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Reading up on Hal Blaine and came across this interview on Karen Carpenter:
https://www.jazzwax.com/2012/05/hal-blaine-on-karen-carpenter.html
Some excerpts:
JW: Her parents must have been quite domineering.
HB: Her mother hated that I was there. Karen played the drums, and her mother didn’t like that I was playing on the session and not her. Her mother said, “I’ve seen many drummers on TV, and Karen can play just as good as they can.”
JW: What did you say?
HB: I said, “Of course she can. But she doesn’t have the studio experience. Playing in the studio is completely different.”
JW: How so?
HB: As a drummer, you’re sitting in a room at your kit in a tight space, and the mikes are highly sensitive. Most 61JIM7Y+N6L._SL500_AA300_drummers are used to knocking the hell out of their set. But in the studio, at least back then, before the digital recording age, you didn’t do that. With all those mikes, you can’t be wailing away or you’ll hit one of the stands. You also have to develop a 510Xlbi7PoL._SL500_AA300_technique of playing in your own little zone of space. You have to play gentle. If a song calls for something a little heavier, you turn the sticks around so you’re using the thicker end. It’s like the difference between driving a little car and a semi-truck. There are different rules for maneuvering.
JW: So what did you tell her mother?
HB: I said, “Karen is a fine drummer, but there’s some things you have to know about playing in a studio, and you can only learn those things by spending years there and listening back to hear what’s right and what’s not working.”
JW: Did Karen ever play on those recording sessions?
HB: No. I played on all those dates. Karen liked to hang around a lot at A&M because I was always there recording for Herb. She loved the drums, which helped her a great deal as a singer in terms of her time and tempo.
JW: Why were her parents so insistent on her playing the drums?
HB: Probably because I kept insisting she was the natural voice for the group, not the drummer. Karen had an extraordinary voice, the kind you wanted to hear over and over again. To me, that translated into hits.
JW: Why did her parents oppose that?
HB: I don’t know. Her mother kept saying, “But Richard is the star, Karen is just the drummer.” I think part of that stuff pushed Karen over the edge eventually. The poor thing was playing her buns off on the drums, trying to do the right thing, and her parents were letting her have it.
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JW: As the years went on, could the studio musicians tell that Karen Carpenter had an eating disorder and was having health issues?
HB: Not at first. Everyone who came to Hollywood back then and became a star thinned down. It was the style out here and probably still is in many ways. The rule of thumb, sadly, was if you’re going to be on film or TV, you had to be 15 pounds underweight to look normal. It’s crazy, I know, but that’s how it was.
JW: No one could tell there was an issue?
HB: There were times when I’d give her a hug at the studio and I could feel her rib cage. She was like a little bird that Karen_carpenter2had fallen out of a tree. For me, the saddest thing of all came in the later years. Karen had finally met a guy she liked, and he just took her money. He broke her heart completely. It was so damn sad. Her face was so hollow.
JW: When you think back, what do you think of Karen?
HB: How sad her life was. Years after she died in 1983, Richard called me to update some of the older tracks, for remastering. We were in the studio for about six hours, and I cried all the way listening back and playing over the parts. What a shame.
― birdistheword, Monday, 13 March 2023 21:23 (one year ago) link
eleven months pass...