* Listen to Carla's Interview with Dean! *
Photos courtesy of CarlaWilliamsMusic.com
At the time, the answer was no. Carla was a mother of three who was working on her first country album. After Carla signed with a record label, two songs from that album landed on the country charts. As a result, Carla was named Female Vocalist of the Year at the New Music Awards in Los Angeles.
And then she stepped back. Carla’s children always came before anything else, so she put her music career on hold to be with her kids. She soon had her fourth child, and as her children grew older, Carla’s desire to return to music grew with them. It wasn’t until she was performing on a Nashville television show that she heard the question again: “Has anyone told you that you sound like Karen Carpenter?”
This time the question came from Michael Omartian. “Omar”, as the legendary record producer is known to his friends, had worked with The Carpenters. Her answer was “Yes!”. That answer sparked a nostalgic musical odyssey that led Carla to begin working on a tribute to Karen Carpenter.
Two-and-a-half years after she began recording, Carla completed “A Tribute to The Carpenters.” The album is comprised of fifteen covers of original Carpenters tunes and includes special guest duets with Sir Cliff Richard, Toto’s Steve Lukather, and Chicago’s Bill Champlin and Jeff Coffey. Backed by lush arrangements, Carla’s voice is bright, warm and rich. Like Karen Carpenter herself, Carla glides through classics such as “We’ve Only Just Begun”, “Rainy Days and Mondays”, “Rainbow Connection”, and more. “It has been the most unbelievable experience, I can honestly say, of my entire career and life,” Carla says.
To sing any song, Carla must have lived the lyrics. She listened to the Carpenter’s catalog and chose songs that reflected her experiences so that she could confidently convey the emotion to listeners. In the process, Carla bonded with the original recordings even more. She started playing piano again, and like her creative muse, began drum lessons.
Carla was a double major in psychology and music performance in college, but even she was taken aback by the similarities of her voice to Karen Carpenter’s voice. “Our vocal tones are so much the same; it is almost eerie,” she says.
Carla continued to pour over The Carpenters song lyrics trying to find those most in line with her life. “I Won’t Last a Day Without You” rose to the top. “It resonated back to my children and that time in my life to where I put my whole music career on hold because I just couldn’t be away from them,” she says. “That wasn’t okay for me.”
To ramp the project up even more, Carla recorded at Abbey Road Studios with the London Strings. She knocked out four songs while she was there, including “Superstar.” To record in the same studio as The Beatles was “an unbelievable experience,” she said. But she wasn’t finished.
Carla partnered with British pop superstar Sir Cliff Richard for “Hurting Each Other.” The pair hit it off while recording their duet in Miami. “Sir Cliff is one of the kindest souls I have ever met and it is an honor to have him on this record.”
The album also includes The Carpenters’ classic Christmas song “Merry Christmas, Darling”. Country star Billy Dean joins Carla for a deluxe version of the group’s No. 1 holiday hit. Amazingly, “Merry Christmas, Darling” topped Billboard’s Christmas singles chart in 1970, 1971, and again in 1973. The pair recently shot a video for the tender Christmas classic that showcases their chemistry in front of a camera that really made this song complete.
In addition to her work as a recording artist, Carla has worked as a print and runway model in campaigns for companies ranging from Dillard’s to Buckle. But she also has a day job. Carla founded Innovative Medicine Partners, which accelerates the market introduction of new medical devices. She is a co-patent holder and inventor of novel medical technology in audio and acoustics. “It’s been such a satisfying experience to see the two worlds collide,” Carla explains, “because, I’ve always said, medicine heals the body and music heals the soul.”
The journey of making “A Tribute to The Carpenters” was life-changing for Carla. She hopes listeners find glimmers of the truths she discovered while living with these songs. “It took me back to that time when love and appreciation of music is what it should have been,” she says. “I want this era of music to be brought back. I want people to appreciate The Carpenters … If you really sit down and listen to their music, it’s almost incomprehensible, almost perfection.”
Carla’s reimagined Carpenters’ classics bring a respectful second life to the music that will catapult hits like “Top of The World”, “Close to You,” and others from parent’s and grandparent’s cassette tapes to this generation’s playlists.
Carla is a member of The Country Music Association, The Academy of Country Music, The Nashville Songwriters Association, the Country Music Hall of Fame, National Association of Professional Women and the International Association of Professional Women and MedtechWOMEN.
Carla currently resides in Nashville, TN.
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