“Merry Christmas Darling”, a 1970 tune, is one of a handful of “contemporary” Xmas melodies one can’t avoid hearing in the mall trawl from Thanksgiving till New Years Day. The hauntingly present voice on that track (which many people consider the quintessential female pop vox of the last 40 years) belonged to a drummer.
Karen Carpenter was a pretty gosh darn capable and tasteful percussionist: a drummer who sang. She had set her heart on playing drums (not singing) while in high school and afterward continued a career playing in her brother Richard’s band. However, it wasn’t her playing but her singing that, as dreams go, happened to be the one that the angels got together on and decided to create come true for A & M marketing — one of solid sales of albums gold and platinum releases that eclipsed all their other acts — including Herb Alpert’s own highly successful Tijuana Brass. Richard and Karen Carpenter created their unique brand of soft rock and suddenly Karen’s voice was the new ubiquitous. They were everywhere. And — thanks to Karen — the public even grew more accustomed to the image of a young woman in back of a drum kit. But it was really her voice that captivated them. They preferred her out front as “lead sister”.
She actually won Playboy’s 1975 poll as Best Rock Drummer. Playboy, after all, was known for its “feminist” readership. Back in their heyday their yearly music poll was an anticipated event. For a female with a bustline measuring less than 36 C to be chosen as “best” drummer and not as a rim shot for a punch line was saying something. Being an anomaly that could play a backbeat was a riff she could always fall back on — but –no one wanted her to do that.
To think she literally died of a broken heart at 32 because her perception of herself never quite matched the public’s nor her family’s makes one wonder about how she would’ve played out her life on her own terms. Who knows how many drum solos she might’ve busted out if her success had been measured by following her own drummer instead of a curriculum vitae of more passive participation than personal creation.
I recently found a couple of YouTube videos of her playing. One was taken from a prime time special that aired in the US in 1976 and another (below) from a British show from the same year (The Carpenters: A World of Music). I have to say that I really didn’t know how well she could play (pretty much self taught, at that) until I saw this footage. Okay – she’s not Buddy Rich – but she had kinetic energy, finesse, and great timing (and Buddy Rich’s respect)… everything a good drummer shouldn’t lack.
I find it difficult to reconcile the innate goofiness (I say that respectfully) and joyfulness she exudes in this clip with the conservative image she seemed to project when she sang. She was totally in control here. She also looked a helluva a lot happier, sticks in hand. Just an observation.