[E. Pluribus Unum]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_URrerCU10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8DNxqPszc0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmadRGvvK1s

[FES0844]

The voice of an angel. So young. So sad.

[dadfly]

just awesome talent.

[Secret Agent Man]

Hope to never hear this and a billion other 60s and 70s songs ever again.

[AFreeBird]

Damn shame about Karen. She an incredible voice.

[blueunicorn6]

Tied with MUSKRAT LOVE for my favorite song of all time.

[lee martell]

Just about every high school played this song during Graduation season back in those days. Many used it for weddings too. She had a lovely voice and sounded natural in her delivery. I recall there humongous hit of that summer in 1970 was “Close To You”. Beautiful Bacharach at his best. I think Dionne Warrick rejected this song as ‘silly’, and later lived to regret it.

[Jane Long]

Love this song. Richard Carpenter wrote it after hearing a bank commercial jingle/ad, that just had the title line. The ad music was written by Paul Williams, IIRC.

Karen was also a talented drummer, before becoming a legendary singer.

[Aliska]

20 years old. Two of my favorites (there are only a couple I don't like).

Carpenters - Hits Medley 76 (New Audio)

Carpenters - Hits Medley - New London Theater

That white dress is so gorgeous in the second one.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Taken from a bank commercial written, and sung, by Paul Williams, correct? What a change of fate for them. Karen had a magical voice and I grew up with their music. Good times.

[Yaelle]

I can’t never hear this song without thinking of a funny story. When I was young I knew a religious Christian girl who belonged to a very strict church. When she was getting married, just out of high school, she longed to have this song played at her wedding. The church forbade it because they only allowed “Christ centered songs” in the church. She was so disappointed. Finally they decided to change the lyrics to include Jesus and the church allowed it.

I was at her wedding, sitting in the back of the excited church full of people. When the woman sang this song, the new lyrics were “Talking it over, just the three of us,” the third being Jesus, but dang if that whole church didn’t start whispering “Is she pregnant?” Which really would have been frowned on in that congregation! The best of intentions...

[Huskrrrr]

The Carpenters were not my cup of tea in high school, but it was impossible to ignore Karen’s lovely voice. The overdubbing of her voice, a trademark of Herb Alpert’s sound really made a difference.

[tumblindice]

She had a beautiful, rich singing voice.

[dadfly]

thanks. i just listened to four number one hits in the 70’s and i feel 100% better. i feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t love this music. as a musician, it’s just matchless. no one can touch them in what they did.

[Jvette]

A truly lovely voice unlike the screeches of today.

[Busta Rhymes]

Superstar is my favorite.

[Aliska]

I guess I never mentioned anywhere that I grew up with music, played the piano, viola for a year, violin through hs. Piano was in the classical style, two songs I kind of mastered Prelude in C# Minor and Polonaise in Ab major. The latter I never played like it was meant to be played because the fingering in the intro and other parts is very difficult. Plus I hated the thing. I just played it because my teacher pulled it out of her music cabinet and put it in front of me. It never occurred to me to ask if I could play something different.

After I gave up any musical dreams, I played for my own enjoyment, church music, show tunes, a few more classical ones, Moonlight Sonata and Nocturne in Eb (never remembered the keys), from the Eddy Duchin Story. Also I worked on Rhapsody on a Theme from Paganini from Somewhere in Time and many others.

I played in orchestra all the way through jr high and hs, but I always felt the band kids had it better. Some, of course, played in both as you can't have an orchestra in only strings.

My talent or lack of it, here is something interesting. I do not know how people memorize music. I memorized by feel. After I'd played often enough, I just felt it. I lost that ability for some reason. I never memorized the notes or saw the music in my head or played classical music by ear (I can play some pop music by ear) and learned to improvise chords a little.

Later in life I bought a church organ. I played the Phantom of the Opera songs full blast lol. Those I read the music for the left hand and improvised the chords and pedals (not very well I must say).

Singing I could carry a tune and had a range about like Karen but sure didn't sound pretty like her wonderful voice. I could do soprano and alto, some pretty high notes, but I could only do the melody. Much later, I started getting the knack for harmonizing. Too bad so much of it came later in life. But whatever voice I had, I ruined it with my chain smoking, cannot sing at all now.

My dream now would have been to work on improvisation with the melody by ear, the chords, their inversions, broken everything that goes into a song.

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[ArmstedFragg]

In 1975 or so, the CBS network chose took the first step in changing the way video for news broadcasts was gathered. Up to that point, film camera crews shot the footage, which was then processed and cut for broadcast. At best, it was a several hour operation.

CBS decided to do its newsgathering using a video camera, and a “portable” 3/4” videotape machine that weighed about 25 pounds. They made the announcement at their annual affiliates meeting by having the news crew shoot footage of the station owners and guests dancing at the hotel ballroom. We then cut the footage to music on videotape and they surprised the affiliates with the footage at the end of the night. The song we used was “We’ve Only Just Begun”.

[Migraine]

She is the finest female pop vocalist I have ever heard.

Gotta include Anne Murray, Patsy Cline, Dinah Washington, Ruthie Henshall also in the top 5.

Giving credit to Annie Lennox, Stevie Nix and Natalie Merchant also