CARPENTERS-COMO MEDLEY

 "Perry Como's Christmas Show"

In December of 1974 Karen and I were guests on Perry Como's annual Christmas special. As we were life-long fans of Perry, this was a treat for us. One of the spots was a medley, in which Perry sang some of our hits and we sang some of his. As originally arranged and performed, this track was six minutes and fifty-five seconds in duration. While the special was in post-production being edited, it was discovered that this was just too long. As a result, the first four songs hit the editing room floor and the piece was faded up on the segue into Close to You, with canned applause incorporated to make it seem smoother, hence my singing the first words of this tune in this mix.

As mentioned earlier, Perry sang live to track in the television studio and not on the multi-track. This created a couple of problems as far as this CD is concerned. Firstly, Como's performances on Magic Moments and Sing went the way of the tape on the editing room floor. Secondly, Mr. C's lead is not on its own track, but locked in with the entire arrangement, which was "flown" over to the 48-track from the 2-inch video edit-master of the Como special.

Finally, Perry was using a performing mic, not a studio one, and was holding it a little bit away from his face; good for television, but not ideal for sound quality. Of course, being Como, he still sounds terrific, but not nearly as present as he is on so many of his other recordings. On the other hand, this was not originally meant for commercial release and Perry and his management were most gracious in letting us use it. At least one bootleg CD of this medley - short version, dubious audio quality - is out there, and this complete, authorized version is far  superior.

 

 

 
Last Updated June 4, 2008
May 2004  © Richard Carpenter

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