“All my best memories come back clearly to me
Some can even make me cry…
Just like before
It’s yesterday once more…”
DELOREANS, hot tubs and phone booths are all great forms of time travel, but sometimes stepping back into the past is as simple as heading to the right place — restaurants where nostalgia may as well be on the menu. At the Colonial Café tucked within the glittering old world grand dame, The Majestic Hotel Kuala Lumpur, the question isn’t where to go, it is which era you want to spend time in.
The Timeless Tribute by the Solianos gives jazz a facelift while shunning the genre’s elitist stereotypes and opening it up to more diverse audiences. From George Gershwin to the Carpenters, the Solianos — one of the most recognisable names in Malaysian music — breathes life to old songs with their distinguished vocal harmonies in a place where nostalgia is recreated, paying homage to the halcyon days of old Malaya.
In an age of studied casualness, of competitive waiting in line, chef-stalking and meal-Instagramming, it’s novel to be served by a dignified waiter in a smart jacket who knows his business.
It is relaxing to look at a menu and (with the exception of certain démodé concoctions) know exactly what you’re getting. And most magical of all, it’s astounding to be transported to a time when people not only dressed up but also when your chair was pulled out for you.
All this, while listening to music that reminds me of my childhood and the uncomplicated years when the Carpenters’ sunny affirmations (Top of the World, Sing) were sweet enough to give you an ice cream headache.
BRINGING BACK THE MEMORIES
Of the handful of albums my parents owned, it was The Carpenters’ Singles 1969-1973 that struck me the most. I remember being particularly fascinated by Yesterday Once More. With the benefit of hindsight, I suspect it was because it was the first piece of music I’d ever heard.
It also became the first song I learnt how to sing. I was a sickly child, given to periods of melancholy as I often lay quarantined at home while my siblings were off at school. Music became my companion and The Carpenters played incessantly in my room. Yesterday Once More suited my temperament, and I soon began inflicting the rest of my family with piercing mournful renditions of the song.
Something about the song’s sadness, and its pertinence must have seeped into me. I started loving the Carpenters and never stopped, even when it was deeply uncool to do so (they never were and will never be, the kind of band for a teenager to like), even before I could dissect why I found their music so moving.
The weird combination of velvety richness and ineffable melancholy in Karen Carpenter’s voice, the way it tugs at the lushness of the arrangements, the nagging sense that, in this glossily perfect, light-entertainment sound-world, something was desperately wrong. I still love them today.
And here I am, swaying to the band and mouthing off the lyrics as the Solianos begin to play all my favourites from that old album I was well acquainted with. Who doesn’t love the Carpenters, really?
MAGIC OF THE CARPENTERS
Their midtempo songs and ballads, though — We’ve Only Just Begun, Goodbye to Love, Only Yesterday, Rainy Days and Mondays and especially their version of the Leon Russell/Bonnie Bramlett composition Superstar — were often transportive, thanks to Richard’s exquisite skill as an arranger, but most of all because of Karen’s contralto, which had an extraordinary relationship with the microphone and rarely seemed to be showing off. It just richly is, finding the right places to go.
The Carpenters were one of the biggest-selling American musical acts of all time. Between 1970 and 1984, brother and sister, Richard and Karen Carpenter, had 17 top 20 hits, including Goodbye to Love, Yesterday Once More and Close to You. They notched up 10 gold singles, nine gold albums, one multi-platinum album and three Grammy awards.
Karen’s velvety voice and Richard’s airy melodies and meticulously-crafted arrangements stood in direct contrast to the louder, wilder rock dominating the rest of the charts at the time. Yet they became immensely popular, selling more than 100 million records.
Richard was the musical driving force but it was Karen’s effortless voice that lay behind the Carpenters’ hits. Promoted from behind the drums to star vocalist, she became one of the decade’s most instantly recognisable female singers.
What came with the fame was hard. Unwittingly, she was thrust with the poster girl image of the young, gifted and square — and she soon found her appearance under constant scrutiny. Big-boned and tomboyish all her life, Karen cracked under the pressure and developed anorexia from which she never recovered.
Her velvet voice may have charmed millions in the 70s but behind the wholesome image Karen was in turmoil. Desperate to look slim on stage, she became the first celebrity victim of anorexia. She died at the age of 32.
MUSIC LIVES ON
Yet the music of the Carpenters comes to life tonight. Song after song, they evoke memories of time long past. As Isabella Soliano ably sings Close To You, I’m reminded of my long buried love-affair with this sugary pop-duo.
For a long while, the Carpenters became my guilty pleasure and go-to music to unwind to. Maybe it’s a remnant from those days when they were on the radio all the time and those days when I’d lie in bed listening to their music. They really did seem to provide a soundtrack for daily life and was so comfortingly familiar. The music may never have captured the dramatic moments in my life but I long suspect that the beauty lies in its soundtrack for the mundane.
They may have had their difficulties, troubles, the illness that eventually ended the golden partnership between Richard and his sister. Yet you’d be hardpressed to find any of these blights they faced from the lyrics and Karen’s soothing voice. They sounded hopeful, even when wistful; of love that would work out, a life with possibilities. You can’t help but feel buoyed by Top of the World or tap your foot to Please Mr. Postman.
“Would you like to sing with us?” invites Isabella, smiling. Oh, would I? There’s no pretence of being shy. I’ve prepared for this moment since I was six. I know the lyrics. I know the song. As I begin singing the first few lines of Yesterday Once More: “When I was young, I’d listen to the radio, waiting for my favourite song…”, it’s my childhood all over again. I’m back to being alone in my room recovering from asthma, singing with all my might with the Carpenters album playing in the background. I half-suspect Karen is somewhere out there listening with delight.
Timeless Tribute by the Solianos at The Majestic Hotel’s Colonial Café recently concluded on November 16.