09/03/2023
The incomparable Karen Carpenter was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on this day in 1950 (March 2)
Carpenter always considered herself a "drummer who sang", but it was her naturally beautiful voice, and the emotion powering it, that would be her lasting legacy.
John Lennon was a fan; Paul McCartney has said that she had "the best female voice in the world: melodic, tuneful and distinctive", and Elton John suggested that she had "one of the greatest voices of our lifetime".
With older brother Richard in the duo The Carpenters, they dominated the charts around the world in the seventies, recording 10 albums, and chalking up three #1 singles, five #2 singles, and twelve Top 10 singles in the US alone.
Rolling Stone ranked Carpenter #94 on its list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, calling her voice "impossibly lush and almost shockingly intimate", adding "even the sappiest songs sound like she was staring directly into your eyes".
Her career was tragically cut short however, when she passed away as a consequence of the eating disorder anorexia nervosa on February 4, 1983, aged just 32.
Click on the link below to re-live her magic:
https://youtu.be/6inwzOooXRU
