🎧 Podcast CARPENTERS: Q&A, Ep. 5: "Christmas Portrait" (Special Edition)

[Joe Spiegel]

Hi Chris, thank you for your videos and book. As an OG Carpenters fan (14 when I bought CTY in 1970) I appreciate all you have done. I wrote two posts on your YouTube channel. One in this Christmas topic and one where you demonstrated the harmonies of We’ve Only. I won’t repeat them here as I can go long, sorry. I do wish you take a look at them as I linked and asked questions. I think you will enjoy what I linked, I do. I’ve never been so moved. We’re talking goosebumps and chills, moved. They are recent posts so they should be at or very near the top.
Thank You and an early Merry Christmas,
Joe

 

[goodjeans]

Just caught up with this video, Chris. Thanks for your insight - always so fascinating to hear the background to how tracks were recorded, and what was going on in Richard & Karen's world as they were producing these records.
Both Christmas albums have always held a special place in my affections - certainly for the recordings themselves, but also because I had always found Karen's singing to be so remarkable and Richard's production to be such perfection that I was always intrigued by some little slip-ups on these albums which don't appear elsewhere in their recorded output. I know people are going to roll their eyes over these small 'mistakes', and I hasten to add that they in no way spoil the recordings for me, but hearing more about what was happening with Richard at the time, and how much of the work was farmed out to others, it makes more sense.
You discuss two of the little slips - Karen singing "Christiandom" rather than "Christendom", and Richard singing "SHALL ransom captive Israel" rather than "AND ransom captive Israel", but there's a third which has always niggled at me. Karen's breath control was absolutely remarkable (you never hear ANY cover artists sing "Time and time again the chance for love has passed me by and all I know of love is how to live without it" in one breath!!!), so it's all the more unusual to hear her actually breathe in the middle of a word on Christmas Portrait. At the end of "Ave Maria", she sings "Nunc et in hora, in ho-(breath)-ora mortis nostrae". Know, I know - people are going to argue that it's in Latin, and no-one's going to notice, and what does it matter even if they do; but at the end of the day, Richard & Karen were both such perfectionists, it saddens me just a little that no-one caught it. Richard would NEVER have let her breathe in the middle of an English word; and I'm sure if someone had pointed it out to her, Karen would have corrected her phrasing and found a way to do it correctly. It is difficult to find a good place to breathe in that final section, but most have found a way to manage it. It proves to me that both of them were human - although pretty much all of their other output was so perfect, it sometimes makes you wonder!
At some point, you might ask Richard if he's ever noticed it!

"Have Yourself..." is not only my favorite from this album, but my favorite lead vocal of any song, by anyone, ever.

 

[goodjeans]

Just caught up with this video, Chris. Thanks for your insight - always so fascinating to hear the background to how tracks were recorded, and what was going on in Richard & Karen's world as they were producing these records.
Both Christmas albums have always held a special place in my affections - certainly for the recordings themselves, but also because I had always found Karen's singing to be so remarkable and Richard's production to be such perfection that I was always intrigued by some little slip-ups on these albums which don't appear elsewhere in their recorded output. I know people are going to roll their eyes over these small 'mistakes', and I hasten to add that they in no way spoil the recordings for me, but hearing more about what was happening with Richard at the time, and how much of the work was farmed out to others, it makes more sense.
You discuss two of the little slips - Karen singing "Christiandom" rather than "Christendom", and Richard singing "SHALL ransom captive Israel" rather than "AND ransom captive Israel", but there's a third which has always niggled at me. Karen's breath control was absolutely remarkable (you never hear ANY cover artists sing "Time and time again the chance for love has passed me by and all I know of love is how to live without it" in one breath!!!), so it's all the more unusual to hear her actually breathe in the middle of a word on Christmas Portrait. At the end of "Ave Maria", she sings "Nunc et in hora, in ho-(breath)-ora mortis nostrae". Know, I know - people are going to argue that it's in Latin, and no-one's going to notice, and what does it matter even if they do; but at the end of the day, Richard & Karen were both such perfectionists, it saddens me just a little that no-one caught it. Richard would NEVER have let her breathe in the middle of an English word; and I'm sure if someone had pointed it out to her, Karen would have corrected her phrasing and found a way to do it correctly. It is difficult to find a good place to breathe in that final section, but most have found a way to manage it. It proves to me that both of them were human - although pretty much all of their other output was so perfect, it sometimes makes you wonder!
At some point, you might ask Richard if he's ever noticed it!

I thoroughly enjoyed this podcast. Thank you for sharing.

 

[Rudy]

Also, for those of you who are enjoying these, do you prefer a song-by-song format like I did with the Hush album, or something a little more organic, where I take a handful of questions and answer them, followed by a more generalized thematic breakdown?

Yes.


😁

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

I’m late in my reply but just in time for the holidays!!

This episode was fantastic!!
Thanks Chris 🎄

 

[Chris May]

I’m late in my reply but just in time for the holidays!!

This episode was fantastic!!
Thanks Chris 🎄

Thanks! I emailed you a couple of days ago to check on you. Haven’t seen you here in a while. Glad you’re back!

 

[byline]

​

As a longtime Carpenters historian and coauthor of “Carpenters: The Musical Legacy” (with Mike Cidoni Lennox and Richard Carpenter, © 2021), I answer a number of questions submitted to me directly by Carpenters fans related to the duo’s Christmas catalog, while laying out a comprehensive breakdown of how the “Christmas Portrait” album was conceived—including its overall lack of promotion by A&M Records in 1978.

I also get into the Carpenters’ relationship to ABC with regard to the television specials, Mom & Dad Carpenter’s involvement in the second Christmas special in ’78 (which includes audio from a 2021 interview with Richard Carpenter), and Karen’s solo appearance on “Bruce Forsyth’s Big Night” in the UK in December that same year—a trip in which she was led to believe was set up to promote the “Christmas Portrait” album, only to find out otherwise after she arrived.

If you’re a fan of the Carpenters’ Christmas oeuvre including the behind-the-scenes backstory and trivia, you’ll want to check this out!

Chris, thank you for this, and for everything you do. This is such a wonderful, in-depth exploration of Richard and Karen's work! I have always loved the original recording of "Merry Christmas, Darling" (I'm one of those who prefers the original to the re-recorded version). And, when I first heard "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" on the Perry Como special, I was so excited. I thought it heralded a new, energized Singers Unlimited jazz-style era in the Carpenters' music. Instead, they went a different direction. But I am happy to have what we got!

 

[Harry]

^^Here we are in complete agreement!