Karen Carpenter's Rarest Performance

Here's the long missing, pretty rare, 1981 live performance by Karen and Richard Carpenter on French television. The other song the duo presented was Touch Me When We're Dancing from their newest album Made in America. In the past, this selection has become unavailable, removed, or given the studio recording as the main track. 

No doubt that Top of the World is one of the Carpenters most loved songs, and this version almost sounds as if its a new recording. Karen Carpenter's rich contralto is instead higher, softer, and brighter, than the A&M Records original. Catch it here before it disappears again.

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2025 Note: This is part of a continuing series on the music and lives of Karen and Richard Carpenter. There are so many stand alone posts highlighting different aspects of their career, recordings, rare photographs, and life that I've lost count. 

Below is the list of my "Revisited /Fresh Look" reviews, the more extensive articles than my initial ones a decade earlier. Each have different photos and clippings and focus on various aspects of the individual disc's creation, promotion, and public reaction.

My Revisited / Fresh Look at the albums:

Offering / Ticket to Ride
Close to You
Carpenters 
A Song for You 

Now & Then

The Singles 1969 - 1973

Live in Japan

Horizon

A Kind of Hush

Live at the Palladium

Passage

The Singles 1974 - 1978

Christmas Portrait

Karen Carpenter (The Solo Album)

My Initial Reviews of the albums:

Offering/Ticket to Ride

Close to You

Carpenters

A Song for You

Now & Then

The Singles 1969-1973

Live In Japan

Horizon

A Kind of Hush

Live at the Palladium

Passage

The Singles 1974-1978

Christmas Portrait

Made in America

Voice of the Heart

An Old Fashioned Christmas

Time (Richard Solo)

Lovelines

Karen Carpenter (Solo)

As Time Goes By

This is Us- 1981

Rockin' the 'stache! Well, what can I say? Long before beards took on a life of their own, looking a bit like Tom Selleck from Magnum P.I. was the goal of many men wanting to catch a woman. Thankfully, this wasn't what caused my wife to fall in love with me. Nor being thin! Now, on the other hand, it's easy to see what made me fall in love with her. Those eyes! That smile! But most of all, that gentle heart.

A summer date at Six Flags Magic Mountain was on the agenda for the day. Little did I know roller coasters terrified her! But we survived an entire summer of thrills, and as she told me years later, me not seeing her in a bathing suit once. (How did that happen?)

As our story goes, God blessed us and our love grew. We married on this day many, many, many moons ago- 40 years to be exact. And He has given us the strength to make it through the hard times and to enjoy the blessings of the good ones. How did time go by so quickly?

Much, much, love to you, my darling wife, my beautiful one!

(Photographs copyright Mark Taft.)

Unseen Karen Carpenter

Given she had such a short life, Karen Carpenter was constantly at the end of a photographer's camera. Here's a photo I had never seen before from Norman Seeff, a man known for his more rock and roll clientele. 

The year was 1981, and she and her brother Richard Carpenter were nearing completion on their new album, Made in America. The beloved duo had not had a non-Christmas album since 1977, so their public seemed to be ready for something new. The disc was better received over in the U.K. and in Japan than it was at home, but the first single Touch Me When We're Dancing was a pretty solid return to the charts, making the Top Twenty for four weeks. 

Smaller but in color.

This photo and others in similar clothing from the session didn't make the cut. But they were used for the 1989 release of Lovelines, coming on the heels of the Karen Carpenter Story. In two years, A&M Records will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Carpenters first release, Offering (later renamed Ticket to Ride). Maybe we'll see more unseen Karen then. And hear more unheard recordings as well. Until then, the new Vinyl Collection presents the major Carpenters releases in album form. A treat for collectors.

(You can read about Karen's last days here.)

(Photograph copyright Norman Seeff.)