How on God's green earth can that voice sound better live than in a recordind studio. How? Karen's did. No other singer in modern music can make that claim. Karen can. The voice of the ages. Timeless. Incomparable. Spiritual. Angelic.

Karen seemed to be nearly at home with comedy as with singing or drumming. So much talent!

This is my first time hearing Karen Carpenter sing Christmas songs live. I love the Christmas album she and Richard released in 1978. So, finding this today (Nov 30, 2023) is very special. Thank you!

Her best performance of "I Need To Be In Love". So powerful. 😢

Best rendition of "I Need To Be In Love", hands down. The studio audience loves her and she surely appreciates it. What a talent.

See her light up when he brings up her drumming. Also, I don’t think she was hating the attention without Richard. It was all about her, and that was NEVER the case. ❤

And this is all live singing..... my goodness.... im speechless.... none can compare to Karen's voice, she's in a league of her own and she's a masterclass of her own....❤💚

She was so adorable. I only wish she seen herself like we see her, beautiful!! She was NEVER heavy or fat. She was a normal woman!! I just wish she was still here to sing , I Hope she is finally resting in peace. RIP both Bruce and Karen.

ULTIMATE vocalist and storyteller who sang to us and NOT at us...

Karen just had that ability to make you feel like you were the only person in the room that she was singing to. Thank goodness for UKposts and people like you who enjoy some of the finest music. I wish they would bring back the older shows like this and show them on TV. That's the first time I ever got to see that whole show since it aired. Thanks you for the memories, the laughter., and the tears. 😪 Merry Christmas to you and to everyone! May your Blessings be Great!! 🎄 🙏 Thank you for sharing 💖

God what we lost when she died.

look at Bruce face when KC singing White Christmas, he was just keep looking at her and mesmerized by her beauty and voice. he don't want to interrupt her. ❤💖❤

Her low notes bring me to tears every time

The performance of I need to be in Love is so poignant and heart-rending. She is so thin here and clearly in the throes of anorexia. Her vocal expression and eyes are so very sad during the song. She had little time left. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Richard was weeks away from drug rehab and Karen was a total trouper. I miss her still.

Feb 4, 2022 Today.Karen's 39th Anniversary.Will always Love her! Thanks for keeping her memory alive! Miss You Karen!

The love so many people still feel for this woman is absolutely heartwarming, and for those of us who didn't get to experience her during her lifetime, her voice is for the ages.

Today 3-2-22 Happy 72nd Birthday Karen! We will always celebrate you! Such a great voice and sooo funny.I watch this clip over and over! It never gets old! Thanks for all you do to keep Karen's memory alive!

This is at a much higher quality! So fantastic and marvelous.❤️. It truly is gratifying to have heard such wonders of music in my borrowed lifetime from God. These kinds of music done by the Carpenters sounds so iconic and revolutionary. It takes me to a place in my memory full of bliss and paradise. It’s too wholesome, cute, innocent, pure and too clean cut, listening to the Carpenters makes me feel like a little 8 year old kid. I bet it makes the oldest people feel young inside when listening to Carpenters music. I’m currently 16 years old, I’m going to grow old spending most of my life, filling each and every step of the way, listening to one Carpenters song to another, after I’ve done listening to every song, I will repeat it over and over again, I’ll stop listening to the Carpenters the day that I’ll die. She lied like a trooper here, making up stories about how Richard didn’t show up. But she was righteous for doing it because she cared for her older brother’s reputation. (If you don’t know, in the documentaries made about the Carpenters, Richard didn’t show up here because he was in rehabilitation for his addiction to Quaaludes, he got reliant to it because it helps him sleep easier).

Poor darling. Miss her so much. I remember exactly where I was when I heard she passed. 😢

I love the friendly banter, and of course they both sing beautifully!

11:50 it breaks my heart every time she rolled her eyes because she honestly felt no one loved her…how wrong she was even after her death…she is beloved by so many people ❤

Amazing! Thanks so much Billy :) Just listen to the ovation after I Need to Be in Love!

Beautiful songs from a lovely lady with the voice of an angel, hope she is happier in heaven 🙏

I love Karen ! Beautiful music !

I love you Karen, I love you like no other artist in my life.

This is really Karen at her best in the later 70's. What a trooper. The show must go on! )

She looks so gaunt here. Makeup cannot hide it. I loved her. Still do. Always will. So sad. What a voice.

Still watching such a funny clip! I love Karen's vocals here especially on the Christmas songs with Bruce.Thanks again for posting this!

At 14:05 when she sings 'fool enough to think thats what I'll find' that little laugh is sad and cute at the same time...

I was 22 when this aired on TV and have been a Carpenters fan since I was like 15 in 1971 had thier records but lost them once I moved to the trailer now I moved to a apartment so maybe I can find some at the thrift stores !

Thanks so much for posting this wonderful video. Love you so much Karen!💖💖💖💖 Rest in peace.

Karen stood up for Richard. She said he had a "nice case of the flu," when he was in treatment for qualudes instead. She loved him so very much

What a gem of a find! Terrific! Thank you for posting this. I remember the original broadcast in the UK.☃⛄

"Ladies and gentlemen, it's THE CARPENTER!" In another universe, in another dimension, this episode of The Bruce Forsythe Show was the beginning of Karen Carpenter's solo career. Karen of course had to tell Bruce a little white lie about Richard having the flu when he was really cleaning up his prescription pill problem, but as much she loved and respected her big bro, one gets the feeling she loved flying solo for the first time in her life! Look at how the camera loves her and what a natural actress she is: just before "I Need To Be In Love" she's all smiles--then during the performance, she inhabits this tortuous song as if it's a part of her very soul. Then she's all smiles and jokes with Bruce again! Karen could have handled drama as well as comedy! And of course, Karen was a twenty-four-karat sweetheart: "Merry Christmas, Brucie!" And the looks she gives @16.04 and @20.45 melt my heart. So in the perfect world, following this appearance, Karen takes time off to PROPERLY deal with her anorexia nervosa problem, because she has a serious long game plan here. After two years of continued therapy and increasingly good health, she works on her first solo album. If A&M still refuses to release it because they simply want her to get back with Richard and keep her in that "Carpenters" box, Karen and impresario Quincy Jones, who was a true champion of it, shop it around to other labels. It's released and does moderate business, but it encourages Karen to make a sophomore disc trying to get the "formula" right. She eventually hits upon said formula and dominates the 80s and 90s as the leading lady of adult contemporary pop, dabbling in dance, country, and rock. Unfortunately, in THIS world, no one gave her any support at all to stretch her wings and do something that was just for her as it was a threat to the brand. No one seemed to understand how badly this affected her life and her decision-making. Thus, Karen Carpenter died as one of the most influential voices in the history of the world, but with very little power herself. REST IN POWER, KAREN.

I'll never be talent like this again people don't appreciate nothing like this now

Gives us a glimpse of a rather impish personality. Makes Karen even more angelically awesome

This is why karen is all my alltime favorite female singer! She could do an upbeat pop like postman, go to the elegant and warm merry Christmas darling, to the haunting I need to be in love, while under the effects of anorexia! Maybe her illness made her greatness! She looks so thin and frail here! God bless her and for this channell for keeping her legacy alive!

Oh my good...this is Music...this is the Sound of the World...

She sounds GREAT...obviously very thin. However, she looks better than she would just 2 years later. I bet she loved the line "I know I ask perfection from a quite imperfect world".

Karen was AMAZING on his show ❤ It breaks my heart how thin she was her 😭💔 She sounded fantabulous as usual though! Wasn't this around the time Rich was in rehab and Karen said he said he had the "flu" ? She was a great sister!!

Thank you for this Billy 🥰

Karen was such a special girl and a great talent. I just wish she had stuck around longer.

Priceless! Love this clip.Watch it all the time for the last few months.Karen was so funny, quick witted, great comedic timing.Best singer ever in my opinion.She was a great dancer to.Love You since day 1 Karen.Miss you so much!

A voz mais linda 💓 que ja ouvir 💖

So beautiful...Karen is sure missed. Thank You for Sharing

This was just after Richard went for treatment for his Quaalude addiction. It obviously was stressing Karen as she is extremely thin here. She also was not honest with Bruce about Richard's absence, but who could blame her? Karen actually looked better for their 1980 music TV special. Even with the weight loss, she sounds superb in her rendition of I Need To Be In Love.

Karen 's Voice is amazing and when She only talks it is Sound without Music.

THAT VOICE ....WOW

The stark difference from her 1971 performance and here in 1978 are so blatant that what happened happened because everyone remained silent when silence was spelling out doom for Karen.It is much more sad knowing that they watched it happening and chose to do nothing. So much like it is still now.🙏

We will always remember her😭

Perfect... Just perfect

Thank you so much for this video. I love the Carpenters. I m brazilian.

Beautiful

Very cool 🌟 💫 🌟

Love every songs of carpenters🥰🥰🥰

If someone with AI video enhancement experience could upscale this to near HD quality it would be even more amazing. The good source quality on this should make this possible.

Naalala ko xmas song teendyer pa ako 70s Carpenters

I think Richard Carpenter was going into rehab about this time. Karen was a real trooper and did the show without him. Wow, what a special lady!

Awesome Billy. Thanks so much for sharing this better quality version. There actually was a coin toss with an Eisenhower silver dollar. The dollar fell off the wrist and Jerry Weintraub picked it up and put it under his hand. Before the coin toss I said to Karen, "say heads I win. Tails you lose". The toss was heads and Karen did the show and tails the show was cancelled. Karen called heads (she always called heads) and then the toss and falling off the wrist and Jerry picking it up. Then after Jerry picked it up Jerry said "I'll give you anything you want if you say this is heads and do the show" Karen then asked Jerry if Jerry would give Richard time off so that Richard could deal with his pill problem. Jerry agreed. The dollar was on tails. Jerry kept his word and Karen did the show without Richard. Karen started the show on December 11, 1978 and then flew to Topeka Kansas on December 12 to be with Richard for Richard's pre-admission into Meninger's. Then Karen flew back to London and finished the Bruce show taping on December 14, 1978. I saw Karen on the 18th and she mentioned that I was 'famous' over there but we didn't get the show over here in the US. Because Karen was nervous about Richard shaking and being in bad shape before she left (Richard couldn't hold a glass of water without it shaking all over the place) Karen asked Bruce to say my nickname, Ace, on the show as I usually helped calm her down. Richard started at Meninger's on January 10, 1979. Oops, and honestly, Karen could say Brooth Forthyth, but she had a hard time trying to say Bruce Forsyth. And edit 2 for reference here, Karen weighed 104 pounds. Her cheeks are full and not hollow. As a reference too, Karen weighed under 90 pounds during the Beechwood 4-5789 video filmed in April 1982.

It's sad to know that she was wasting away. Her voice was still amazing regardless. I know for these variety shows they would pre record. It doesn't matter. She sounds great. It's kind of weird not seeing her Brother. Karen has a body in reality. She was built like an hour glass in reality. But she felt that was not an image she wanted to be remember for. I felt looking at some of the early clips from 73 or 74 she looked amazing. But, our great mind can fool us. Maybe she read some crazy critic review referring to her as chubby. She wasn't chubby. Today they call it thick. Which many women embrace today. Sorry you struggled Karen with who you were as a human being. You were more than your Avatar here on Earth. Thanks for the Beautiful music.

Thank you Karen👌

Love her still 💗

Forsyth would have been over the moon having Kaz on the show.

💓💓💓💓💓💓

She reminds me of Ann Margaret what a beautiful girl and a sweet voice lu miss u girl

Herakules is coming to town 4 the glory ov this woman here dancing queen Freya Karen carpenter

🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

Adorable Karen, que pena que hayas partido tan joven!!!!!!!

Anyone who watched or participated in this performance at the time who didn't immediately realize that this wonderful and talented young woman was in the midst of a critical life and death crisis should be ashamed of themselves for not doing something to get this legend the help she needed. I realize it was a different time and eating disorders weren't well understood but anyone with eyes could see something was very wrong here! This was like watching a skeleton performing... So sad and tragic. Such a needless waste of an unparalleled and amazing talent.

Quite a find here, Billy.

I believe Richard was recouping from the quaaludes back in the states why he missed this UK performance. Karen looks gaunt. Love them no matter what!

She was there without Richard. If you look closely Richard is not the one on keyboards. He was in a treatment facility at that time and she made up that he was home sick in bed with the flu. She was there by herself with other band members. Her voice never faltered. But, her weight was so dangerously thin. I know at one time she said she weighed 78 pounds. That's not a healthy weight for any adult.

sad to see her disappearing, what a wonderful person.

Just Karen!

Can you imagine Karen playing the heacdline slot at Glastonbury?

Oh my God she is skin and bones here. She needed help. Such a sad story.

Que pena verdad lo que pasó con esta niña la verdad nunca supieron valorar y la dejaron morir de bulemia

This is bizarre but it was new to me so I enjoyed it. Not sure I would watch it again. I've always avoided the shorter clip (Please Mr Postman) because Karen looks so unhealthy. She sounds amazing though.

engelsgleiche Stimme....unverwechselbar

My goodness Karen is so sweet and cute a shame Brucie keeps man handling the poor soul she looks so fragile...

There's a nut in the comment section claiming to have had a relationship with Karen when he was 14. Remove his damn comment.

Hercules is comin to town Abba amen

Has this ever been released on DVD?

Where was Richard?

Richard was dealing with a Quaalude addiction.

It

Oh my god! I am like a pig in shit!

She's definitely not the same Karen here. 😢

I would have guess 1980 or so by her clothes and weight.

痩せて来てる…

We now no she was lying , Infact Richard was addicted to pills , he didn’t have the flu !

Brucie is a bit of brute in this. Definitely some unease in the talking segments. Singing is still stellar though.

This is when she had anorexia, she lost lots of weight here.

She looks terrible. inpatient treatment so they could feed her, even though she couldn’t feed herself.