written by Maury Dean
A blues singing girl with no happy news? "American Pie" eulogized superstar Janis Joplin. Singing more suburban blues, far from the muddy Mississippi, was Karen Carpenter. Brother Richard shepherded her soft rock musical arrangements. Karen's muted stylistics caressed her songs with spirit and deep feeling. Karen Carpenter had one of the most melancholy and hauntingly beautiful voices of all-time.
Karen had a one in a billion voice. Her sweet pure alto murmurs, purrs and soothes down through the generations, tinged with a tone of eternal melancholy. No matter how happy the song, she can make it sound blue and sad. And that's truly a compliment. Bittersweet, happy-that-hurts angst. Karen's vocal genius never required screaming. A gracious gift of grief sums up her midnight blue songs.
Sadly Karen Carpenter's life was curtailed by too much love, too much affection, too much trying to please everyone but herself.
