Some of the best live concerts available on YouTube are those taped live at the BBC in the 1970s, including Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Cat Stevens, and Karen Carpenter, born on this day in 1950.
In honor of the birthday of the woman with the best voice ever, here’s the entire 35-minute Carpenters concert from 1971. She was 21. 11 years later she was dead from anorexia. The quality of the performance is extraordinary, equivalent to that on their albums.
Highlights include “Superstar” (5:15), “Rainy Days and Mondays” (12:47), “Go” (16:24), “For All We Know” (my favorite; 22:10), “Close to You” (27:10), and, of course, their largest hit, “We’ve Only Just Begun” (31:34), which started life as a song in a Crocker National Bank commercial.
As I said, I know of no woman in our time who sang popular songs more beautifully (Barbra Streisand is a close second). For males, there’s no contest: Johnny Mathis.
I don’t think that concert is live. It’s partly, if not entirely sync’d. At best the vocals are live, sung to pre-recorded tracks.
Richard is playing a Wurlitzer electric piano, but has an organ solo in HELP! There are horn parts on the second tune, yet no visible horn players. There are no cords coming out of the guitar or bass.
I won’t get into whether or not Karen is the greatest in her generation, (I f’n LOVE Calling Occupants, even moreso than the original Klaatu version), but IMHO, this “concert” ain’t live.
Even if only the vocals and some of the instrumentaion is live, it’s still great. I was, after all, highlighting her voice.
I’m probably overly-sensitive to sync’d music. My 8 piece horn band loses a lot of work to 3 piece bands playing with tracks. The audience doesn’t care, and 3 musicians are cheaper than 8.
Finding truly great and completely live music is as rare as hen’s teeth. My band does perform completely live, but we’re far removed from truly great.
We learned, (because completely live music has human flaws) hat Adele DID perform completely live at The Grammy Awards. She’s somewhat unique in that way.
The other week I watched a music documentary called Austin to Boston on Netflix. There is a UK sister act, The Staves, that has to be heard to be believed. The 3 voices blend and compliment each other in a way that only family voices can, not unlike the extra special magic of The Mills Brothers, or The Andrews Sisters, and even Richard and Karen Carpenter.
My favorite part about Karen Carpenter? That she plays drums and sings at the same time. That is really hard to do when one part of your body is working like a metronome, and your voice is working both ahead and behind the beat as is required by the song. Levon Helm was gifted in the same way.
Levon wasn’t as easy on the eyes as Karen Carpenter, either.
I’ve posted on the Staves twice before; I’m a big fan. See here.
By the way, the performances of Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor on the BBC were completely live, and are terrific. (That was before Cat went off the rails.)
The Cat is again singing, including his old songs. I recently heard him sing “Father and Son” live on NPR and he was incredible — just as good as the old days. Gave me goosebumps and tears.
I’ll not listen to anything by Cat Stevens until I hear that he’s taken back his approval for the fatwa against Salman Rushdie.
I’m admit that I’m late to the party re: The Staves, but that doesn’t mean I don’t hype them when I can. Amazon delivered a CD for me yesterday, so I can enjoy the commute home today. 🙂
Anyway sir…..as much as you are a fan of The Staves and Karen Carpenter, I’m a fan of your work. I *try* to read everything you post, but I rarely comment, and pretty much only on music threads, b’cause it’s the only topic I have enough passion and knowledge about to want to argue/discuss.
If nothing else, you introduced me to Philomena Cunk…so thank you for that!
Peace,
Paul
Don’t forget Don Henley …
If it is sync’d it is well done. The smacking of the tambourine looks exactly on time.
And I agree that Karen Carpenter’s voice was sublime. Sometimes Richard’s arrangements didn’t do her vocals justice.
Truly great and completely live music? Head on over to your local symphony orchestra venue any weekend during the season.
Not to mention the possibly dozens of good chamber ensembles a medium to large city may host.
One of my favourite singers. Our first 45 for our first record player was ‘Close to You’, and I remember seeing her on the old variety shows of the 70’s.
It’s always puzzled me and made me wonder if we always need a tragedy to bring awareness or cause real change. ie. her death -> anorexia. (Titanic -> lifeboats, etc. I know, not the best comparison, but you get my meaning)
“Why do birds suddenly appear / Every time you are near?”
Birdseed in their pockets.
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She had a great Voice alright, natural Singer, must disagree about Mathis,leaves me stone cold, my favourite and there are a few depending on the different genres but for a Ballad you couldn’t beat Brook Benton ,fabulous Voice , great range as well.
Love Mathis, but have to rate Nat King Cole just above him.
Oh, yeah, Nat was good. IIRC, he was a pianist and only became a solo singer with the decline of the big bands in the 1940s, and the rise of the crooners with their teenyboppers (Frank Sinatra’s fans eliciting the infamous “What the f—k was that?” from Benny Goodman).
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Live or synched these are great, beautiful memories.
And I’ll raise my hand also to Karen Carpenter having the best voice ever.
Carl Kruse
Karen Carpenter and Barbra Streisand are the only two whose voices give me goosebumps.
FWIW, Only Just Begun is at 31:34; not 34:31. She actually forgot the lyrics (32:10). Happens to the best of them.
sub
Don’t forget that other Carpenter! Bob Zimmerman! 🙂
Among male vocalists, what about Faroukh Bulsara. Not only did he have a huge range, rivalling Mariah Carey, but he sang a wide variety of styles.
Jerry might enjoy this paean to one of his cats, whom he adored. (He used to call to speak to them on the phone while he was on tour!)
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I see vierotchka and Walt agree!
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Having watched and listened to the whole thing, I do not believe this show featured any lip synching, and I doubt there were any instruments dubbed in either.
Regardless, it is a beautiful reminder about what a fabulous vocalist Karen Carpenter was. Unlike the divas of today, so doesn’t try to beat anyone over the head with the power of her voice. Wonderful. It’s sad to think about how many brilliant performances we missed out on due to her untimely death. She’d only be 66 today, still in good voice. Sad.
Not too fond of Mathis. For males, my vote goes to Freddy Mercury, among a few others. 🙂
Then there is Aaron Neville’s inimitable golden voice…
For the sound alone – I don’t appreciate music enough to get into technique – Karen Carpenter and Chrissie Hynde are my two favorite female singers. For males, it’s Freddie.
Love Karen Carpenter’s voice but would place K D Lang first. Just listen to her version of Roy Orbison’s “Crying” or Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” For males it’s Roy Orbison with Freddy Mercury second. All just for pure vocal quality but they all interpret the music beautifully as well.
I second k.d. lang. (She writes her name in lower case)
Her voice has a magical quality that I also associate with Karen Carpenter.
Any of her live performances of Roy Orbison’s ‘Crying’ are absolutely amazing.
Anorexia is such a horrible disorder; you basically starve yourself to death while telling yourself and everyone around you that you’re “just fine”….
These, “mind/body/image” disorders are SO strange- I recently read a book which talked about one (I forget the term for it) where the individual ceases to “identify” a limb, or a portion of a limb, as “his”: they are often extremely depressed and continually horrified that this THING is attached to them and some have gone as far as to lay down on train tracks to remove them (one man said that he started to do this, but didn’t because he was afraid he might be killed and then wouldn’t get to find out what it would be like without the “thing”!). There are more than a few who travel to Asia for illegal amputations (there’s even an unofficial “support group” that helps them do this!) and the craziest thing of all is that all the ones interviewed afterwards were ELATED that the “thing” was finally gone!
Carpenter is very good, but I think Linda Ronstadt has the better voice.
Gonna be diplomatic and stay out of the “best ever” discussions, but–thanks for the memories. 🙂
My wife and I had the pleasure of seeing the Carpenters live three times. The first was in 1970 in a high school gymnasium with an audience of about 200 people.