![]() However, "she was a drummer first and considered herself a drummer who just happened to sing, which is crazy to think about because she was incredibly talented as a vocalist," he continues. That's what's so unique about her and separates her from a lot of people who were recording at the same time as her." She could have sung anything and been the best of the '30s, '40s, '50s. But Karen's is a voice that could have been a hit at any decade. Sometimes she was relegated to just being a '70s pop singer. "Her voice is instantly recognizable, like Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald. Schmidt, author of Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter and screenwriter of the new documentary Karen Carpenter: Starving for Perfection, tells Yahoo Entertainment. "A lot of people see her as being one of the greatest singers of the century," Randy L. (Photo: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images) (NBC via Getty Images) At their peak, Karen was the most most famous singer in the world. The Carpenters - Richard Carpenter and Karen Carpenter - were one of the most popular acts in the 1970s. It became the catalyst for education and research - as well as treatment facilities focusing just on eating disorders. Her death prompted widespread media coverage of anorexia for the first time. 4, 1983 death after suffering heart failure due to anorexia - the songbird with the angelic voice and standout drumming skills put a public face on the eating disorder from which she quietly suffered for years. Perhaps Karen's greater legacy is that - following her Feb. To date, more than 100 million Carpenters records have sold worldwide. Then-President Richard Nixon declared them "young America at its best." The pair's catchy, easy-listening tunes made them among the best-selling music artists of that time - and of all time. They had their own TV variety show, Make Your Own Kind of Music, drawing A-list guest stars. The "We've Only Just Begun" and "(They Long to Be) Close to You" singers won three Grammys, including Best Contemporary Vocal Performance by a Duo and Best New Artist of the Year. The lead vocalist and superstar drummer - alongside her brother, Richard, who played piano and sang backup vocals - had 12 Top 10 hits in a span of five years. Karen Carpenter, half of the Grammy-winning '70s duo the Carpenters and wholly one of the greatest vocalists of all time, died 40 years ago at age 32. (Photo: Harry Langdon/Getty Images) (Harry Langdon via Getty Images) 4, 1983 from heart failure caused by anorexia. But throughout the album, she seems like the proverbial little girl in the big city - literally, since the album was recorded in New York, away from her home in L.A.’s Downey suburb.Karen Carpenter, pictured in 1981, died on Feb. She does an able reading of Paul Simon’s ”Still Crazy After All These Years” (changing ”crapped out” to ”crashed out” in the process). Pining for physical love, she comes off like an uptight therapy patient trying to talk about her sex life: The sigh she emits at the end of ”Remember When Lovin’ Took All Night” may be the most chaste moan ever recorded. (The beauty of the best Carpenters songs is the way in which Karen’s darkly tinged voice seemed to recognize that a trace of melancholy can be found in even the happiest of times.) At moments on Karen Carpenter, she’s the whitest disco singer imaginable. But without Richard’s lush choral arrangements framing her voice, Carpenter reaches to sound perky and, in doing so, blands herself out. Certainly the material was no worse - if not better - than the ditties Richard often saddled her with. It’s easy to hear why A&M was hesitant about the album.
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