NEW SPECIAL: A Song For You (BBC)

Simon KC1950 said:
WARNING !

SPOILERS AHEAD !


The big takeaways from tonight's BBC Carpenters special with Richard Carpenter:

Richard has revealed that he has been working on new Christmas songs with several singers in the hope that they'll be picked up by mainstream current artists to cover and make hits. He feels that there are no new traditional sounding songs anymore, and the old songs just aren't well suited to today's artists.

He has also revealed that he would like to work on remixing the Carpenters Christmas music because he isn't happy with the reverb he added and would like to utilise the new technologies, like he did with the RPO album, especially on Karen's voice.

Richard has said he would like to work on a volume 2 of "Carpenters with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra" but that it depends on the "powers that be" and how well volume one ("if we can call it volume one!" he added) performs - which we know it did well, especially in the UK. He hopes so! He also confirmed one song that would be included in a second volume - Karen's final recording "Now".

He confirmed that he has archived, and owns copies of absolutely everything he and Karen ever recorded (so the Universal fire didn't erase the original Carpenters material) and consolidated that there are no more unreleased recordings worth releasing. He said if he could only save one thing from his collection it would be the Magic Lamp single recording of "Looking For Love" - of which he owns 10 pristine copies.

He revealed that he and Karen didn't even really celebrate after signing their recording contract with A&M Records on 22nd April 1969 and that they headed home to their parents, getting stuck in traffic on the freeway in a Ford that stalled when it was stationary for too long.

He also spoke with enormous gratitude of how successfully the RPO album has been and would like to thank all Carpenters fans for sticking with the music he and Karen made. He said it has been a long and hard 50 years of work and if only one thing could be remembered he hopes that it would be the talent his sister possessed with her voice.
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Thank you, Simon! And thank you, Chris, for the link!
 
Simon KC1950 said:
He confirmed that he has archived, and owns copies of absolutely everything he and Karen ever recorded (so the Universal fire didn't erase the original Carpenters material) and consolidated that there are no more unreleased recordings worth releasing. He said if he could only save one thing from his collection it would be the Magic Lamp single recording of "Looking For Love" - of which he owns 10 pristine copies.
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By “archiving”, does he mean the original 1st generation analog masters or 2nd generation analog and digital (although the digital would be the same quality and considered the same generation as the 1st generation analog masters), since from what has been said over the last 11 years, it was the 1st generation analog masters that had been used for the 2004 SACD disc, and were destroyed in the 2008 fire, except for the Christmas masters that were not used. Otherwise, the only things left at Iron Mountain are 2nd generation digital copies.
 
Ditto from me!

Mark-T said:
Thank you, Simon! And thank you, Chris, for the link!
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The program was very enjoyable and informative.
Nice to hear that Richard is inspired by his recent experience of creating the RPO album and would like to do more projects!!! :)
 
Just finished listening to this great interview.
I was saddened by the "nothing left to release" comment.
I guess that hope had to die one day- I just wish it wasn't this year.
 
Just listened to the whole show. Just great. My favorite Christmas gift this year. Thank you for the link.
 
tomswift2002 said:
By “archiving”, does he mean the original 1st generation analog masters or 2nd generation analog and digital (although the digital would be the same quality and considered the same generation as the 1st generation analog masters), since from what has been said over the last 11 years, it was the 1st generation analog masters that had been used for the 2004 SACD disc, and were destroyed in the 2008 fire, except for the Christmas masters that were not used. Otherwise, the only things left at Iron Mountain are 2nd generation digital copies.
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He said that he owns all the acetates and all the test pressings. He said it's because he's a collector but it also really came in handy for the digital remasters ect. because certain tracks were missing like the original "Yesterday Once More" and the mono single mix of "Please Mr. Postman".
 
Simon KC1950 said:
He said that he owns all the acetates and all the test pressings. He said it's because he's a collector but it also really came in handy for the digital remasters ect. because certain tracks were missing like the original "Yesterday Once More" and the mono single mix of "Please Mr. Postman".
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In that case he doesn’t have the original multi-track tapes or copies of them, except for “California Dreaming” and stuff from the specials that A&M never owned. He only has 5th or 6th generation 2-track or 1-track copies.
 
One thing that struck me was during the story of how he got to hear Calling Occupants. He was at the studio and said he called home and told Mary to run over to the record store and pick the album for him. This was 1977. Was he referring to Mary Rudolph?
 
If richard does another album with the rpo im just hoping he does the song crystall lullaby or crescent noon or even im caught between goodbye and i love you.
 
Richard mentioned he would like to apply the same technology used on the RPO project to enhance Karen’s vocals, to eliminate the reverb incorporated during the Christmas songs remixes. The orchestration needs very little alteration, if any at all. The quest for perfection continues.
 
Simon KC1950 said:
He feels that there are no new traditional sounding songs anymore, and the old songs just aren't well suited to today's artists.
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An interesting comment. I don’t think I’m even going to try to assume an example for I don’t want to go into a misinterpreted direction sounding like a man of my age giving homage to what once was. I do think the is an astute observation with a genuine purpose and this insight may prove worthy!
 
Chris Mills said:
Richard mentioned he would like to apply the same technology used on the RPO project to enhance Karen’s vocals, to eliminate the reverb incorporated during the Christmas songs remixes. The orchestration needs very little alteration, if any at all. The quest for perfection continues.
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That thing he mentioned about revisiting the 1978 Christmas album - to remove reverb that wasn’t there to begin with and remix an already remixed album that was perfect in the first place - actually exasperated me. He needs to stop with that now and either move on to new projects as he keeps promising, or retire altogether. He can’t move the legacy any further than it already is. It’s perfect and I love the fact he was still able to do so in his lifetime. He said there are no more releasable songs waiting in the vaults. In his words “all done”.
 
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I tend to agree with Stephen here. He's the one that added the reverb in the first place in an effort to "make it better."
 
newvillefan said:
That thing he mentioned about revisiting the 1978 Christmas album - to remove reverb that wasn’t there to begin with and remix an already remixed album that was perfect in the first place - actually exasperated me. He needs to stop with that now and either move on to new projects as he keeps promising, or retire altogether. He can’t move the legacy any further than it already is. It’s perfect and I love the fact he was still able to do so in his lifetime. He said there are no more releasable songs waiting in the vaults. In his words “all done”.
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Amen! Time to retire and enjoy those grand-kids that are surely coming his way!!
 
This was such an enjoyable interview and companion to last year's show. So many keen insights from Richard. The man has great taste as always and is so on point with his observations. I was thrilled to hear "I Can Dream Can't I" being included and getting some attention. I'm also glad to hear that he's considering remixing the Christmas albums. I know the original mixes were great, and I do love some of the remixes since then, but I've felt for a while that the material could benefit from another mix with today's technology.. Particularly after hearing "I Just Fall in Love Again" on the RPO release. Karen's voice is clearer than ever. It would be heaven to hear the Christmas songs that way. A dream come true.
 
That was both a gratifying and irritating interview. Gratifying to hear Richard and to hear lesser-known tracks such as
Caught Between Goodbye and I Love You and I Can Dream Can't I, both sounding incredible.
Calling Occupants remains a favorite, too.
Now, how about reverting back to the original Top of the World ?
While, I believe "Now" could use an RPO workover, it is still an inferior song compared to many others. And, if an RPO Volume Two
is as sparse in the use of the RPO, then I will not bother to buy it (I listened to the Elvis RPO and it blew me away). I remain dissatisfied
with Carpenters RPO "volume one."
We need the original Christmas Portrait from 1978, nothing added and nothing subtracted. It is perfect.
Finally, as far as no "new" releases. It remains a mystery why he bothered to mention the unreleased songs in the japanese Mook,
and it remains a mystery why we do not see a completion of the song Something's Missing or release of "live" concert-material.
Yes, he may have copies of everything they recorded, but it remains to know exactly what went up in the Universal fire.
I do hope he gets his new Christmas music released and heard.
 
I would eagerly welcome an RPO Volume 2! From the interview, he did say that he learned a lot from the RPO experience and from that I inferred that he would probably do some things differently. He also said it was up to the "powers that be" at Universal. This interview was done to further promote the RPO project. In comparison to most of the other artist/RPO collaborations, this one has not sold as well. Regardless, I am hoping that Universal will give a go-ahead to an RPO Vol.2.
 
I'm pretty much ambivalent about the RPO project as it stands and whether or not there will be any more. I'm disappointed that so many of us bought CDs only to find out that the tinkering wasn't finished yet. Initially I thought that the vinyl would have the final versions on it, but I don't even believe that's true. It was, in my mind, unfair to shove semi-completed versions out there for people to spend their hard-earned money on, only to find out that someone else's version is different.

And while it was kind of fun to hear the songs on the RPO project in a new and different way, in all honesty, none of them in my opinion became the definitive versions of any of the songs. Different preludes, intros, outros are nice, but the basic recordings were always fine with me. Are Karen's vocals more out-front? Yeah, maybe, but it wasn't like I couldn't hear her before.

I'll still buy anything that comes out, but it's not like I'm holding my breath for either another RPO project or his long-rumored Christmas album.
 
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