painfully, cornily, presented, and diminished — on TV and by the MSM— as something they likely weren’t
• Her fatal illness — little recognized, or sympathized with, at the time — made her the subject of countless misogynistic sick jokes.
There are many fine versions of the song 'Reason To Believe,' but to me the Carpenters' version sounds best.
I saw The Carpenters when they played a show at the university I was attending in Utah.(Steve Martin was the opening act.) Most concert tours just went through Salt Lake City, few big names came to our school. I don't remember if The Carpenters played Salt Lake before coming to my school, but the audience for the show was one of the largest during my time there. It's been a long time, but I can still see and hear Karen Carpenter from that night.
Karen is in my top 3 of the best singers ever......male or female.
The one commentator in the video sums why these modern folk might be so amaze: "They sound better live than they do in the studio!"
In current times, far too much music is "fixed in post"...or full-on created in post. Hard-earned skill with instruments and voice is the realm of the Ancient Ones.
Speaking only for myself, I've only thought of enjoying music as pleasurable - "cool" never entered into the equation.
As to that, as a child I was "forced" to study the violin, thus discovering the vast "uncool" world of classical music (more pleasure).
The redoubtable Karen Carpenter was indeed extraordinary - add to that "mesmerizing". And get this, in the 60s the cool kids would think all those showtunes (with nary a blue-note) were "vanilla" - that is, if Paul McCartney had not written them.
No one I have ever heard has ever been able to imbue a three-minute pop song with as many different emotions and colors as Karen Carpenter ... and I sang opera in high school, for crying out loud. She would have been perfection if she'd sung on top of just a snare drum.
I find it impossible to believe that anyone would not think that Karen Carpenter’s voice was exquisite.
Truly the voice of an angel. I was working as a Page at NBC Burbank in the late 70s, standing in the back of Studio One during The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson when the Carpenters appeared. Totally awesome hearing her sing.
The most touching "reaction video" I've seen to the Carpenters is from "Jemel AKA Jamal", the fellow at 5:26. Jemel had never heard a Carpenters song before (to be fair, he was only 3 or 4 when Karen died), and people told him to watch her performing "Superstar". Her vocals blew him away so much, he had to pause the video a couple of times just to absorb what he was witnessing. After the song ended, he said that was one of the greatest vocal performances he'd heard, and that he understood just how big her loss was to music fans.
And astonishingly for YouTube, the comments were also touching. Paul McCartney said she had the greatest popular music female voice ever, one wrote. Another noted that Karen was one of the first well-known victims of eating disorders, and her death brought greater awareness to that illness.
Jemel reacted to a couple of other Carpenters videos after that. One was her singing "Close to You" while simultaneously drumming, another was a Carpenters TV special where she played four different drum sets in the same number. I remember seeing the latter as a kid in the '70s, but hadn't seen it since Jemel's reaction video; wow.
I am surprised that you posted so many comments from middle-aged and old guys ! I am an old female, by the way. I've always enjoyed The Carpenters' music.
Other Carpenters notes ..
-- One of the cutest appearances of a Carpenters song was in a "Dharma and Greg" episode. A snowstorm left them stranded in an airport, along with other travelers like Pat Benatar (playing herself in a cameo) and a young couple who missed their plane for their tropical wedding. Dharma then thought of staging a wedding right there. The travelers gather in one of the gates for the ceremony, Benatar sings "We've Only Just Begun" accompanied by her husband on acoustic guitar, and a stranded priest/pastor/judge performs the ceremony. The tag showed the couple being led off on a luggage cart with a "Just Married" sign stuck on it.
-- To be honest, I didn't know that "Close to You" was a Carpenters song when I was a kid. The first I heard of that song was B.J. Thomas singing it on the flip side of my dad's "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head" 45, and I didn't know that was a Carpenters song until I heard that on the radio some time later. Thomas' version is fine in its own right: https://youtu.be/VP87a2fzq8w
-- A popular conversation with my college friends was about who had the better voice, Karen or Barbra Streisand. Years later, I'd say it's an apples-to-oranges comparison. Barbra undoubtedly has the better technique, range and power, but Karen is nigh-untouchable for emotion.
Dick Carpenter couldn't write a pop song if Sir Paul McCartney himself handed him lyrics and told him, "just change one word and put your name on it."
It's implied that Karen Carpenter turned down "You Light Up My Life." I would love to have heard her record that song. Debby Boone sure lucked out. It also would have revitalized The Carpenters when they needed it most.
A great biography is "Little Girl Blue," made WITHOUT the Carpenter family's hands on everything. Her mother and brother had a lot to do with her problems.
I have the album that she made without her brother. Produced by Phil Ramone. It has a few great songs...even a disco song which arrived a little too late. Richard convinced her not to release it. After she died, he took one of the songs, "Make Believe It's Your First Time," and "Carpenterized" it for the first posthumous album, "Voice of the Heart." Her solo album, "Karen Carpenter," was finally released in 1996. You can hear HER original orchestration of that song.
"Make Believe It's Your First Time"
Richard's version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM4cFw3RGN4
The original:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcIp0mWaGPc
Karen Does Disco!
"My Body Keeps Changing My Mind"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j__tn7XfFRY
I love the Carpenters!! I am so sad that she is no longer with us.
Always have loved the Carpenters, and came to terms a long time ago with the fact that I’d never be cool. It was great practice for turning 60, which won’t be long now....
Hi Ken!
Hope you're doing well :) I'm 21 years old and I recently watched Cheers for the very first time. Absolutely fell in love with it! And especially with Shelley Long! I seriously cannot get over how incredible this woman was as Diane and the absolute treasure she is.
I wanted to know, do you have a favorite memory behind the scenes with Shelley? And, is there ANY POSSIBILITY that you could do an interview/podcast episode with Shelley where you guys talk about creating the character of Diane Chambers and your memories of filming the show?
I know she's a bit more private with her life right now but I figured if there is someone who can pull off an AMAZING interview with her, it would be YOU! Pleaseeee!! I beg you!! (hahaha)
Exactly right about Karen Carpenter. I always thought her brother did her no favors with the lush orchestration.
My wife Laura is a retro jazz singer and recording artist, and Karen Carpenter and Marilyn McCoo are just about the only singers post-1960 that she considers major influences. Karen had an amazing voice, and I second the recommendation for the YouTube videos of her isolated vocals.
We're friends with a couple named Sally Olson and Ned Mills who do a Carpenters tribute show in Vegas and around the country. Sally's voice is eerily similar to Karen's. If they're ever near you, check them out. They're coming back to the DFW area in April, and I already have my tickets because their shows always sell out.
As for what the "cool" people think, I consider that I am the "cool" people and anyone who disagrees with me has terrible taste. For instance, I just now returned from an estate sale for a friend of mine who was one of the top musicologists in Texas. His house was a massive record library. People had been picking through it for weeks, but there was still one closet full of CDs and about 10 boxes of LPs left. They called me because I was the only one who would be interested since it was all easy listening, big band and jazz.
For $125, I came home with my car packed full of music by people like Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, Tommy Dorsey, Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme, Benny Goodman, Tony Bennett, Duke Ellington, Bing Crosby, etc. etc. etc. It broke my heart to see the great music that everyone else passed over. I don't consider the people who did that "cool."
So, Richard took a song from the album that he ridiculed...reworked it to suit his needs, after she died, and put it on a "Carpenters" album. Posthumous. Holy shit.
I remember the day that she died. I was at The University of Miami. 1983. Driving a short distance to the mall. I turned on the radio, and they were playing constant Carpenters. Puzzling in 1983. I spent 30 minutes in the mall, then started my car...MORE Carpenters songs. A few minutes later, I heard the DJ announce her death. When I got back to the university, I sat in my car for a bit, because I didn't want my suite-mates to see me cry.
I'm 60 in a few weeks. Have always LOVED Karen Carpenter. YES, their original Christmas album is epic.
I was in college in 1972 and went to our local Service Merchandise to pick up some albums. When I placed my three albums on the checkout counter (Michael Nesmith, Carpenters, and Alice Cooper) the clerk said "You sure have a varied taste in music."
I love her voice and just having her sing can run a chill down my back. What a tragic loss her death was.
MR. CHAIRMAN,
I SECOND Joanna T's motion to approach Shelly Long for an interview (discussion is fine, too).
Buy her lunch first.
"We've Only Just Begun" was my parents' wedding song in 1971, but I was born more than 10 years later and didn't hear much of The Carpenters. Last week, I told my toddler about her grandparents' wedding song, and I decided to listen to it with her. I was struck by how much I liked it.
There's a Carpenters documentary called, "Close to You: Remembering the Carpenters" that reruns on PBS from time to time, usually during pledge drives. It does a very good job of highlighting their music with just enough behind the scenes to keep it interesting.
I knew a guy who had a mad crush on Karen. I didn't get it at the time. He was a few years older than I was. But as I matured I developed my own crush on K.C. I get it now.
Even though I have always loved the Carpenters music I have to admit that their version of "Ticket to Ride" is one of my least favorite Beatles covers of all time.
M.B.
I grew up in the Punk Age. Elvis Costello is something else, but always loved Karen Carpenter.
Karen had the voice, but brother Richard had the ear for the arrangements.
Around that same time, listening to David Gates and Bread would get a lot of sideways glances as well.
If she were still living, Karen Carpenter and I would be the same age - 71 years old.
(Actually, she'd be a few months older, but that's another story - fantasy, perhaps ...).
Any of us can speculate about how Karen's life would have turned out If Only ...
... but spec is all it can be.
Because none of us actually knew the lady, what suppositions we might make come largely from our own ideas of what she should have done, what choices she might have made, who she should have believed or trusted, any or all of the above ...
That's one of the penalties imposed by Fame, I guess: everybody thinks they know what's best for someone like Karen Carpenter - based on our own set-in-stone personal beliefs (and prejudices).
What we have is Karen's work - her singing, which still gives pleasure after all these years.
Shouldn't that be enough?
I'm not sure if I'd be as familiar with their work as I am - if my name wasn't Richard Carpenter. I'm currently in my early fifties. Growing up I'd occasionally get a comment or two from someone about my name - and jokes about my sister Karen. Obviously that has thinned over the years - I can't remember the last time it happened.
In my late twenties and thirties being in IT I always wanted the RichardCarpenter.com domain. But a Carpenter family trust kept it locked down (not that they were using it). Eventually .net and .org became available, but by that time I lost interest.
One of my favorite albums is "If I Were a Carpenter" that I know realize came out in 1994. It's a tribute album from various artists that were popular at the time. https://www.amazon.com/If-Were-Carpenter-Various-Artists/dp/B000005IL6
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