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Home » And now for something completely different – Karen Carpenter explained

And now for something completely different – Karen Carpenter explained

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A voice teacher analyzes Karen Carpenter’s singing:

I would describe her voice much more simply: “like velvet.” Or “like syrup; like honey.” But he is far more astute, pointing out all the shadings and change-ups that the rest of us might perceive on some level but not be able to detail.

Enjoy.

Comments

And now for something completely different – Karen Carpenter explained — 67 Comments

  1. An argument can be made that Karen Carpenter was the greatest female vocalist in contemporary music and it’s her phrasing that takes her to the next level.

    ‘Superstar’ is a song that has a few absolutely amazing versions with The Carpenters being probably the most well known version but another one I’m partial to is by another sadly gone too young performer Luther Vandross. Like Karen Carpenter it’s his phrasing that makes it so good. Nobody could sing a love song like Luther.

    Luther’s version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hJtgfxPZi4

  3. I remember making fun of the Carpenters when I was a teen because lets face it, the Carpenters weren’t cool. But now I am in awe of Karen’s amazing voice. Knowing her tragic story it’s hard not to tear up watching that performance of Superstar.

  4. So beautiful…I can hardly listen without tearing up.

    Gregory Harper, I, too, thought the Carpenters were uncool in the early 70s when I was in high school. Their Close To You was the prom song at my high school in 1971 when I was a freshman, and I thought it was so corny.

    When Karen died in 1983, however, I had matured somewhat and could listen to her voice forever. Very sad story.

  5. A large part of how she is singing is also how music of the period went… it wasn’t just HER doing this to a song, the patterns and effects were shared across the musical landscape…. you can almost hear in her singing the same licks as were in the Bond themes… many of these audio effects are what marks the various periods of music and are less about who is singing than more about when they were singing…

    a great overt example would be to compare the Jackson Five, the Osmonds, and how they both were using similar audio ideas from what i would guess was funk… they were singing like the Temptations… (Can’t get next to you)… And a lot of their tones were common of the big band era as well, and the popularity of coronets in groups of the period were brass was brassy… Listen carefully and you might notice how much blood sweat and tears, Chicago, earth wind fire, kool and the gang, and even KC and the sunshine band… (south side johnny and the Asbury Jukes?) heck it even goes as far back as
    the isley brothers and the buckinghams.. (the blues brothers took at lot from all that) (and you cant forget miami sound machine either..

    anyone besides me disliked the era of the invention and peak of the Hawaiian guitar? better known as the steel guitar (lap guitar?)? or audio tricks like passing a rubber tube into the gut? at least Don Ho faded and the better use of the guitar went to country western…

    the Beatles being one of the first groups to search for sounds… repeated later by the likes of Paul Simon…

    but what do i know?

  6. I nearly left out janis joplins “Maybe” and Zappa’s My guitar wants to kill your momma… but gladly, i didnt… 😉

  7. An argument can be made that Karen Carpenter was the greatest female vocalist in contemporary music and it’s her phrasing that takes her to the next level.

    Pttah. There’s material in and amongst the 1970s ‘adult contemporary’ genre that’s agreeable enough (Vicki Lawrence, Cher). Lined up next to the previous generation (Dinah Shore, Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, Eydie Gorme, Teresa Brewer (now and again), and Jo Stafford (now and again), the Carpenters were twee. The Bossa Nova performers whose prominence just preceded her’s are also superior.

  8. Art Deco,

    By ‘contemporary’ I meant modern or what is commonly called the ‘rock era’. I should have phrased that differently because The Carpenters were very much an Adult Contemporary act within the pop music scene.

    I would not compare Cher or Vicki Lawrence to Karen Carpenter if anyone her best comparisons would be Anne Murray or early Olivia Newton-John.

    The others you mentioned I would say are from an earlier era and not fair comparisons to her in my opinion.

  9. I would say are from an earlier era and not fair comparisons to her in my opinion.

    Peggy Lee’s last hit was released in 1969. Eydie Gorme and Teresa Brewer were still producing new material. Eydie did not quit touring until 2009.

  10. Art Deco,

    Ok, I’m not going to get into one of these details arguments you seem to like but The Carpenters had their first hit in 1970 when Karen was 20 years old and they had a dozen top ten hits by 1975 and kept on recording through the end of the 1970s.

    Peggy Lee was 50 years old in 1970, Eydie Gorme was 39 in 1970 but hadn’t had a top 40 pop hit since 1964 (and barely at that #35). Teresa Brewer also was 39 in 1970 but hadn’t had a top 40 hit since 1960.

    I’m not saying those you’ve mentioned were not talented vocalists but they were not contemporaries of Karen Carpenter they were of an earlier era and style of music.

  12. I had the immense pleasure of hearing The Carpenters live in 1972 at wolftrap FarmPark in Washington D.C. It was unbelievable.

    But what was even more unbelievable was a so-called music critic at the Washington Post who dismissed the music as nothing but “Marshmellow Music”.

    It was a shame that we lost Karen at such a young age.

  13. I had the immense pleasure of hearing The Carpenters live in 1972 at wolftrap FarmPark in Washington D.C. It was unbelievable.

    But what was even more unbelievable was a so-called music critic at the Washington Post who dismissed the music as nothing but “Marshmellow Music”.

    It was a shame that we lost Karen at such a young age.

  14. She had a great vocal style, but so did Amy Winehouse. Both traveled a sad path at a young age to death. As did many others.

  18. Thank you for this. Enjoyed listening not only to Karen’s ethereal voice but also to a chap who obviously loves and understands fine vocalisation.

    It may be my European heritage but I’ve always felt that the greatest gift one can possess is a beautiful voice. Lacking any semblance of same, I’ve found some comfort in the sage advice that if one cannot be great oneself, the next best thing is to walk with the great.

    Hence I regularly check in on savvy, knowledgeable vocal critics on Youtube. It’s been great learning just how certain vocalists who speak to my heart and regularly whisk me away from the humdrum manage to employ technique to do so. For me, at least, understanding the technical underpinnings of a performance doesn’t detract from my enjoyment but enhances it.

    Might I suggest this British vocal coach whom I happened on just a fortnight ago – led to her by one of my regular internet searches for Karen Carpenter. Like your fellow, she understands the technique/s that underpin a fine performance and has the ability to explain the technical side to laymen. (She also looks pretty good, too. Just sayin’).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPi_p-tixSw

    The thing I’d recommend avoiding when investigating this genre of video clip is the rather arrogant phenomenon I’m seeing of people who neither understand or care for fine singing but take to the air on the basis that we should find it entertaining watching them watching a great singer while they pull stupid faces and offer up “analysis” along the lines of “yeah, that’s good”, etc.

    One such person is this lady who not only knows nothing about The Carpenters or vocal technique but couldn’t be bothered even researching them beforehand.(She actually wonders aloud to her audience whether they might be a married couple and reads off – probably from Wikipedia and probably for the first time – that Karen died young).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyHJiIfYpKY

    She and those like her are a waste of time. What is it about some people that they think others should find it entertaining or endearing just watching them pull silly faces and utter inanities?

    With all due respect to Karen and Richard, I think the finest performance that Rebecca the vocal coach has so far reviewed is the following. Sublime:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F578gIuBOvc

  19. I listened to the commentary, then clicked on all the links. Don’t Cry For Me made me think of Patti LuPone, then Charlotte Church and Haley Westenra. After that I watched Fil’s analysis: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rfdh9x743Vw
    All the singers were great plus some of the others mentioned here. But (this is just my opinion) Karen Carpenter really was completely different. There doesn’t seem to be any effort, any attempt to impress the listener, any strain in her singing, any showmanship. It’s so deceptively simple and yet so utterly mesmerizing. I would have used the term crystalline to describe her voice but after listening to the commentaries – velvet comes closest. It’s the richness of the lower range of her voice that makes it so captivating. Thank you for posting this and thank you to everyone for the links.

  22. At the time this was released I was 20 and completely immersed in the progressive rock of the day – Hendrix, Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane etc. and had dismissed the Carpenters as middle-of-the-road pop. But when I heard “Superstar” I loved it, I didn’t care whether I was “supposed” to like it. I knew it was great.

  23. ^^^^ A good mix. Poor Things really ought to have swapped diets for a year for everyone’s sake.

    When you think how much TV adds to one’s apparent weight, she must have been positively cadaverous when this was recorded.

    Wouldn’t it have been super interesting if two contrasting singers with wrecked voices, Callas and Holiday had sung a duet? Perfection is well and good, but there’s something magnificent about, well, Magnificent Ruins.

  24. Incredibly smooth and mesmerizing voice, and nobody else sounds anything like her. Her singing and vocal ability sounds too perfect to be human, kind of like Alison Krauss.

    I’ve been a big Karen Carpenter fan for years. Any Carpenters song that comes on the car radio gets turned up, especially Top of the World, Sing, Only Yesterday, Goodbye to Love …

    Kudos to Richard too for being an ace writer, arranger, and producer. Top notch, and few people even know he did anything but play a little piano.

  25. Eva Marie,

    Yes, that Karen/Ella medley was beautiful. That was 1980 so about 3 years before Karen died. According to IMDB Ella sang her vocal live but Karen lip synched her vocal to a pre recorded track which is not uncommon but makes me wonder why she did that. She was 30 years old but looks much older. Really sad.

  26. Should also be mentioned that ‘Superstar’ was written by Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell of Delaney & Bonnie fame. Whenever you see a song recorded by many artists of different genres it is sign of true greatness.

  28. As a vocalist, Cher is definitely crap. Better than Sonny, though…. As a performer and icon, I believe she deserves her accolades.

    I’ve been singing since I was tiny and have always wished I could navigate the passagios as effortlessly as Carpenter did. You can’t even tell she’s working. Her tone quality is most similar (in the pop world) to Anne Murray’s, I think, but her voice is superior to Murray’s. Anne Murray sounds like maple syrup flowing from a broad-rimmed glass – viscous, warm, delicious, smooth, but in the end that’s an awful lot of syrup. Carpenter sounds like a mountain stream – perfectly laminar, smooth, and warm in the lower reaches where the slope has gentled and the sun falls on it, but also silvery-light and refreshing higher up. You know how water can seem to form a kind of transparent, thick fabric as it flows over rocks? That’s Karen Carpenter’s voice in its upper register: still with that ineffably smooth texture, but infused with bright energy.

    I once heard a recording of Toni Tenille singing the Bach-Gounod “Ave Maria,” in a much lower key than the original – I always wanted to be an alto… Some of these pop women really did have some excellent classical chops.

    Somehow I doubt that’s as true today. Because of my teenage kids, I’ve grown to appreciate some current pop singers, but none of them (and yes, Lizzo and Ariana, I mean you too) seem to me to have the unamplified, unassisted, unproduced vocal skill of an Eydie or, hell, an Anne Wilson, to move us into a more modern age. And we’ll leave opera singers right out of this since no one else does or can do what they do.

  29. I’ve been invited not to sing in a number of venues. So, in a kind of reaction, I’m almost resentful. Maybe envious.
    The narrator is a voice teacher, who sees nuances I never picked up. Since he sees them, so to speak, the question arises as to whether he could, or tries to, teach them. Or do you come by them naturally. If you learn them and practice them, you don’t have to keep remembering them as you go. Many physical activities are complex but we learn to combine the components without a second’s thought. It’s hard to think of Carpenter trying to remember “brighten here”, “open the vowel….now” So did she spend endless hours with her headphones on going over and over each song until she got the nuances just right so they came out as if natural? Rough way to make a living.

    Couple of notes: My father, like a lot of WW II vets, didn’t care for Frank Sinatra. Dad pointed out that “sayin’ somethin’ stupid like I love you” had a tell in it. The “ooo” vowel came out like a peasant’s accent. As I say, my father wasn’t a fan. He and my mother were pretty good singers so I suppose they listened with educated ears. So I noted that Carpenter’s approach to a word with “ooo” in it reached ever so slightly toward, if we were to use “stupid”, “styewpid” . Not all the way there, but with a suggestion. Either social class into which she was born, or she worked on it.
    Went to a concert of pops on the Fourth which included some older songs. Beauiful Dreamer was one of them. I noted the vocalist did not say “dreamer” with the hard “r” ending. Not even close. But he allowed/led you to hear it. I mentioned it to a friend who said when he’d been in musicals, they’d worked pretty hard on faking the hard “r” ending a syllable or word, it being a difficult thing to give up.

    The long “e” is hard to sing gracefully since, I’ve been told, it requires the throat to tighten up. So the “babeh” for “baby”
    What a lot of work is a song.

    But Jo Stafford….

  30. I’m no expert on singing — in a technical sense like the guy in the video, who knows and can explain the terminology and how a singer uses it — but I have to conclude that my subjective choices and preferences over 5 decades of listening to music show that somehow I understand the concepts intuitively and am drawn naturally to exactly what he describes.

    And conversely I am viscerally turned off by use of vocal pyrotechnics by, say, Celine Dion and others like her.

  33. Griffin. Lady Gaga sounds like a mediocre version of Julie Andrews in that video, complete with a fake English accent.

  36. I don’t mean to detract from anyone’s enjoyment of Karen Carpenter, but for me she fell into what Artificial Intelligence researchers call the “uncanny valley”:
    ___________________________________________

    In aesthetics, the uncanny valley is a hypothesized relationship between the degree of an object’s resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to such an object. The concept suggests that humanoid objects which imperfectly resemble actual human beings provoke uncanny or strangely familiar feelings of eeriness and revulsion in observers.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
    ___________________________________________

    There is no doubt of Carpenter’s prodigious vocal talent, but that shimmering, velvet perfection just didn’t sound human. I couldn’t connect to whoever Carpenter was. Combined with anodyne lyrics like “Close to You,” she just spooked me — as though her music were a future AI program’s idea of what humans should like.

    That she was suffering from a mental illness which would eventually kill her at the tender age of 32, there is not a hint.

    Not that there is a law that a performer should wear that on her sleeve, but it does speak to the disconnect I sensed in her art.

  37. Should also be mentioned that ‘Superstar’ was written by Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell of Delaney & Bonnie fame

    Griffin: True. I came to “Superstar” through Joe Cocker’s “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” live album, in which Rita Coolidge sang the song. Wiki credits Coolidge with the concept of a groupie’s lament. Leon Russell (way under-rated 60s/70s musician) co-wrote the song and, as the mastermind behind the Mad Dogs tour, Russell included the song and Coolidge on Cocker’s tour.

    That’s the definitive “Superstar” for me. I will concede the perfection of Karen Carpenter’s version, but it’s a blues song and I want the sweat, the grit, the scars and the pain in a blues. Perfection is not an option.

    When I listen to the Carpenter version, I can’t believe for a moment she has anything to do with that story.

    Though I can admit to enjoying her version.

  39. huxley,

    Rita Coolidge has also been given credit for the piano portion in the second half of ‘Layla’.

    When you have well known songs recorded by many acts it pretty much comes to personal taste as to what is the best. I have not heard all the versions obviously but I think I like the Luther Vandross version I linked way up top here is my favorite. But I really like Luther so that may just be me.

  40. Griffin: Be sure, in no way do I mean to disparage others’ preferences when it comes to “Superstar.” As you point out, that “Superstar” manages to spill over musical categories and performers successfully is a proof of the song’s greatness.

    (That’s actually a tiny hobby of mine — to collect all the disparate versions of such songs like “Louie, Louie,” “Sweet Jane,” “The Weight,” “Hallelujah,” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.”)

    Pretty cool that Rita Coolidge created that sweet piano part in Layla! Though wiki says she never got official credit. She was also married to Kris Kristofferson and that didn’t end well due to KK’s alcoholism and infidelities.

    Although Coolidge was an established musician, she could identify with a groupie’s heartache.

  41. huxley,

    Cover versions are a really interesting topic. Some great acts like Bob Dylan have many cover versions that are better than his original and the some like the Beatles who in my opinion have only one Joe Cocker’s ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ that is better than the original. I listen to the Beatles channel on Sirius XM and when they play a cover it is almost always ‘meh’ to ‘bad’ but that’s just me.

  42. Karen Carpenter’s heartache, whatever it was, was in an entirely different zip code from “Superstar.”

    I would have been fascinated if Carpenter had performed a song, by herself or anyone, about anorexia.

  43. Griffin: It’s tough to top the Beatles when it comes to a Beatles song!

    It’s not that easy to beat Bob Dylan at his own game either, unless you happen loathe his voice. However, everyone including Dylan himself, bowed before Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower.”

  44. Carpenter’s autopsy report, apparently released only in 2019, states her blood sugar was 1110 ( ten times normal). Source is Wiki.

    So she was an undiagnosed, untreated diabetic. Diabetes has been described as “starvation in the midst of plenty”, since without insulin glucose cannot enter many tissues from the circulation, and is wasted, poured out by the kidneys instead.

    So she had “anorexia nervosa”, a trendy and cool diagnosis, sympathy-generating, but her diabetes, which results in functional starvation, went undiagnosed.

    That’s what happens when you go to a psychotherapist instead of an MD, even a mere FP, for an “eating disorder”. A urine dipstick would have made the diagnosis! She abused herself with laxatives and grossly excessive thyroid meds, which surely didn’t help ( and did not cause her diabetes!), but died of an eminently treatable disease.
    See Mary Tyler Moore for a contrasting example; she lived on insulin for 43 years.

  45. I feel compelled to mention here the late, great Eva Cassidy, a female vocalist, largely self-taught, and unrecognized while alive, but posthumously loved as sublime. Her cover of Sting’s “Fields of Gold” pierced me through the heart.

    –Eva Cassidy, “Fields of Gold”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UVjjcOUJLE

    Sting himself, self-admittedly territorial about his songs, gave her credit:
    ___________________________________________

    A friend of Eva’s sent me the recording after her death, I thought it was a beautiful rendition. I’ve rarely heard a voice of such purity. I was deeply sorry to learn of her death and somehow it gave the song another emotional level. I was very happy the work saw the light of day. It’s an extraordinary success.

    –Sting
    http://evacassidy.org/questions-and-answers/

    ___________________________________________

    I admire Karen Carpenter, but Eva Cassidy is a performer whose voice I will take to my grave.

  46. And conversely I am viscerally turned off by use of vocal pyrotechnics by, say, Celine Dion and others like her.

    Ditto!! Especially when it’s a religious piece or the National Anthem. Sing the song. It’s not about you.

    I might give Gaga credit for vocal ability, but her tone is not of the same character as Carpenter’s. Not necessarily inferior to it – just different; it has more rocker to it, and not nearly as much warmth.

    And then there’s Julie Andrews, a legit singer (as the singers say – meaning she had a proper and sufficiently “quality” voice for classical repertoire, though I don’t think she ever aspired to opera – I haven’t checked her bio) who went Broadway – not that there’s anything wrong with that!

  48. Huxley,

    Again all personal taste but other than the obvious ‘Watchtower’ I would say I like ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ by the Byrds better and I even like Jerry Garcia’s ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ better and Adele’s ‘Make You Feel My Love’ is a way better version.

    Dylan can be hot and cold for me. ‘Lay Lady Lay’ is great and some of his early stuff like ‘Desolation Row’ is genius but after about 1975 his vocals became almost like a parody unfortunately.

  49. Then there’s Israel Kamakawiwo?ole, otherwise known as “IZ,” the de facto patron saint of Hawaii, who melted the world with just his voice and a ukelele. Here’s his version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

    –“Somewhere over the Rainbow – Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwo?ole”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1bFr2SWP1I

    (The aquatic scenes are the scattering of IZ’s ashes at his funeral.)

    I can’t listen to that one without crying. How does he do it? He’s reaching deep, deep into everyone’s humanity.

    This is what I miss in Karen Carpenter’s music. Which doesn’t invalidate her work or anyone’s responses to it, but it’s what I’m trying to talk about here.

    The human voice can do many stunning things, and Carpenter explored an astonishing level of that, but connecting one-to-one, heart-to-heart is something I don’t find in her.

    But she might have gotten there if she lived longer than 32 years. I like to think so.

  51. I liked Karen Carpenter’s version of “Superstar” when it first came out. Then I heard Better Midler sing it and liked that version a little more. It isn’t as smooth and pretty as Karen Carpenter’s, but I felt it resonated with more pathos and yearning. Plus, I liked the substitution of “. . . just to sleep with you again”.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01LktoGvrIc

    As for Jo Stafford and opera singers – two of the things I like to listen to.

  52. …but after about 1975 [Dylan’s] vocals became almost like a parody unfortunately.

    Griffin: Granted. I’m not sure what happened there. Whether he just blew out his voice or if it was part of his “FU. I don’t care” stance after too much adulation.

    Dylan never had a mainstream good voice, but in his individual way it was beautiful — at least I thought so — on those classic 60s/70s albums. Afterwards it was like listening to a flute used to hammer nails.

  53. Plus, I liked the substitution of “. . . just to sleep with you again”.

    Les: Which was not a substitution, but a return to the original “Superstar” lyrics.

    Another example of my problem with Carpenter’s authenticity.

  54. That’s what happens when you go to a psychotherapist instead of an MD, even a mere FP, for an “eating disorder”. A urine dipstick would have made the diagnosis! She abused herself with laxatives and grossly excessive thyroid meds, which surely didn’t help ( and did not cause her diabetes!), but died of an eminently treatable disease.

    Carpenter’s bizarre behavior began about a decade before her death. I’m going to wager she saw a doctor for one thing or another in the intervening years (and, if I’m not mistaken, was hospitalized at least once). Either the blood sugar level was an anomaly generated by self-abuse, or it was an error, or the physicians she consulted were remarkably incurious.

    Again, Carpenter wasn’t just losing weight, she was quaffing laxatives, quaffing thyroid medication cadged on the black market, and quaffing ipecac (which does heart muscle damage).

    Her principal biographer sticks the blame with her mother. Let’s arguendo, stipulate that her mother favored her brother. That’s a bit of suboptimality you see in normal range families, few of whom have children who work diligently at killing themselves over a multi-year period.

  55. Eva Cassidy – Fields of Gold and really everything else was wonderful.
    My favorite cover of Favorite Things is Shawn Phillips (now there’s a voice) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NkobKwT8Tm4

    Eva Marie: Bless you for remembering dear Eva Cassidy.

    Lawsy, I never knew that early side of Shawn Phillips! I just knew him from his post-tripped-out-hippie phase after he toured with Donovan, when he blew minds like this:

    –Shawn Phillips, “Woman (She Was Waiting For Her Mother At the Station in Torino and You know I Love You Baby But It’s Getting Too Heavy To Laugh)”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtNEFJ3uyS4

    I’m not sure how his life worked, but apparently his music career faltered and he took up work as an EMT and firefighter!
    ____________________________________________

    Since 2016, Phillips has resided in Louisville, Kentucky with Juliette and their son Liam.[9] He now divides his time between writing, recording, touring and his EMT work.

    –https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Phillips

  56. “Either the blood sugar level was an anomaly generated by self-abuse”
    That is not possible, sorry. Can’t be done, no matter how great the effort.
    She died at home in a hyperosmolar crisis, a severe and deadly condition.
    A blood sample at autopsy will not be elevated by ~1000% above normal unless glucose was intentionally added to the specimen.
    One does not need a unitary diagnosis to cover all bases.
    At some time in her anorexia period, she developed diabetes mellitus.
    It was never diagnosed, clearly. Too bad, so sad, but it happens.

  57. Sorry huxley, don’t get me started on Rita Coolidge. She recorded two of the worst cover songs ever, “The Way You Do the Things You Do” (originally by the Temptations) and “Higher and Higher” (originally by Jackie Wilson). Absolutely sucked the life out of two great songs. I listened to her “Superstar” once. Not within a million miles of Carpenter’s.

  58. Sorry, FOAF. I stand by my opinion.

    Aside from your dislike of Coolidge, I was voting for the “Mad Dogs” package, not just Coolidge.

  59. Re-viewing “Mad Dogs & Englishmen,” I would argue that Leon Russell was one of the few musicians who managed to be a bandleader on Duke Ellington’s level in rock. Unfortunately for Russell there was little call for a bandleader who could manage a dozen plus rock musicians in live performance.

    I was happy to discover that Elton John loved Leon Russell and pulled him out of obscurity several years ago. Elton gave Russell a last dance and inducted him at the 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

    –“LEON RUSSELL’s Induction into The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame 2011”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT5aYRgmgyM

  60. Skip “Sorry.” Leave it out.

    No one has to apologize for their opinions in this bastard, yet sublime, form of music known as “Rock.”

    Including Karen Carpenter fans. If she lit you up, she lit you up, and that’s good enough for me.

  61. Not being all that interested in Karen Carpenter, I was going to skip this discussion, but y’all have really said some interesting things.

    Me and The Carpenters: I admit I was one of those who at the time (ca 1970) considered them ultra-uninteresting as well as ultra-uncool. Heard “Close To You” on the radio and didn’t like it, but never actually listened attentively to them. Never gave them any thought in later years. Then one night maybe ten years ago I was sitting in my car in a parking lot with the radio on. (Waiting for my wife to make a quick foray into the grocery store, I think.) “Superstar” came on and with nothing else to do I actually listened to it. I thought, more or less in this order

    (1) Hang on, this is about a groupie. Not my image of The Carpenters.
    (2) That’s actually a damn good song.
    (3) She’s actually a damn good singer.

    Their music remains not especially my cup of tea, but I do appreciate them/her now.

    I had no idea that the song was written by Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett. Makes more sense now. I mean, it just didn’t seem like something that the Carpenters would write.

    Also had no idea that Rita Coolidge wrote that piano bit for “Layla.” I have to agree with the person above who said she took the life out of “Higher and Higher.” I thought it was a Seriously Boring Song, kind of typical of a certain sort of bland ’70s pop, until I heard Jackie Wilson’s original.

  62. Mac: Love your moment-by-moment reconstruction of hearing Karen Carpenter’s “Superstar.” That’s what rock (if not all of art) is about.

    Re: Jackie Wilson — have you heard Van Morrison’s wonderful tribute?

    –Van Morrison, “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile)”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffCaPkqE6m8

    Or as Leon Russell once said before a performance:
    ___________________________________

    If you leave this place tonight and you don’t feel like you had a religious experience, why don’t you just get your money back, because I don’t need it.
    ___________________________________

    That’s what rock’n’roll was about for a lot of us.

  64. …yeah!

    Mac: That’s the rock’n’roll hallelujah.

    Note the way the voice opens on “yeah!”

  65. That was a nice tribute by Morrison though Wilson should not have needed the publicity, even from Morrison. Wilson was a showstopping performer with a powerful operatic voice and a tremendous dancer to boot. It is reputed that James Brown would not play a show where he had to follow Wilson. Despite a string of hits from the late 50s to late 60s (Higher and Higher was his last big hit in 1967) Wilson’s career was not well-managed and he met a sad end, in a coma for years after suffering a heart attack onstage in the mid-70s.

    Incidentally one of the things that made Wilson’s “Higher and Higher” so much more propulsive than Coolidge’s was the presence of the Funk Brothers, the band that played on so many hits out of the Motown hit-making machine.

  67. Come to think of it the Funk Brothers also played on the original of the other Coolidge cover, the Temptations’ “The Way You Do the Things You Do”. There is a pattern here.

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