If anyone says "not bad for a girl" I'm gonna hunt them down and force them to do press-rolls for 24 hours straight. ;)

Karen was an amazing artist, a fantastic musician and had one of the purest and most angelic voices ever heard in pop music.

She was indeed a great musician. Altought drum playing evolved a lot since then, I always respected players that do amazing things with a small kit instead of playing the same thing on 100 drums/percussions. Not my intention to demine what Karen accomplished. Just pointing out that I'm also inspired by drummers like Steve Smith, Marco Minneman, Thomas Lang, Johnny Rabb, Dave Weckl etc..
I could never dream to deliver such amazing performances now at my age but I also know thoses guys played 8 hours a day for many years which I didn't.
On the other hand a strong strait 4 is all that's needed to make people dance. (that I did for many years) :)

And she always looked to be working so effortlessly :).

Gone so long already and I fell in love with her all over again.

And oh Lord, what were guys thinking about hair and clothes back then? (Full disclosure, my mom sewed me a blue jeans three piece suit for my 3rd grade class photo)

I've recorded literally hundreds of female artists over the years, ( of course some God-awful) but some were very good, some even exceptional.

But not one of them, even out of the best, had what Karen had. I don't believe there will be - or ever even could be another.
She had a voice that had a once in a lifetime quality - pure, silky, warm, and a pitch that was always - without exception - absolutely perfect.

I even recorded a Karen Carpenter tribute vocalist once, who was very good, but, she was still missing that "intangible magic" that Karen had.

I don't know how hard Karen worked at it. Maybe she worked very hard.... or, maybe she didn't have to, because that's just the way she was naturally.

When we saw here perform then, or when we see videos of her from those days now, She always appears to sing so effortlessly, or at least that's the way she made it appear.

It's worth listening to the Live in Japan tracks - she even makes mistakes and sounds excellent.