This day in history: American singer and drummer Karen Carpenter was born on this day in 1950. Karen and her brother Richard formed The Carpenters, a successful pop/soft-rock duo. Karen had a distinctive three-octave contralto vocal range, and was praised by her peers as one of the greatest singers ever. Her singing had attracted critical praise and influenced several significant musicians and singers, including Madonna, Sheryl Crow, Pat Metheny, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, Shania Twain, Natalie Imbruglia, and k.d. lang. Paul McCartney has said that she had "the best female voice in the world: melodic, tuneful and distinctive". She has been called "one of the greatest voices of our lifetime" by Elton John. In the BBC documentary Only Yesterday: The Carpenters Story, her friend Nicky Chinn said that John Lennon walked up to her at a Los Angeles restaurant and told her "I want to tell you love, that you've got a fabulous voice." Her drumming has been praised by fellow musicians Hal Blaine, Cubby O'Brien and Buddy Rich and by Modern Drummer magazine. In 1975, she was voted the best rock drummer in a poll of Playboy readers, beating Led Zeppelin's John Bonham.
The manner of her death though garnered as much attention as her musical career. Karen began different types of diets as far back as high school. Carpenter eventually began her own weight-loss program using exercise equipment and counting calories. She lost about 20 pounds in the mid-70's and intended to lose another five pounds. Her eating habits also changed around this time; she would try to remove food from her plate by offering tastes to others with whom she was dining. By September 1975, Carpenter weighed 91 pounds. At live performances, fans reacted with gasps to her gaunt appearance, and many wrote to the pair to ask what was wrong.
She eventually died on February 4 1983 of "emetine cardiotoxicity due to or as a consequence of anorexia nervosa." Carpenter's death brought media attention to anorexia nervosa, a condition that had not been widely known beforehand. Her family started the Karen A. Carpenter Memorial Foundation, which raised money for research on anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders.
On October 12, 1983, shortly after her death, the Carpenters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1999, VH1 ranked Carpenter at No. 29 on its list of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll. In 2010, Rolling Stone ranked Carpenter No. 94 on its list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, calling her voice "impossibly lush and almost shockingly intimate", adding "even the sappiest songs sound like she was staring directly into your eyes".
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