This is a project of Richard Carpenter's.

He takes vocals and instrumentals from original recordings of The Carpenters and revitalises them using an orchestral backing (arranged, conducted and produced by Richard). When I look at all the leads on the studio's floor, I can only imagine the challenges that the audio engineers faced in producing such amazing orchestral clarity.

Even today, Karen's vocals still mesmerise me.



DIRECT LINK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGrLUavvkIA


My favourite Carpenters song is "For All We Know"... it's a pity that the below clip does not show the orchestra in action. It still sounds beautiful, though.



DIRECT LINK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_FbajMjqFE&list=PLaQSg1uUWGXuxlc5VDoVpIFhb4fa1qL6q&index=4


Today's technology is nothing short of amazing!

Thanks for posting this, Noel.
Amongst all the trash that poses as "music" these days there are still beacons of light in the darkness.
Wonderfully done. The mix has superb clarity - the background acoustic guitar for example is perfectly clean and clear in amidst everything.
Cheers
Ian

I forgot how beautiful her voice was. Thanks for posting the memories.

Jeff

Noel,
Great find, and thanks for posting that.

Excellent! Thanks for sharing this, Noel. I have passed the links on to my wife, who is a Carpenters fan.

Could never go wrong with the beautiful voice of Karen Carpenter. If anything when I was young I found their music a little too smooth and MOR for my personal taste. The arrangements were always faultless but maybe lacked some grittiness. However her sensational voice could carry anything with it. What a huge loss to the world so young.

funkycornwall, listen to their first album, first called "Offering" and then relabeled as "Ticket To Ride". It's before they found their sound.

Absolutely beautiful. I've always been a huge Carpenters fan and this is superb. What a voice. I agree the guitar has stunning clarity. I remember as a child, sitting in a big arm chair listening to her songs on my father's 2 track reel to reel recorder in the early 70s. Happy memories.

Karen Carpenter's voice is superb but her drumming was just as good. I've read Karen called herself a "drummer that sang" thus placing her drumming first and singing second.

+++ HERE +++ is a video clip of Karen singing while playing drums. There's a nice drum solo at the end. It's a nice Ludwig set and she has the snare tuned tight with heavy muting that eliminates ring and gives a very classic, jazzy sound.

I wish I could remember the announcer's name as I remember seeing him as a game show host but can't place his name or what game show he hosted.

Thanks Jim for showing that link. I’d forgotten about her drumming skills. Makes me sad just to see the young talent. However she left an great musical legacy that will live on indefinitely I think.

I watched some more old YouTube videos of Karen’s drumming. I was blown away as I never realised just how great a drummer she was. How impressive that she could play such complex drum patterns and sing so beautifully at the same time. I am thinking how much more complex this is than say playing the piano plus singing. When you accompany yourself on the piano you can simplify your style whilst singing and then play fancier work in between. You can’t really do that with the drums as you are powering the band.

I have always loved her voice but now have seen another side to her talent.

If you can listen to their first album. It is her drumming, not a studio drummer and, as far as I know, the only album that she played drums on every song.

I'm not sure the new versions are improvements on the old. It's not like they needed fixing or anything.

In the new version it feels like everything has been turned up in the mix. There's certainly a lot less dynamic range.

The vocal feels like it's been hyped in the high end, which sounds more modern, but makes it a bit less integrated into the mix.

On "Superstar" the final choruses lose a bit of their punch because there's less contrast with the verse, and louder hi-hat and bass on "For All We Know" makes it feel rushed and busy.

Then again, I'd have "corrected" the /S/ on "two of us", so props to Richard for maintaining the integrity of the vocal.

Backseat mixer grumbling aside, it's good to hear these songs revisited.

At the time, I was not into this genre of music. Yeah I heard it on the radio but that's as far as it went. My tastes at the time tended towards the heavier end of the spectrum..... Sabbath, Deep Purple, etc......

All that aside, the girl can sing. Her voice has qualities that put her up in the top of the all time best female vocalists. She didn't live long enough to see that come to fruition. She wasn't a half bad drummer either. But again, at the time.... girl drummers were not exactly looked upon in the same light as the guys.