Your choice, old man/woman.

Don't know if we have enough folks over age fifty to get any voting in on this topic, but I'll put it out there. 😛

I was reading the comments generated by Karen Carpenter's version of 'Johnny Angel' and noticed roughly a 50/50 split on whether she did it better or worse than the years-earlier version by Shelley Fabares.

YouTube

YouTube

The upper link goes to Karen C, the lower to Shelley F.

I will withhold my opinion for a time.

Originally posted by Paul Dirac II
Don't know if we have enough folks over age fifty to get any voting in on this topic, but I'll put it out there. 😛

I was reading the comments generated by Karen Carpenter's version of 'Johnny Angel' and noticed roughly a 50/50 split on whether she did it better or worse than the years-earlier version by Shelley Fabares.

http://www.youtube.com/w ...[text shortened]... he upper link goes to Karen C, the lower to Shelley F.

I will withhold my opinion for a time.

50/50 split Karens a better singer but it sounds overproduced Shelley's version just seems to fit.

Originally posted by Paul Dirac II
Don't know if we have enough folks over age fifty to get any voting in on this topic, but I'll put it out there. 😛

I was reading the comments generated by Karen Carpenter's version of 'Johnny Angel' and noticed roughly a 50/50 split on whether she did it better or worse than the years-earlier version by Shelley Fabares.

http://www.youtube.com/w ...[text shortened]... he upper link goes to Karen C, the lower to Shelley F.

I will withhold my opinion for a time.

I see what you mean about KC, but Shelly's version has some kind of weird audio problem, I went to it twice and it came out the same both times, could not hear much of anything, just like 99% of the signal was distorted almost out of recognition. Will try backing out, closing everything, coming back in, see if that changes.

I found this, an actual video from 1961:

YouTube

Audio is perfect, black and white video.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I found this, an actual video from 1961:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwIYSofgpY0

Thanks for that link to Shelley. That is better in sound quality to my link and is the one that should be used to compare to the Karen version.

Originally posted by Paul Dirac II
I will withhold my opinion for a time.

One of the YouTube comments is, "I had a friend who told me he had heard some expert say that the two most distinctive female singing voices of the 20th century were Ella Fitzgerald and Karen Carpenter."


That may well be, but my opinion is that 'Johnny Angel' is a song centered on youthful longing, and Shelley Fabares at eighteen had a voice that could put that across. Karen Carpenter did not at twenty-three. Heck, she probably didn't even at fourteen, her voice matured so early.

Originally posted by Paul Dirac II
One of the YouTube comments is, "I had a friend who told me he had heard some expert say that the two most distinctive female singing voices of the 20th century were Ella Fitzgerald and Karen Carpenter."


That may well be, but my opinion is that 'Johnny Angel' is a song centered on youthful longing, and Shelley Fabares at eighteen had a voice that ...[text shortened]... did not at twenty-three. Heck, she probably didn't even at fourteen, her voice matured so early.

Streisand doesn't fit into a 20th century distinctive voice?

Originally posted by mikelom
Streisand doesn't fit into a 20th century distinctive voice?

She might make the top ten for distinctiveness.

Then there's Diana Ross, Timi Yuro, and Nana Mouskouri.

Originally posted by Paul Dirac II
Don't know if we have enough folks over age fifty to get any voting in on this topic, but I'll put it out there. 😛

I was reading the comments generated by Karen Carpenter's version of 'Johnny Angel' and noticed roughly a 50/50 split on whether she did it better or worse than the years-earlier version by Shelley Fabares.

http://www.youtube.com/w ...[text shortened]... he upper link goes to Karen C, the lower to Shelley F.

I will withhold my opinion for a time.

I'm 59 and think Karen did a pretty good job on this one. Was it better than the earlier one? Who knows. I liked the Carperters, my only complaint was they depended too much on the music of others, rather than writing their own songs. The Carpenters music was a bit too stickey sweet for me, but I'll have to admit...Karen had the voice of angels!🙂