Happy Birthday, Mom

My mom is the first and foremost person who has instilled a love of music in my life. It was she who put in me in front of my first portable record player at a very early age, which spawned a devotion to the sweet sounds the come off of a piece of vinyl to this day. In honor of her special day today, I played the following record by one of her favorite artists who was a part of practically every family car trip: the Carpenters.

Side one of this compilation is a work of art...

My mom was a public & Sunday school teacher as well as a children’s choir leader for many years, so it’s no wonder this song was her favorite from the brother & sister duo:

My personal favorite has always been the positively haunting “Superstar”:

A more recent favorite is “I Need to Be in Love”, if only for her delivery of the line “I’m wide awake at 4am without a friend in sight, I’m hangin’ on a hope but that’s alright.” This song obviously spoke very deeply to the troubled yet brilliant Karen, who was too busy touring and recording to find her true love.

Another Carpenters hit, “We’ve Only Just Begun”, was made into an excellent mash-up recently by UK DJ Mark Vidler aka Go Home Productions with Oasis’ biggest hit from the 90’s. Great use of both video clips too.

It’s a shame that the above pictured compilation, The Singles: 1969-1973, is out of print, as Richard Carpenter did a fantastic job of making the first side into a mini-suite of sorts. It was the beginning of his never ending re-tweaking of the Carpenters catalog, which has gone a tad overboard, but he was firing with all cylinders when he crafted this album. It’s definitely more than just a record label contract filler and well worth seeking out a used copy on CD or vinyl.

Thanks for instilling my love of one of the best voices in pop music of the past 40 years, Mom. I love you.