Hi Paul - thank you so much for the emotional and thoughtful review of our project! We did this purely for the love of the music... Tori is a wonderful gem! I am Jim, the pianist, backing singer, clarinet and percussion player, as well as the audio mixer and video editor. The additional musicians are all friends, contributing their awesome playing! Again, thanks for your kind words!
I would echo your appreciation for the production format that Jim employed to highlight all the individual parts at play. It's a magnificent song to showcase the kind of ingenuity the Carpenters used when they recorded the original. And when you add Tori in to the equation, it can't miss. Fabulous rendition. Thanks Ron, for the request.
Having grown up listened to the Carpenters since the 1970's, when Karen was about the same age as Karen was when this song was first recorded, bear in mind that this is almost a direct copy of the arrangement as done by Richard Carpenter, this being what made the Carpenters so popular in my day. I have to echo my friend Joe (jbs256) as having a young singer with this talent is very refreshing and hopefully will resonate with young viewers, such as I was at the time, as was done by the Carpenters 50 plus years ago.
The song was originally in a wedding-themed television commercial for Crocker National Bank in California in early 1970, with Paul Williams on vocals (who wrote the lyrics). ."We've Only Just Begun" hit No. 1 on the Cash Box singles chart and No. 2 on the U.S.Billboard Hot 100. Richard Carpenter heard the song and the rest is history! (from Wiki/Google).
Just discovered Tori a few weeks ago. There are a few complete performances that she does Georgia on My Mind (audio only), Merry Christmas, Darling (audio only/a Carpenters song) and The Burt Bacharach and Hal David Medley that the Carpenters performed on the Ed Sullivan Show at the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington D.C. in 1970. Tori's channel features many short songs many from Carpenters, Bread, Olivia Newton-John, Patsy Cline and others.
Hi Teacher Paul! Ron is my friend and I’ve been requesting Tori since I was introduced to her last October. No one expects Tori or The Spanish Inquisition. The shock and awe is real. It happened to me last year and now Ron has introduced you. Tori has a huge following on Instagram and Tik Tok. A quick tally will show her top 5 videos (shorts) on Instagram is over 10M views. I’m not on TT but assume similar numbers as that was her starting point. TH-cam has merit though. It is home to all her full length audio and videos. Including two fully original songs that were given to her after the writers heard her voice. Her vocal range is something else, too. She has short covers of Olivia songs and can follow her up to the stratosphere, vocally. Karen could go lower but as you heard Tori is in that neighborhood. As for her age. Karen was 20 when she sang Close To You and this song. So Tori is actually right on track. Tori is a multi-instrumentalist and song writer. We haven’t heard her compositions, yet. I know those are in the plans along with some more Carpenters and other covers. If you’d like to see a couple of shorts that I think are amazing (and too damn short) on Instagram seek out her “Crazy On You” cover by Heart (she’s 4 members of the band). Also her “Now and Then” cover of the last Beatles song. She’s “ToriHolubMusic” on the other services. I sent you to IG because often her shorts there are longer than the same one on TH-cam. Enjoyed your reaction and our previous conversation in the comments. Now I get to confirm what I knew. Joe
You are right, she is only 20 so her voice is young. This weekend a song was released where she sings a Perry Como song, It's Impossible, she's done Olivia Newton John, and even some original material. She is NOT Karen, and says when asked that she doesn't think she sounds like Karen, but in fairness, this song is virtually immortal and burned into our brains. There is a 100% chance that Karen's vocals were different at every concert because of acoustics, instrument placement, etc.
Hi Paul, You would probably be surprised that Karen was only 20 when she sang the original. There are recordings of her singing at 16 that sound so much more mature than her age would indicate.
Tori is good and this reproduction arrangement is incredible but her lows aren't quite there if you're comparing to Karen. Harriet has a much better range and a stronger low range. Got to say,as an older generation person in my late 60's, Tori and Harriet are both wonderful and amazing. Love hearing them both.
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Hi Paul - thank you so much for the emotional and thoughtful review of our project! We did this purely for the love of the music... Tori is a wonderful gem! I am Jim, the pianist, backing singer, clarinet and percussion player, as well as the audio mixer and video editor. The additional musicians are all friends, contributing their awesome playing! Again, thanks for your kind words!
Hi Jim, I would say that you are essentially the "Richard Carpenter" of this great rendition.
I instantly became a huge fan of this Tori. How can you not? So refreshing to see a young lady who can really sing. Not like the crap out there today.
I would echo your appreciation for the production format that Jim employed to highlight all the individual parts at play. It's a magnificent song to showcase the kind of ingenuity the Carpenters used when they recorded the original. And when you add Tori in to the equation, it can't miss. Fabulous rendition. Thanks Ron, for the request.
Like you I was STUNNED
Having grown up listened to the Carpenters since the 1970's, when Karen was about the same age as Karen was when this song was first recorded, bear in mind that this is almost a direct copy of the arrangement as done by Richard Carpenter, this being what made the Carpenters so popular in my day. I have to echo my friend Joe (jbs256) as having a young singer with this talent is very refreshing and hopefully will resonate with young viewers, such as I was at the time, as was done by the Carpenters 50 plus years ago.
The song was originally in a wedding-themed television commercial for Crocker National Bank in California in early 1970, with Paul Williams on vocals (who wrote the lyrics). ."We've Only Just Begun" hit No. 1 on the Cash Box singles chart and No. 2 on the U.S.Billboard Hot 100. Richard Carpenter heard the song and the rest is history! (from Wiki/Google).
Just discovered Tori a few weeks ago. There are a few complete performances that she does Georgia on My Mind (audio only), Merry Christmas, Darling (audio only/a Carpenters song) and The Burt Bacharach and Hal David Medley that the Carpenters performed on the Ed Sullivan Show at the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington D.C. in 1970. Tori's channel features many short songs many from Carpenters, Bread, Olivia Newton-John, Patsy Cline and others.
Where MC,D resides there are two more! And of course the brand new one. Eyes/Studio. ❤
Hi Teacher Paul! Ron is my friend and I’ve been requesting Tori since I was introduced to her last October. No one expects Tori or The Spanish Inquisition. The shock and awe is real. It happened to me last year and now Ron has introduced you. Tori has a huge following on Instagram and Tik Tok. A quick tally will show her top 5 videos (shorts) on Instagram is over 10M views. I’m not on TT but assume similar numbers as that was her starting point. TH-cam has merit though. It is home to all her full length audio and videos. Including two fully original songs that were given to her after the writers heard her voice. Her vocal range is something else, too. She has short covers of Olivia songs and can follow her up to the stratosphere, vocally. Karen could go lower but as you heard Tori is in that neighborhood. As for her age. Karen was 20 when she sang Close To You and this song. So Tori is actually right on track. Tori is a multi-instrumentalist and song writer. We haven’t heard her compositions, yet. I know those are in the plans along with some more Carpenters and other covers.
If you’d like to see a couple of shorts that I think are amazing (and too damn short) on Instagram seek out her “Crazy On You” cover by Heart (she’s 4 members of the band). Also her “Now and Then” cover of the last Beatles song. She’s “ToriHolubMusic” on the other services. I sent you to IG because often her shorts there are longer than the same one on TH-cam.
Enjoyed your reaction and our previous conversation in the comments. Now I get to confirm what I knew.
Joe
You are right, she is only 20 so her voice is young. This weekend a song was released where she sings a Perry Como song, It's Impossible, she's done Olivia Newton John, and even some original material. She is NOT Karen, and says when asked that she doesn't think she sounds like Karen, but in fairness, this song is virtually immortal and burned into our brains. There is a 100% chance that Karen's vocals were different at every concert because of acoustics, instrument placement, etc.
Hi Paul, You would probably be surprised that Karen was only 20 when she sang the original. There are recordings of her singing at 16 that sound so much more mature than her age would indicate.
Tori is good and this reproduction arrangement is incredible but her lows aren't quite there if you're comparing to Karen. Harriet has a much better range and a stronger low range. Got to say,as an older generation person in my late 60's, Tori and Harriet are both wonderful and amazing. Love hearing them both.