I'm sorry that I didn't pay more respect to your talent. Your voice is timeless and just perfect, and like all the best singers, it just seems to flow from you with the least bit of strain or struggle. Bing Crosby is a great example. It seemed that you could drag Bing or Karen into a room with a crowd or a microphone at 10 in the morning and they would be at the their best without bellowing or turning redfaced.
Every note in tune, every word clear as a bell. Every musical note, that is.
Her personal life was a slow-moving car wreck. Her parents seemed to think that her brother Richard was the genius, and while he did co-write some of their songs, and arrange the music, all that would have been for naught if he didn't have his sister singing those songs so well in her one-of-a-kind three-octave contralto voice.
There's a documentary about Karen's life and her battles with anorexia (shortly before her death in 1983, she was down to 70 pounds), and her ill-advised marriage to a man who promised her the children she hoped for. Well, that was not about to occur, what with him having had a vasectomy he forgot to tell her about while he drained her bank account. It's all there, and it's all sad, until she sang.
There are those who said that "Goodbye to Love" was Karen's true anthem, the melancholy words of someone who seems to believe that love has passed her by for the last time. How sad it must have been to have all that ability and none of the joy of performing with it.
The documentary is on Amazon; it's good to watch and sad to watch all at the same time. I wish we had all treated her better when she was here.
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