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LOS ANGELES - The wondrous instument that was Karen Carpenter's voice was perhaps best described by writer Tom Nolan in a 1974 Rolling Stone cover story: "Hers is a voice of fascinating contrasts, combining youth with a widsom; chilling perfection with much warmth."
It was that warmth and heart and emotion that set Carpenter apart. There was a conversational intimacy and matter-of-fact naturalness in her style that made her thoroughly unpretentious and appealing.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times after Carpenter's death of heart failure Friday (4), A&M co-founder Herb Alpert remembered the first time he heard a demo tape of Karen's voice in early 1969: "It just jumped right out at me," he said. "It felt like she was in the room with me."
In a mid '70's interview, Alpert also touched on this vocal intimacy. "Some people think ther're (the Carpenters) corny," he acknowledged at the time, "but I've always thought of Karen as the type of singer who would sit in your lap and sing in your ear."
That ease and subtlety in Carpenter's style caused her to be dismissed by critics as tame and bland. But if there was a surface serenity to Karen's vocals, there were also layers of often contrasting emotions just below."
Olivia Newton-John, one of the few artists to escape the "easy listening" pigeonhole and gain broader pop acceptance, told the L.A. Times after Carpenter's death: "I think she was underestimated by many people. Her records were beautiful. She had such a lovely voice and such wonderful control and feeling."
Newton-John's tribute was one of the many in the wake of the singer's death at age 32. But Bacharach, who wrote the Carpenters 1970 breakthrough hit, Close To You, noted: "When we first appeared together in concer, all I could think of was that she had a heaven-sent voice, like no one before her and no one since." And John Bettis, lyricist of such Carpenters hits as Yesterday Once More and Only Yesterday, said simply: "My words have lost the best voice they ever had."
In her last major print interview in 1981, with this writer, Carpenter downplayed dissection of her vocal technique. "I'm not that complicated ," she demurred. "I'm just a real easygong singer. I don't push. Even if I screamed I couldn't sing as loud as some people. I open my mouth and thank God it's there."
It's sad that image considerations came to overshadow Carpenter's vocal talent and that she didn't live to take her rightful place alongside Barbra Streisand and Dionne Warwick as one of the preeminent female vocalists of her generation. But the joy is that Carpenter's expressive, beguiling voice is there to behold on 11 A&M albums.
The intimacy and personal connection in Carpenter's voice render all the more pognant these closing lines (written by Leon Russell) from the duo's fourth album:
"And when my life is over
remember when we were
together
We were alone and I was singing this song for you"
(A Song For You)
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Last changed: Fri Sep 25 21:58:33 EDT 1998