The Carpenters, Superstar (Live, 1971)
Posted by Chicago Boyz Archive on April 15th, 2011 (All posts by Chicago Boyz Archive)
The magic and tragic Karen Carpenter.
Greatest girl pop singer of all time?
The world did not love Karen one-millionth as much as she deserved.
April 16th, 2011 at 8:10 am
I was more smitten with Toni Tennille.
April 16th, 2011 at 8:58 am
Carpenters, are you serious?
April 16th, 2011 at 10:10 am
Absolutely serious.
I don’t do irony.
April 16th, 2011 at 6:37 pm
Awesome voice. Wasted life. Personally remembered for having died the day after my father died.
April 16th, 2011 at 10:13 pm
Awesome voice indeed, life not entirely wasted, since she left her music behind, but sad and far too short.
A good way to gauge the greatness of her voice is to compare this version of Superstar to, to pick one of many, Rita Coolidge’s version. Rita Coolidge has a nice enough voice, but she is merely human and of this Earth, where Karen is able to take this song to some kind of Beautiful, supernatural place all her own. Note also how physically frail she looks in this video, but she hits the song out of the ballpark. What would she have been able to do if she wasn’t physically destroying herself at the time.
April 16th, 2011 at 11:29 pm
Perfection comes to mind. Thanks for posting.
April 17th, 2011 at 11:31 am
Karen was great. I wish she was still with us.
April 18th, 2011 at 5:16 am
Such a unique voice, instantly recognizable. She could have been still singing now if she had kept healthy; the voice is the last thing to age.
April 19th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
Whenever I hear Karen Carpenter’s beautiful voice, I get sad and angry at the same time. I’ve never quite believed the anorexia story, but I guess it may be true. Thanks for posting this. She was one of the greats, along with Brenda Lee.