Geographer
Well-Known Member
I've heard the Righteous Brothers' version before but giving it another listen, it's OK, albeit less upbeat than the Carpenters' version (which otherwise follows its arrangement fairly closely).
It does fall in with the general trend from 1975 for their versions to be based quite closely on the arrangements in the demo or original recorded version ('There's a Kind of Hush', 'Calling Occupants', 'Breaking Up is Hard to Do', 'Man Smart Woman Smarter', 'Touch Me When We're Dancing', 'Bwana She No Home', 'Back in My Life Again', etc). I'm struggling to think of any examples of post-1975 covers where they came up with a new arrangement in the way that they did for tracks like 'Hurting Each Other', 'Ticket to Ride', 'Close to You' and 'Superstar' in their earlier career.
You are correct in this. And, in my opinion, a HUGE part of their appeal was Richard's ability to take a song and give it his own signature arrangement rather than relying on the demo arrangement or the originally recorded version as you pointed out. Once Richard stopped doing his own unique "take" on the songs, their appeal started to decline. This underscore's Richard's contribution to their success. It wasn't "just" Karen's voice (albeit that was primary), but her "voice" coupled with Richard's arrangements are what really made the magic.