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It's a dream come true, new footage of Karen especially at Christmas. What a perfect live version, Karen was truly gifted in the expression of song. I don't know which I like better the live vocal or her delivery and expression on her face. She is dearly missed.
Let the season begin!!
Lucky Bruce. There's only a handful of people who were able to sing a duet with Karen. He seemed very enthralled.
Given that at least portions of the backing track are prerecorded, I was almost certain Karen was lipsynching here, so close was it to the studio versions of the songs, until I heard some variations in the melody. Her precision when singing was extraordinary.
Chris, would you be so kind as to explain what we're looking at?
This was the master tape used for the Please Mr. Postman segment of the show. There were multiple masters cut for the different songs.
To elaborate, there were several pre-recorded tracks that were cut prior to the show that Karen and the band sang/played live to. If you listen to let's say Merry Christmas Darling from that same show, you can hear at the very top when Karen sings the opening line, it's all rubato (free time). Then when it's time for any additional instrumentation, including the a tempo walk up leading into the second verse where the entire band comes in, playing in time, you can hear that they are remaining right on time. Karen is actually rushing the line (throwing everything off a bit time-wise). You'll notice they don't follow her, because in order for them to stay in line with the pre-recorded track from start to finish, they have to follow the click that they've been given which would have been recorded onto the tape. Because she didn't appear to be wearing an in-ear earpiece, she had no way of monitoring the "click" reference, so she had to trust her instincts. The band however I'm quite sure had the click - at least the drummer and keyboards. That was a very standard form of reference by that time.
I realize that's a lot to digest, but we do it in music when mashing up studio tracks with live performance all the time. It's very much second nature for me as a music director/musician, but conceptually takes a while for most people outside of that to grasp! Hope this helps
I never realised things were this sophisticated back in 1978. I always knew though that Peter Knight steered her through this appearance and that’s why it sounded as great and polished as it did. With - or without - Richard.
Because she didn't appear to be wearing an in-ear earpiece, she had no way of monitoring the "click" reference, so she had to trust her instincts
One question I have - if Karen didn’t have the in ear monitor to reference the click, how did the musicians hear it and stick with it, because I don’t see them wearing any either?
Well I'm not sure they didn't have one, or at least I can't remember having a point of reference where I could confirm that either way. It's possible the drums had one and was cueing the band off camera, etc. I can just tell you that based on the way things flowed (and didn't flow in a couple of spots) that this is what was going on. Happens all the time, less frequently nowadays but back then it would have happened more often due to the limitation with technology.