The Tonight Show, January 27, 1977

newvillefan

I Know My First Name Is Stephen
I don’t think I’ve seen these clips before and I don’t recall seeing them posted on the forum. Karen is in great form here and the banter between her, Steve Martin and John Denver is a delight.

And they wheeled out the ubiquitous From This Moment On again :laugh:



 
I’ve seen this before. I don’t like the whole Captain and Tennille “joke”. I do wish the had sung something else although I like that song. I don’t think this one is seen as often as the other two appearances. Thanks for sharing.
Jonathan
 
I enjoy the banter in this appearance too. In Part 2 I especially like the way Karen takes up the role of "straight man" to Tommy Smothers as he starts fishing about joining the Carpenters. Of course, this wasn't rehearsed, and Karen picked up her part so easily. She seemed to be a natural for television. Unfortunately, with some exceptions, the medium did not serve their career well, in my view.
 
"you ALTERED a Bach prelude!"; hilarious. Steve Martin at this point and time was about the hottest comedian on the planet. Karen completely rolls with Tommy's humor as he is just doing his usual "shtick" (I don't believe any malice was intended). John Denver's laugh is infectious. And Richard announces officially that it is not "Carpenters" but "The Carpenters". Thanks for posting!
 
I love that the duo laughed at Tommy's joke about regaining their crown. Whether it hit a sore spot or not wasn't the point. They handled it well- and it put them in a good light. Lesson learned from the "Sedaka incident"?
 
"you ALTERED a Bach prelude!"; hilarious. Steve Martin at this point and time was about the hottest comedian on the planet. Karen completely rolls with Tommy's humor as he is just doing his usual "shtick" (I don't believe any malice was intended). John Denver's laugh is infectious. And Richard announces officially that it is not "Carpenters" but "The Carpenters". Thanks for posting!

It almost sounded as if Richard took credit for the arrangement. However, it was actually written by Ken Welch and his [late] wife Marilyn (Mitzi). An interesting connection/side-note is that Ken was actually born on February 4.
 
Yep! I'm pretty certain that's what happened LOL
What makes it even funnier is that they were just talking about that very thing, when JD said to Karen have you ever messed up live and I thought for sure she was going to say oh you mean like just now. lol But she didn't but I'm certain she missed her start on that song, which is so rare for Karen to do. Still an odd choice of song to sing on that show when the listener couldn't even go to the record store to buy it since it wasn't recorded. Except for Live at the Palladium but that was a UK release not something the US public would know about. Still they did the same thing on the Tonight Show with Thank You For The Music.
 
Not a favourite song of mine, but whenever I watch their live performances of it, I love it when Karen looks over her shoulder and does that little "tick" thing with her finger and thumb on the last "mome-e-e-e-e-e-ent" as a way of signalling her timing to Richard. Very cute.
 
Their version of the song is certainly not "radio-friendly"; but it shows how technically proficient they both were. I've written about my admiration for this song in other threads. To summarize here: I think it clearly demonstrates how great a vocalist Karen was. The arrangement doesn't allow much "wiggle room" for the vocalist to hide. And - the late entry aside - she nails it. Same for Richard and his metronome-perfect delivery of the accompaniment.
 
Back
Top Bottom