The Carpenters - Imaginary Piano Recital, Volume 2: 1976-1983 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's another Fabio from Rio guest post. It's the second and last of two volumes featuring the Carpenters. As I was saying with Volume 1, Fabio and I love Karen Carpenter's voice, and the songs, but we usually don't love the overproduction of most of the Carpenters records. So, for these two volumes, Fabio is presenting the songs stripped down to just vocals and a piano. 

These are all the released studio versions, but edited to remove the other instruments. For the songs with "[Edit]," Fabio did at least some of the editing himself. For the others, he found versions on the Internet where people had already made edits.

There's more to say, but Fabio says that in the liner notes he wrote included in the download zip. Other than that, there's not much more for me to say, except thanks to Fabio for putting these albums together. 

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 I Have You [Edit] (Carpenters)
02 There's a Kind of Hush [All Over the World] [Edit] (Carpenters)
03 We've Only Just Begun [Edit] (Carpenters)
04 You [Edit] (Carpenters)
05 All You Get from Love Is a Love Song [Edit] (Carpenters)
06 Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft [Edit] (Carpenters)
07 I Just Fall in Love Again (Carpenters)
08 Honolulu City Lights [Edit] (Carpenters)
09 I Need to Be in Love (Karen Carpenter)
10 Merry Christmas, Darling (Carpenters)
11 Where Do I Go from Here [Edit] (Carpenters)
12 If We Try [Edit] (Karen Carpenter)
13 Make Believe It's Your First Time [Edit] (Carpenters)
14 When It's Gone [Edit] (Carpenters)
15 Two Lives [Edit] (Karen Carpenter)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Xn8YmPqA 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/amevxgiU6IsLSFf/file

As with Volume 1, Fabio and I wanted a photo of Karen singing and Richard playing piano, and nothing else. That's what we got with this one. This one is from September 1971, probably September 23rd. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. 

The Carpenters - Imaginary Piano Recital, Volume 1: 1970-1975 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's another Fabio from Rio guest post. It's the first of two volumes featuring the Carpenters. Basically, Fabio and I love Karen Carpenter's voice, but the production of Carpenters records usually left a lot to be desired. Too often, the songs were drenched with syrupy strings and other overproduction that detracted from the beauty of her voice, and the song, instead of adding to them. So we've tried to counter that in various ways. First, I posted a "Near Acappella" album that stripped the music just down to vocals, bass, and drums. Then, we posted two completely "Acappella" albums. Now, there's this. The idea is, an imaginary piano recital, with nothing but Karen Carpenter singing, and usually her brother Richard playing piano.

Fabio found all the songs for this. First, he found some other people on the Internet who already had used audio editing technology to strip official studio versions of songs down to just lead vocals and piano. But many songs he liked hadn't been given that treatment, or hadn't been stripped enough, so he did his own audio editing. So all the songs have been edited, heavily, but the ones with "[Edit]" in them specifically indicate the ones with Fabio's editing.

Fabio has a lot more to say on this. So check out his liner notes that are included in the download zip. 

This album is 52 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 [They Long to Be] Close to You [Edit] (Carpenters)
02 Maybe It's You [Edit] (Carpenters)
03 For All We Know (Carpenters)
04 One Love [Edit] (Carpenters)
05 Rainy Days and Mondays [BBC Version] [Edit] (Carpenters)
06 Superstar [Groupie] [Edit] (Carpenters)
07 A Song for You [Edit] (Carpenters)
08 I Won't Last a Day without You [Edit] (Carpenters)
09 I Can't Make Music [Edit] (Carpenters)
10 Sing [Edit] (Carpenters)
11 The End of the World [Edit] (Carpenters)
12 Top of the World [Edit] (Carpenters)
13 Yesterday Once More [Edit] (Carpenters)
14 Love Me for What I Am [Edit] (Carpenters)
15 Solitaire [Edit] (Carpenters)

Top of the World [Country Singalong Version] [Edit] (Carpenters) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/m4XXvPoN

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/mvMqUYAmX1OEhxY/file

For the cover image, we wanted to show Karen singing and Richard playing piano. Luckily, we found two, just enough for our two volumes. I don't know the details of where or when this image was taken though, except that it's "circa 1971."

The Carpenters - Full Acappella, Volume 2: 1977-1983 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's the second volume of the Carpenters' "Full Apcappella." Like the first volume, this was mostly put together by musical friend Fabio from Rio, with just a little assistance by me. Again, we get to hear Karen Carpenter's marvelous lead vocals, and sometimes backing vocals, with no instrumental music getting in the way.

This volume deals with the latter half of the Carpenters' musical career. It wasn't as commercially successful as the first half, probably due to Karen Carpenter's self-inflicted declining physical health. Tragically, she died in 1983 at just the age of 32, so this volume ends in that year.

Like Volume 1, Fabio wrote extensive notes talking about the tracks and where they're from. He also explains why some of the songs have edits. That's included in the download zip. 

By the way, note that back in 2018, I posted an album that contained versions of Carpenters that only had vocals, bass, and drums. I called it "Near Acappella," because it was stripped way down, but not fully acappella. Well, Fabio found two more songs for that while he was looking for songs for these two volumes. So I've just updated that album with those two added songs. I also changed the cover image to one I like better. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-carpenters-near-acappella-1969-1975.html 

This album is 51 minutes long. Thanks again to Fabio for putting these albums together!

01 All You Get from Love Is a Love Song [Edit] (Carpenters)
02 Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft [Edit] (Carpenters)
03 Knowing When to Leave (Carpenters)
04 Make It Easy on Yourself (Carpenters)
05 Suntory Pop Jingle No. 1 (Carpenters)
06 Suntory Pop Jingle No. 2 (Carpenters)
07 Silent Night (Carpenters)
08 Ave Maria (Carpenters)
09 Where Do I Go from Here [Edit] (Carpenters)
10 Someday (Carpenters)
11 Lovelines [Edit] (Carpenters)
12 The Uninvited Guest (Carpenters)
13 If We Try [Edit] (Karen Carpenter)
14 Make Believe It's Your First Time (Carpenters)
15 When It's Gone [Edit] (Carpenters)
16 Two Lives [Edit] (Karen Carpenter)
17 I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day (Carpenters)
18 Little Altar Boy (Carpenters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZBC5J2CX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/aV3vEIDjOPMuc7c/file

I don't know where or when the cover photo is from. I just thought it was a nice picture of Karen Carpenter. 

The Carpenters - Full Acappella, Volume 1: 1966-1976 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Back in 2018, I posted an album by the Carpenters called "Near Acappella." It featured versions of their best songs done with very minimal instrumental backing, usually just vocals, bass, and drums. Lately, I've been collaborating with Fabio from Rio on some albums. He shares my appreciation for the vocals of Karen Carpenter. I don't know what it is, but there was something very special and unique about her singing. So Fabio wanted to make a "Full Acappella" album, and he did most of the heavy lifting to make it happen. It turns out we had enough material for two albums. Here's the first one.

The rest of this write-up here was written by Fabio:

Inspired by Paul's "Near Acappella" Carpenters collection from some years ago, I decided to check if there were "full acappella" versions of Carpenters songs available, since in recent years audio tools (with or without AI) have gotten better separating vocals from instrumentals. It turns out there are indeed a lot of acappella versions of Carpenters songs out there, so I selected the best ones I could find. At first, the album I made from the acappella versions I found made for a relatively short album. So Paul suggested "two or three more tracks." But I got excited with my "new toy" (the MVSEP online tool that makes it possible to segregate all kinds of tracks from a multitrack source) and ended up creating an additional dozen tracks myself, while also finding some more. That ended up being too much for a single disc. So, as per another suggestion by Paul, this became a "twofer", or two volume collection. These albums may be considered twin siblings of the earlier "Near Acappella" collection.

I got about half of the tracks from YouTube channels or Facebook fan groups, and the remaining were done with MVSEP. I used Audacity software to exclude instrumental breaks, intros, and outros, as well as cleaning up the occasional odd instrument (a drum roll, a sax riff), in order to keep this new collection truly "full acappella." All those that have "[Edit]" in their titles had some additional cleaning done by Paul or me (other than what was already done by whoever shared the acappella tracks originally).

We (myself and Paul) discussed a bit about pros and cons of including harmony vocals (by Richard and/or backing singers, or even occasionally a full choir, like in "Sing" and "Goodnight"). Paul was inclined to keep only Karen's leading vocals. But I argued that a full album with just Karen's voice, regardless of how beautiful it is, could sound a bit monotonous, while the harmony vocals help to provide additional color and variety. So, in the end, we decided to keep them.

---

There's more to Fabio's comments, including explanations of the sources of all the songs. Check out the Word file included in the download zip for that. However, here's one final comment from him, about the bonus track: 

While mining for tracks, I found two already done acappella versions of "We've Only Just Begun": one with only Karen's lead vocal track, and another with lead vocals and harmony vocals. Both are good - the "lead singing only" is more intimate and a bit melancholic, while the "lead vocals with harmonies" is quite exquisite. So, I suggested to Paul that we could keep them both, one at the official track list and another as a bonus track for Volume 1.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 I'll Be Yours [Edit] (Karen Carpenter)
02 Goodnight (Carpenters)
03 We've Only Just Begun (Carpenters)
04 Maybe It's You [Edit] (Carpenters)
05 [They Long to Be] Close to You [Edit] (Carpenters)
06 Baby It's You (Carpenters)
07 Rainy Days and Mondays [Edit] (Carpenters)
08 [A Place to] Hideaway (Carpenters)
09 Sometimes (Carpenters)
10 A Song for You (Carpenters)
11 Goodbye to Love [Edit] (Carpenters)
12 Sing [Edit] (Carpenters)
13 From the Heart Comes the Soul (Carpenters)
14 Aurora (Carpenters)
15 Only Yesterday [Edit] (Carpenters)
16 Solitaire [Edit] (Carpenters)
17 Love Me for What I Am [Edit] (Carpenters)
18 Eventide (Carpenters)
19 Good Friends Are for Keeps (Carpenters)
20 Ordinary Fool [Edit] (Carpenters)

We've Only Just Begun [Harmony Vocals Version] [Edit] (Carpenters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/En3Makbp

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/2L3B4h5poc7r7wm/file

I don't know anything about the cover image except it's Karen Carpenter "circa 1970." The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. 

Olivia Newton-John - Hollywood Nights (1980)

Here's a really interesting, entirely unreleased album by Olivia Newton-John. It's an American TV special she did in 1980 called "Hollywood Nights." It features some songs she never recorded on any album, as well as duets with an impressive bunch of guest stars: Cliff Richard, Elton John, Andy Gibb, Gene Kelly, Tina Turner, Peaches (of Peaches and Herb), Toni Tennille (of Captain and Tennille) & Karen Carpenter.

By 1980, Newton-John had become a worldwide superstar, mainly thanks due to her starring role in the 1978 movie "Grease." In 1980, she was due to have her second big starring movie role, in the movie "Xanadu." That movie would get released in August 1980, and it would turn out to be a flop, although the soundtrack by Newton-John and E.L.O. would be a big hit. This hour-long TV special was broadcast in April 1980, and seems to have served as kind of a warm-up for the movie. It featured one song that would be in the movie, "Suddenly," and also featured Newton-John duetting with Gene Kelly, as would happen in the movie, but with a different song. (Kelly, a star from a much earlier era, was 68 years old at the time.) They sang the classic song "Makin' Whoopee," but with totally different lyrics, an update called "Makin' Movies," which was all about the movie business.

But while there were those teasers about the upcoming movie, mostly the special was just a showcase for Newton-John's talent, and especially to sing duets with many musicians she liked. Probably the highlight is a version of Elton John's classic song "Candle in the Wind," mostly sung by Newton-John but with Elton playing piano and singing some towards the end. He also got to promote his new single at the time, "Little Jeannie," the only song here without Newton-John's involvement.

There were some even more unexpected songs. She started the show with a cover of "Hollywood Nights" by Bob Seger, which is a song she otherwise never performed or recorded. She also did "Heartache Tonight" by the Eagles probably for the only time ever, with Tina Turner, Peaches, Toni Tennille and Karen Carpenter all taking lead vocals at various point as well. And "Oh Boy" by Buddy Holly was another song she otherwise never did, done here with Cliff Richard, Elton John and Andy Gibb also taking turns with the lead vocals.

I cut out about five minutes from the special. That was all non-musical stuff, mostly jokey segments with actors Dick Clark and/or Ted Knight. Trust me, that's not the kind of thing with high replay value. But if you feel you're missing out, you can find the entire video of this special on YouTube. 

The special was a mixture of songs performed in front of an audience and songs done earlier in some studio without any audience. I have no idea when or where each part of it was recorded, only that it was broadcast in April 1980. I found out that tidbit from this nice fan website, which includes lots of screenshots from the special, as well as a link to the YouTube video of the whole thing:

Hollywood Nights Special 

This special is unreleased and it is very likely to stay that way, due to the difficulty of getting the legal rights to all the guest performances. But now, here, at least it's available as an audio album for the first time. 

This album is 42 minutes long 

01 Hollywood Nights (Olivia Newton-John)
02 Deeper than the Night (Olivia Newton-John)
03 Hopelessly Devoted to You (Olivia Newton-John)
04 A Little More Love (Olivia Newton-John)
05 talk (Olivia Newton-John)
06 I Can't Help It (Olivia Newton-John & Andy Gibb)
07 talk (Olivia Newton-John)
08 Oh Boy (Olivia Newton-John, Cliff Richard, Elton John & Andy Gibb)
09 Suddenly (Olivia Newton-John & Cliff Richard)
10 talk (Olivia Newton-John & Gene Kelly)
11 Makin' Movies [Makin' Whoopee] (Olivia Newton-John & Gene Kelly)
12 Gimme Some Lovin' (Olivia Newton-John)
13 Candle in the Wind (Olivia Newton-John & Elton John)
14 Little Jeannie (Elton John)
15 talk (Olivia Newton-John)
16 Heartache Tonight (Olivia Newton-John, Tina Turner, Peaches, Toni Tennille & Karen Carpenter)
17 I Honestly Love You (Olivia Newton-John)
18 Hollywood Nights [Reprise] [Instrumental] (Olivia Newton-John)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/7Mv22RSn

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/fdqwk48Vi5S9n15/file 

I made the cover art out of two screenshots from this TV special. I took one screenshot for the words at the top, which were apparently neon signs in front of the building. But at the point in time, Newton-John was relatively small in the overall image, standing on the street. So I went to slightly earlier in the same scene, when her head took up most of the screen, and imposed that on top, using Photoshop. 

The Carpenters - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, New London Theatre, London, Britain, 11-28-1976

Back in 2022, I posted an album of the Carpenters performing for the BBC in concert in 1971. I thought that was all they did for the BBC (being an American band and all). However, I have found a second BBC concert, from 1976. Here it is.

Note that, since I found this one, I naturally wanted to change the name of the first one to "Volume 1." You can find the renamed version here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-carpenters-with-tony-joe-white-bbc.html

The Carpenters had a great run of singles in the early and mid-1970s. But in the late 1970s, things took a darker turn due to self-inflicted health problems, with eating disorder issues for Karen Carpenter and drug problems for Richard Carpenter. Those problems didn't improve, and Karen died in 1983. So I'd say 1976 was near the end of their peak era. Thus, this was a good time for a BBC concert, as it allowed them to include nearly all of their most popular songs.

I normally try not to do this, but I deliberately took out of a couple of songs. One of them was a kind of comedy thing by Richard Carpenter, which apparently was a sort of homage to comedic musician Spike Jones. I found it pretty unlistenable, so it got the axe. Another was a long classical number by Richard, which was okay, but I thought it really bogged down the momentum of the concert. So that got the axe too. Sorry, but sometimes less is more. Plus, when I listen to the Carpenters, I want to hear Karen Carpenter singing, since she had one of the most interesting vocals in pop music history. If you want the whole thing, you can find the video of this on YouTube. If you watch that, you'll see the drum solo at the end of "Strike Up the Band" was performed by Karen. Her vocals were so exceptional that people tended to forget she was the drummer in the band as well, and a very good one at that. 

This album remains unreleased. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, many of the band's hits were performed in medley format. And curiously, one of their biggest original hits, "Yesterday Once More," wasn't sung at all. (There was an instrumental version performed at the end during the display of the credits in the video that I also cut out, because it was very short and then faded out.)

This album is 36 minutes long.

01 Only Yesterday [Instrumental Version] (Carpenters)
02 There's a Kind of Hush (Carpenters)
03 I Need to Be in Love (Carpenters)
04 talk (Carpenters)
05 Strike Up the Band - Drums (Carpenters)
06 talk (Carpenters)
07 From This Moment On (Carpenters)
08 talk (Carpenters)
09 [They Long to Be] Close to You - For All We Know - Top of the World - Ticket to Ride (Carpenters)
10 I Won't Last a Day without You - Hurting Each Other (Carpenters)
11 Superstar [Groupie] (Carpenters)
12 Rainy Days and Mondays (Carpenters)
13 Goodbye to Love (Carpenters)
14 We've Only Just Begun (Carpenters) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mWPPHu8D

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/2DhViTT5GGIPOvv/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this concert. As with many such videos, the image quality was low-res. So I used the Krea AI program to improve the quality. 

The Carpenters (with Tony Joe White) - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, London, Britain, 9-25-1971

Back in 2018, I jumped deep into the depths of the uncool pool by posting an album by the Carpenters. (Technically, their name is just "Carpenters," but nobody calls them that.) Now I'm jumping back into that pool by posting another album by them. Yes, their music is super sappy and cheesy, but damn, Karen Carpenter had one of the most amazing voices ever. I swear I can hear her smiling most of the time when she's singing.

This concert was done for the BBC's "In Concert" TV series. You can find the video of it on YouTube. But there are a couple of odd aspects about it. One is that singer-songwriter Tony Joe White sang two of his songs in between Carpenters songs. The other is that two of the songs shown on the TV show were actually the studio versions ("Help" and a Burt Bacharach medley), so I didn't include those. 

I must say I'm really impressed with Karen Carpenter in this unreleased show. Not only does her voice sound flawless, but she played the drums the entire time, as you can see on the video. That must have been really hard to do.

This concert is 39 minutes long. 

UPDATE: On June 25, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is the same, but I changed the album title to "Volume 1" after finding material for a "Volume 2".

01 Love Is Surrender (Carpenters)
02 Superstar [Groupie] (Carpenters)
03 talk (Carpenters)
04 And When He Smiles (Carpenters)
05 Rainy Days and Mondays (Carpenters)
06 talk (Carpenters)
07 That on the Road Look (Tony Joe White)
08 I Fell in Love with You (Carpenters & Doug Strawn)
09 For All We Know (Carpenters)
10 Lust for Earl and the Married Woman (Tony Joe White)
11 Sometimes (Carpenters)
12 [They Long to Be] Close to You (Carpenters)
13 talk (Carpenters)
14 We've Only Just Begun (Carpenters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QJWBjz9W

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/egPUAjkOOlDUIfJ/file

For the cover photo, I took a screenshot of the exact concert featured here. Since I was so impressed with Karen Carpenter's drumming, I selected one of her drumming and singing. I used the Krea AI program to upgrade the image.

The Carpenters - Near Acappella (1969-1975)

I'm doing something here that's extremely uncool. To be honest, I don't really like the Carpenters... but I do think that Karen Carpenter had one of the greatest voices of all time. And I'm hardly the only one to think that. I just looked up her Wikipedia entry, and it quotes Paul McCartney as saying that she had "the best female voice in the world: melodic, tuneful and distinctive."

The problem for me has been the Muzak-y song selection and production. But some of the group's songs were good or even classics, despite the fact they were cheesy. As for the production, recently I've been looking for multitrack versions of songs for some artists. I've been hoping to find that for the Carpenters in order to try to de-Muzak-ify the syrupy as best I could. The bad news is I couldn't find such multitracks for the group, but the good news is that someone else had them and already did what I wanted to do, stripping the songs down to their core of just Karen Carpenters' voice, plus bass and drums. There are some additional instruments and/or vocals here and there, but not much. 

In my opinion, listening to these songs in this way is a real revelation. By removing all the overproduced gunk, you can hear just how great her voice is. She doesn't do vocal gymnastics like TV talent show winners do (thankfully), but there's something about the sound of her voice that demands one's attention. Thanks to Jeremy Doe for making these stripped down versions. I'm calling this album "Near Acappella" because that's the term he used.

If you listen to this, I promise I won't tell anybody! ;) 

This album is 55 minutes long. 

UPDATE: On March 3, 2026, I updated the mp3 download file. I added two songs: "All I Can Do" and "All of My Life." Musical friend Fabio from Rio found them while he was looking for songs for other Carpenters album projects. I also changed the cover to one I like better.

01 Ticket to Ride (Carpenters)
02 All I Can Do (Carpenters)
03 All of My Life (Carpenters)
04 [They Long to Be] Close to You (Carpenters)
05 We've Only Just Begun (Carpenters)
06 For All We Know (Carpenters)
07 Rainy Days and Mondays (Carpenters)
08 Superstar [Groupie] (Carpenters)
09 Goodbye to Love (Carpenters)
10 Hurting Each Other (Carpenters)
11 It's Going to Take Some Time (Carpenters)
12 Sing (Carpenters)
13 This Masquerade (Carpenters)
14 Top of the World (Carpenters)
15 Yesterday Once More (Carpenters)
16 Please Mr. Postman (Carpenters)
17 Only Yesterday (Carpenters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2HNebtRT

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/rMEwKW7v7mRdnxy/file

For the cover art, I chose a picture that shows the drums, since these versions feature that instrument prominently. Interestingly, Karen Carpenter was a really good drummer, and she's the one playing the drums in this picture. This comes from a TV special on CBS in 1972.