The Carpenters were really great...

[TrancedelicBlues]

My local PBS station in Gainesville FLA just aired a documentary about the Carpenters...

 

It brought a tear to my eye...

 

I'm not trolling, damn it, I'm serious!

 

That was some beautiful music...

 

*sigh*

 

[LiveMusic]

A perfect example of how varied my music was in those days. Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Johnny Rivers, James Taylor, Carpenters, Sam & Dave, Cat Stevens, Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf, The Doors.

 

She had one of the most amazing voices I have EVER heard. And Richard ain't no slouch. What a loss.

[Tedster]

True confessions chapter one:

 

The very first concert I went to, when I was about 16 or so...yup, you guessed it. Went with the family. One thing I remember was how they stopped the show...and Karen and Richard came up to the mic and sang two notes...which sounded very dissonant. Then the two backup singers came up...Karen and Richard sang their dissonant notes, and the other ones jumped in, and there was a breathtaking chord.

 

That, and their guitar player (Tony some Italian last name) was phenomenal.

 

I redeemed myself the following year by going to see Foghat.

[popstar]

The Carpenters were GREAT. THE best for what they did. I'm sad that things turned out the way they did for them.

 

ps

[Dwarf]

Originally posted by Tedster:

That, and their guitar player (Tony some Italian last name) was phenomenal.

Tommy Tedesco?

 

--

Rob

[offramp]

"The Carpenters were really great..."

 

You're just now figuring this out?!?!

 

Like Tedster, my first concert was the Carpenters; Convention Center, Indianapolis, IN, about '70 or 71.

I think my favorite tune, for a while, was "Goodbye To Love". Went back and listened again several years ago, and could not believe the horrid guitar sound on the solo. Ick.Sounded like someone poked a pencil in the speaker cones (probably an early solid-state amp, wouldncha know). Otherwise, great tune. I also liked their version of "Calling Occupants" a little better than Klaatu's.

 

It's rumored that Karen simply could NOT hit a bad note.

[songrytr]

I'll never forget the summer "Close to You" was on the radio. It sounded amazing on AM. I still get chills when I listen to that track.

 

I saw a (new?) 2-CD collection at Costco the other day...I had forgotten how many chart his they really had.

[Darcity]

Not many people know this but remember Luther Vandross' Superstar, the Carpenters wrote it if I remember it correctly.

[songrytr]

Leon Russell wrote Superstar. I think the Carpenters' version was one of the first covers.

[Bbach1]

Originally posted by songrytr:

I'll never forget the summer "Close to You" was on the radio. It sounded amazing on AM. I still get chills when I listen to that track.

 

I saw a (new?) 2-CD collection at Costco the other day...I had forgotten how many chart his they really had.

I was getting a chill too but then I realized the window was open.

Alright, I promise, no more making fun of the Carpenters.

 

I really like Cat Stevens tho.

[alcohol_]

The Carpenter's backup vocals are so in tune, they sound like an organ. I think they sang the parts independently with an instrument as a guide pitch.

[Super 8]

Love the Carpenters!

 

Karen's voice was GREAT! I could fall in love with a voice like that.

 

I keep a few of their songs on regualar rotation.

 

Yeah, the music was devoid of anything edgy, but the songs really hold up well. You can do an edgy version of a Carpenters tune, and it will hold up really well.

 

Really sad about Karen. She went well before her time.

[Philip OKeefe]

You'd be surprised how many people will mention the Carpenters whenever a "guilty pleasures" thread pops up. Karen had a voice for the ages. Smooth as silk. What a loss.

[offramp]

Yeah...I remember the day my Dad called me at college to tell me she'd died; sometime in February...18th, maybe?. They were a big part of our family, as my parents had their own band; Mom sang, Dad played keys (no singing, thankfully). Lotsa influence there.

[Hound Dog]

They had many great writers to compliment their talent. I think Paul Williams wrote "Rainy Days and Mondays".

[Tedster]

Originally posted by Dwarf:

Originally posted by Tedster:

That, and their guitar player (Tony some Italian last name) was phenomenal.

Tommy Tedesco?

 

--

Rob

No, it was something like "Tony Pellegrino"...

[LiveMusic]

Originally posted by songrytr:

I'll never forget the summer "Close to You" was on the radio. It sounded amazing on AM. I still get chills when I listen to that track.

Ditto, ditto, ditto. Ah, those were the days. That was a great pop tune. Very well-written.

 

That girl had an amazing lower register with her voice. (Not in "Close To You.") She had a great range but when she sang those deeper notes, man, that is stunning.

[gtrmac]

The Carpenters were definately a guilty pleasure for me. I wasn't into most of their stuff but I always liked "We've only Just Begun". It has a classic melody that could even stand up as a Jazz tune IMO.

[LiveMusic]

Source: Paul Williams info

 

"The best songs," says songwriter Paul Williams, "are usually the ones I'm not even sure I should put my name on. I mean the ones that just seem to flow out of my unconscious."

 

Williams, heading into the fourth decade of a songwriting career that has generated such pop standards as "We've Only Just Begun," "An Old-Fashioned Love Song," "Rainy Days and Mondays," "I Won't Last a Day Without You," and "Evergreen" says he's grown more adept at listening to his subconscious. "It's almost as if I turn the writing assignments over to that part of my brain. The songwriting process has become less grandiose for me. Now I'm learning to play at it. It's not eye surgeryit's music, a celebration of life, a gift."

 

"Gift" is a word frequently on the three-time Grammy® winner's lips. "My entire songwriting career is a gift," he states. "It only came about because of my lack of success in another field. I was a 27-year-old, out-of-work actor when I began writing for my own amusement. I had no training. I just borrowed a guitar and plunked out a few chords. I thought I invented themI didn't even know they had names. Later, when I got signed as a contract writer at A&M and got my first piano, I literally wrote numbers on the keys, because I didn't know what they were called."

 

Trained or not, Williams and his various collaborators were soon placing songs with A&M artists. "It was a fortunate time," he remembers. "Almost everything we wrote was getting recorded, though it always seemed to be album cuts and B-sides. It felt like I would never get a hit on the radio. Then Roger Nichols and I wrote 'Out in the Country,' a hit for Three Dog Night. And just as that was climbing up the charts, Richard Carpenter heard a song we'd written for a TV bank commercial, 'We've Only Just Begun.' He asked if we had a full-length version. Even if we didn't, we would have lied through our teeth and said there was. The two songs hit at the same time, and that got us a lot of visibility."

 

Literally, in Williams' case. Paul became a popular character actor, appearing in such films as The Muppet Movie, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, the Smokey and the Bandit series, and the rock-kitsch classic Phantom of the Paradise, for which he also wrote the music. (Other Williams scores include Bugsy Malone and the Barbra Streisand remake of A Star is Born.)

 

Elvis Presley, Diana Ross, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, John Denver, Johnny Mathis, Sarah Vaughan, Bing Crosby, Garth Brooks, Gladys Knight, and Frank Sinatra have all recorded Paul Williams songs. "I would often write for specific artists," recalls Paul, "but the songs didn't always end up where I intended. For example, I originally wrote 'Old Fashioned Love Song' for the Carpenters. It poured out of me in about 20 minutes, and I raced over to play it for Richard.

 

But he didn't even listen to it all the way through before saying, 'Nope, not interested,' so it wound up being a hit for Three Dog Night. And one of the first songs I ever wrote was "Fill Your Heart," the B-side for Tiny Tim's "Tiptoe Through the Tulips." Years later, David Bowie recorded it. And "The Rainbow Connection," a Kermit the Frog song from The Muppet Movie, is going to be the title song for Willie Nelson's next album! There's no way in the world I could have planned stuff like that. I guess a good song is like an un-dented ping pong ballit may get lost in the grass for awhile, but then it just sort of pops up, and you use it."

 

=

 

I can't believe Richard Carpenter turned down "Just An Old Fashioned Love Song." That seems perfect for Karen's voice.

[tradivoro]

Ok, and here's a question that I've had for a long time... In many of those early carpenter hits (we've only just begun, won't last a day without you, let me be the one, etc) Roger Nichols is listed as a collaborator, writing the music...

 

So my question is: Is this the same Roger Nichols who's an engineer extraordinaire???

 

P.S. Yes, the carpenters were really great and when you think about the diversity of music that existed then, you wonder why the same thing can't exist today... I mean, there is no group that does what the carpenters did now, and when sombody tries to do something in that style, they're called dweebs or shunned because they're not "bad enough"...

[skipclone 1]

i remember as a kid, seeing a film called `Bless the Beasts and Children`, which was sad enough on its own, but the song by the Carpenters pushed it over the top-broke my heart.

They also have the song that MAKES Christmas for me, more than the classics.

[rc]

About a year ago, I had a female singer ask me to record her in her own arrangements (she did all the vocal parts). She said she wanted the end result to have that Carpenters Sound. She assumed with a DAW and various effects, that I should be able to achieve that Sound with her voice.

 

I was honest with her and explained that IMO, 80% of their Sound was that actual voices (brother and sister) and 18% of the Sound were the vocal arrangements. This left 2% for the recording technology of the day (70s). I added that, because of their talent, they would even sound great singing into a shoebox cassette tape recorder.

 

She took this as incompetence on my part and went elsewhere. I never herd from (or of) her again.

[Botch.]

The intro to Superstar still gives me goosebumps, both Richard's orch arrangement and then That Voice, singing "Long ago, and oh so far away..."

Ah.

Politically incorrect, but still made me squirt beer out my nose: years ago one act at a comedy club announced, "And now I will do a celebrity imitation", he grabbed a long black wig, threw it over his mic stand, and shouted "Karen Carpenter!"

[fantasticsound]

AFAI concerned, Karen Carpenter had the most beautiful voice I've ever heard. Period.

 

I've always loved the Carpenters' music. I was a kid when they were popular and remember many a night my best friend and I, ostensibly going to sleep, stayed up playing musical name games for hours until our eyelids involuntarily closed. Many of the songs we used were Carpenters' songs.

 

Back then my favorites were :

 

• Close To You
  
• Yesterday Once More
  
• Rainy Days & Mondays
  
• Sing (A Song)
  
• Top Of The World
  
• Superstar
  

I'm sure I've forgotten several. I don't actually listen to them much these days, but we put Sing on a compilation for Lilly's 3rd birthday party. Every time we listen to it I'm reminded how perfectly smooth and sweet Karen's voice was, and how utterly in control she was of her gorgeous vibrato. Karen had some really bad demons, but when she sang it's clear from the results that she was as confident of her abilities as anyone has ever been.

As a fan, I miss her very much. I only wish I had the chance to know the person behind the voice.

[Jeff Klopmeyer]

The Carpenters RULE! And no, I'm not kidding.

 

- Jeff

[LiveMusic]

Originally posted by rc:

She assumed with a DAW and various effects, that I should be able to achieve that Sound with her voice. I was honest with her and explained that IMO, 80% of their Sound was that actual voices (brother and sister) and 18% of the Sound were the vocal arrangements. This left 2% for the recording technology of the day (70s).

Except that I have read about Richard Carpenter's technique and it employed MASSIVE use of overdubs. I forget how many but it was a LOT.

[1_dup16]

Carpenter's albums have a sound perfection, who did the recordings? And the strings arrangment is awesome.

[RABid]

I remember that the record companies expected them to flop because their music did not fit the mold of what everyone that kids would listen to and buy. It was a nice example that good music will draw attention. Her voice could soar ever so softly. It all seemed effortless for her. Their songs were a great introduction to harmony and arrangement.

 

Robert

[koolkid]

karen carpenters voice, the arrangements and the songwriting were such a perfect representaion of the mood of that time period... i think more so than any other popular artist then or since

 

i would say the only other group that came close were the 5th dimension

 

just in capturing that everything is groovy feeling

 

if that makes sense

[coyote]

The Carpenters will never be my first choice for listening; there's always something else I'd rather hear. But if I happen upon one of their tunes on the radio, I don't change the station... I can only say I concur with all the other accolades heaped upon them.