Friday, September 12, 2008

Claire De La Fuente & Richard Carpenter

Together at last.

I've first heard of a collaboration between Richard Carpenter (half of The Carpenters, brother of Karen) & Claire De La Fuente (Karen Carpenter of the Philippine Islands) about 20 years ago. Claire sounds uncannily like Karen Carpenter and shot to fame in the Philippines with a song called "Sayang" (English translation - What A Waste). It was like hearing Karen Carpenter sing in another language, not Spanish.

And finally, this year, the song was released and here is the video:



I haven't seen Claire or Richard in a while and the first thing that comes to my mind is - what was Richard wearing? What's up with Claire singing from barung-barong to nightclub and back again? The "moulin-rouge-esque" cinematography is dizzying. 

This song originally appeared in Richard's solo album and was sung by the late Dusty Springfield.  Actually, if you sing "I Just Fall In Love Again" during the chorus, it will harmonize quite well.  Mmmaybe it's the same song? Dunno. Just saying.

Claire looks very matronic and sounds like one. I think her voice lost some of the lower registers and I don't think she sounds like Karen anymore, which could be a good thing.  But still I am proud and can't wait to hear the rest of the album. It's not available on iTunes yet - natch!

Speaking of Karen Carpenter sound-alikes, here's Japan's contribution:


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