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Post by Will on Mar 6, 2004 21:15:49 GMT -5
I'm reading a book about the history of women in Rock & Roll and I thought I'd share a few comments the book makes about Karen and The Carpenters.
The book is titled "She's A Rebel" and is written by Gillian Gaar. She devotes about 5 pages to Karen.
Here are some quotes. I know we have several experts here so please correct any information that is incorrect or disputed.
The year 1970 saw both the death of rock's archetypal bad girl, Janis Joplin, and the rise of rock's archetypal good girl, Karen Carpenter.
The music, and image, of the Carpenters represented a return to "traditional values" in the aftermath of the counter-culture explosion and the social upheavals of the '60s as the lineer notes on their album The Singles: 1969-1973 made clear: hits such as "We've Only Just Begun" and "Top of the World" were described as "a refreshing relief in our stormy age of social chaos... when the turbulence of the Rolling Stones or Janis Joplin seems more in tempo with the time... the songs of the Carpenters fulfill that timeless yearning for escape from the troubles of the world." But this return to "refreshing relief" would offer Karen no escape from her own troubles, and would instead lead her to an ultimately fatal destination.
More to follow ....
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Post by Will on Mar 6, 2004 21:50:52 GMT -5
...
Karen was persuaded to quit playing drums on stage so she could concentrate on her singing, which she reluctantly agreed to do; in a later interview she talked about her custom-designed fiber-glass drumkit, one of only three in the world (Hal Blain and Ringo Starr owned the other two), which she was unable to take on the road "because you can't see me behind them."
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Karen's warm and mellow voice was emphasized on the Carpenters records through continual vocal overdubs, creating full, rich harmonies. The pleasant, laid-back tone of their material was heralded in an early press release as "bringing back the 3 H's -- hope, happiness, harmony -- that have been missing in the last mucical decade of dissonance, cynicism and despair disguised as 'relevance.'"
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But while Richard was, as Karen delicately phrased it, "on vacation," she made a rare stab at independence and attempted to launch a solo career. In an atypical move, she left her home base of Downey and went to New York to record her solo debut with producer Phil Ramone. It was a step she regarded with repidation. "I was scareed to death beforehand," she admitted. "I'm not real good at being away from home by myself." But once she started work on the project, she found she enjoyed the experience: "It was fun cutting it and seeing that I could do all that--sing a different type of tune and work with different people," she said in a 1981 interview with Paul Grein that appeared in Goldmine after her death.
More to follow....
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Post by Will on Mar 7, 2004 0:14:44 GMT -5
But back in California, Richard was hurt that Karen had started working without him. When the album was later previewed for Richard, Herb Alpert, and A&M co-founder Jerry Moss (the "M"), they were less than enthusiastic about its release, and Richard in particular made it clear he would prefer to start work on a new Carpenters album. Karen acquiesced, and later shrugged off her solo project by saying, "It didn't mean that much to me. It was just something to keep me busy." Ramone had a markedly different opinion about Karen's feelings. "Karen was frustrated by the goody-two-shoes image," he told Goldmine, and while on vacation with Karen in Mexico he observed her distress at the pressure to shelve her record. "I watched this girl disintegrate in front of me," he said. "It was hard for her to express anger, but sometimes she'd be sitting there and she'd say 'Why is this happening? What did I do wrong? Should we listen to the tape?'"
(Karen was) unable to transcend basic societal conceptions of how a female body was "supposed" to look.
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ThomB
CERTIFIED GOLD MEMBER
Posts: 110
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Post by ThomB on Mar 14, 2004 14:22:27 GMT -5
Good reading, are there anymore comments to share?
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Post by cam83 on Mar 17, 2004 11:54:42 GMT -5
Hello All, Yes, I read this article years ago and it always touched me at how Karen fought to survive the negative issues in her life and then died. I felt though, that in that book, they should have devoted MUCH more on her. I mean, c'mon, this was one of the biggest selling female singers of the 1970's and won many awards, Grammys, Oscar, and Oscar nominations, American Music Award, 10 gold million selling singles etc. She was also an oddity in the music world, a girl drummer who sang. Actually who didn't just plainly sing, but had her own unique unmatchable style, even to this day. Gorgeous!
My thoughts, Cameron
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Post by Rick Henry on Mar 17, 2004 21:46:34 GMT -5
Yes, they should have devoted more to Karen. Not only was she all that you mentioned Cam, but also one of the world's finest vocalists (female or male) of all-time. * note - I believe Karen was THE biggest selling female voice internationally for the entire decade of the 70's.
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Post by Will on Mar 18, 2004 0:13:33 GMT -5
Hello All, Yes, I read this article years ago and it always touched me at how Karen fought to survive the negative issues in her life and then died. I felt though, that in that book, they should have devoted MUCH more on her. I mean, c'mon, this was one of the biggest selling female singers of the 1970's and won many awards, Grammys, Oscar, and Oscar nominations, American Music Award, 10 gold million selling singles etc. She was also an oddity in the music world, a girl drummer who sang. Actually who didn't just plainly sing, but had her own unique unmatchable style, even to this day. Gorgeous! My thoughts, Cameron I agree. The book devoted more pages to Yoko Ono who wrote the preface.
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