Open thread 5/5/21
Did you know that the song “We’ve Only Just Begun” started out in life as a bank ad for Crocker Bank? Richard Carpenter – always looking for songs he could use – noticed, and ten gazillion weddings were launched.
The older blond woman in the clip is Petula Clark, the pop singer with whom Glenn Gould had a strange fascination.
Anthony Esolen once offered that the distinction between music that is popular culture and that which is mass entertainment is that popular culture is what people play in their own homes on their own instruments.
Not all Wedding Singers were able to pull this song off, but that didn’t stop them. It needed Karen Carpenter’s lower register.
The singers of my era are seldom mentioned today. Sinatra, Como, Martin, Nat King Cole, Sara Vaughn, Jo Stafford, Doris Day, etc. I don’t really care that much for the music of the60s and beyond. Except for the Carpenters and a few others. I really liked all the songs that Karen Carpenter sang. Something haunting and sweet about her voice., I guess. Makes me an old curmudgeon. Well, there are worse things to be.
Sinatra, Como, Martin, Nat King Cole, Sara Vaughn, Jo Stafford, Doris Day, etc.
[clears throat]
Missing from your list: Dinah Shore, Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, Teresa Brewer, Eydie Gorme, Astrud Gilberto, Lani Hall, and Harry Belafonte.
Maybe they weren’t on his list, but are on yours?
Musical tastes are individual after all. The last word of the day-oh.
If we are going to be nostalgic, when I was a kid we used to watch the Kate Smith show.
What a lovely voice she had.
>What a lovely voice she had.<
That didn't stop her from being cancelled for some stuff she sang decades ago.
Karen Carpenter had one of the best voices ever in pop music. She was very talented and could sing just about any genera. Frank Sinatra said she was one of the very few he’d pay to listen to. Her version of “Don’t Cry for me Argentina” is the best of any other performer, much, much better than Madonna.
https://youtu.be/76ZKihNCWWE
Oh, I meant Karen Carpenter. She was unhappily cancelled by an early death. Very sad. But her voice was lovely.
Art+Deco, yes, those singers as well. Thanks for adding their names.
Paul In Boston, thanks for the link to Karen Carpenter’s rendition of “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina.” Pitch perfect and very haunting. The pictures with the song brought pleasant memories of time spent in Argentina. Such a spectacular country! So sad that such a potentially wealthy nation has been an economic a basket case due to the Peron brand of socialism. Still worth visiting. Especially for carnivores. The beef and lamb are to die for. Iguazu Falls and the mountains in Patagonia are fantastic.
i was in Oak Ridge, TN back around 1970 and heard a bank commercial (i’m pretty sure it was a bank commercial) on the radio which had a nice tune and a line “one of the most beautiful words in the world is … yes”. I thought the same thing: there’s a song here. but i don’t have the talent Richard Carpenter had. But it’s still stuck in my head somewhere…
“Heart payment” — I liked that.