I am a young music fan who has just recently found time to start aquainting himself with the Carpenters. (I know it’s late, but remember- I am young and didn’t get a chance to experience the music the first time around!)
Anyway, I’ve just started off with a very sparse incomplete hits compilation. There are only a few tracks on which Karen plays drums. There’s not really enough for me to form an opinion of her as a drummer. So, tell me.
How was Karen as a drummer?
Is there anyone out there in messageboardland who had a chance to hear them in concert? I’m under the impression she did more drumming for live performances, although I may be mistaken.
How much drumming did she do in the studio?
Are there any good concert recordings available on CD?
Just looking to further my appreciation. Let me know what you guys think!
I seem to remember that in concert, Cubby (one of the youngest Mousekateers from the original Mickey Mouse Club) did most of the drumming in concert for them. I won’t swear to it, but that’s my memory.
I believe she was a good drummer, but perhaps not on the same par as Richard was as a pianist.
She learned to play the drums as a child, and was adequate, but nothing more.
In concerts she’d play the drums for a couple of songs, and then come up front and sing.
And yes, it was Cubby O’Brien, former Mousketeer, who played drums for the group. He was much better than Karen.
You’ll note that the Carpenters songs weren’t really arranged for the drummer to have much of a role, anyway. But in my opinion, she was a great singer, and her talent would have been wasted behind the drums.
Wow, interesting. I do know that the Richard Carpenter Trio (the instrumental group preceding the band) won some sort of Battle of the Bands contest with Karen on drums. I’d have to go back and check the book I have on them (I’m a huge Carpenters fan) but at least a few sources seem to portray this as the beginning of their success.
Not sure if this only happened in the made-for-TV movie (as opposed to real life), but there was the implication that Karen insisted on drumming & singing simultaneously. There was reference is the movie to her “hiding behind the drums”, possibly because she was self-conscious about her body.
(From Connectcut,raised in Downey Cal.) Here is how to determine her drumming skill- compare her vocal on "Please Mr Postman " to the Marvelettes. Then use that ratio when to compare her to a good drummer. What is that, about 50% of good, or C minus to D+? As I recall she soon stopped drumming in performances,as did Gary Lewis (of the Playboys).
The trio won a Battle of the Bands contest at the Hollywood Bowl in 1966, which led to a record contract with RCA. Signing under the name the Richard Carpenter Trio, the group cut four songs that were never released.
Actually, during part of that clip, she has a drum battle with Cubby O’Brien, and he’s sweating to keep up with her!
Also, Karen used dynamics in her drumming, making her parts (when they let her play them) really interesting. Although Cubby is a very good drummer, his volume is always just “loud,” and a bit too ham-fisted on the cymbals for my taste. Hal Blaine often drummed on the albums when Karen wasn’t (much to her dismay, she was phased out of playing her beloved drums even though she was damn good. Blaine said a girl playing the drums looked “ridiculous.”) Everyone wanted her up front, where she felt very self-conscious. 1975 was the year she was completely forced to give up playing the drums while singing at the same time, and ironically (??) that’s also the year she had her first serious bout with anorexia.
Info from the video:
"Karen Carpenter was best known for her hauntingly beautiful singing voice, but she considered herself a “drummer who sang.”
Karen first became fascinated with the drums after joining the high school marching band to get out of gym class. She persuaded the band director to let her switch from glockenspiel to the drums, despite warnings that “girls don’t play drums.” Carpenter recalled, “That is such an overused line, but I started anyway. I picked up a pair of sticks, and it was the most natural-feeling thing I’ve ever done.”
Her first drum teacher was a boy in the drumline obsessed with Buddy Rich. Later, she studied with Bill Douglass, a drummer for Benny Goodman and Art Tatum. At the age of 16, she drummed jazz instrumentals with her pianist brother in the Richard Carpenter Trio, winners of the 1966 Hollywood Bowl Battle of the Bands. Earlier the same year, Karen had scored a solo record contract, but the label folded after releasing only one of her singles. In 1968, the Richard Carpenter Trio also won on “Your All-American College Show,” this time with Karen singing as well as drumming. In 1969, the Carpenters released their first album, and thanks to 1970’s “Close to You,” they became superstars.
In the early years, Karen stayed behind the drums and sang at the same time, but was pressured to give up her beloved drums to sing front and center, at least on the ballads.
Her skills were complimented by drummers Hal Blaine, Cubby O’Brien, Modern Drummer magazine, and even Buddy Rich himself."
Richard Carpenter claims Karen’s drumming would throw off her singing. Which may have some validity. Karen had said, she preferred drumming to singing.
Karen always seemed to have issues as being locked into a style. The Carpenters were fortunate to have come along when the slow style of AC music was becoming really big in the early 70s. No one did it better than the Carpenters, but it locked them in.
When the Carpenters tried to expand, it didn’t sit will with their core fans and it didn’t sell well. This is most seen on their Passage album, which contains such songs as “Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft” and “Sweet Sweet Smile.” It’s also seen on Karen’s solo album which was shelved and released long after her death.
Her dissatisfaction is most easily seen, on the rare occasions she sings high. When asked why she didn’t do it more often, she would shrug and say “The money’s in the basement.”
The Young Fresh Fellows had a hilarious song called Hank, Karen and Elvis, and they sang something about “…but they brought in Hal Blaine when they needed the best”.
Karen never got the chance to play professionally for any extended time. Given the opportunity maybe she would have been a great drummer. She certainly seemed to have a talent for it.
Karen made so much more money singing. It would have been tough giving that up to tour as a bands drummer.
Nowhere have I heard Richard quoted as you say. Like many other Carpenters fans, I feel that Karen looked and sounded more comfortable behind the drums. Her drumming was flexible and tasteful, all that was required for the material they performed and recorded. She was musical to the core.
I don’t see that Karen was locked into any particular style. In fact she was a versatile drummer - covering all the styles that the Carpenters played.
OK, for all I know, she might not have been the ideal drummer for a heavy metal band. She was not in a heavy metal band!
I don’t see that the quote “The money’s in the basement” implies that she was worried about that, although she should have been. The solo album shows clearly that her higher range was still convincing Karen and in the sweet spot.
Back to the drumming - Hal Blaine was involved in the studio because it was felt that his studio experience would get most quickly to the end result. I have seen that there was an opinion in A&M that he was a better drummer, and indeed he should have been - he was not a singer or a multi-instrumentalist. On the road, they should have maximised Karen’s drumming and singing. it was a critical point of difference and the real fans loved it.
Unbelievable. I always loved her voice, but I had NO IDEA she was such a great drummer. And she looks so *happy *playing the drums.
The Carpenters were very big in 1970, the year I graduated from college and many of my friends had “We’ve Only Just Begun” sung at their weddings. (Along with PP&M’s “The Wedding Song”). The standard wedding presents were a copy of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet and a fondue set.
I was in high school when they appeared. Having a female lead singer who played drums made The Carpenters stand out when they first made a splash on the national scene. I don’t really want to call it a “gimmick”, but, well there it was. TV cameras generally ignored the rest of the group, but then again, she was the lead singer. I wasn’t much of a fan of them, so I never knew she was that good of a drummer. But it seems to me one can’t do heavy duty drumming while expressively singing the way Karen did. So on those numbers, she really dialed the drumming down to keeping the beat and the occasional fill between lines, verses, or before and after a bridge or chorus. But all singing drummers do that.
