CARPENTERS
Time, though, has changed her perspective: At 50 now, Welch is unabashed in her appreciation of Karen and Richard Carpenter, the 1970s musical siblings who performed as the Carpenters.
With Richard Carpenter’s blessing, in fact, Welch — a jazz and standards singer who has performed with the Columbus Jazz Orchestra and the Columbus Symphony Orchestra — has crafted a tribute concert to the Grammy-winning duo.
On Wednesday night at Copious/Notes in the Brewery District, she will present the central Ohio debut of “Superstar: The Songs. The Stories. The Carpenters.”
Although completed in 2015, “Superstar” has roots as far back as 2003 — shortly after Welch, born and raised in England, married a northern Ohioan she’d met at a French ski resort and moved across the Atlantic.
Offered a residency at the Cleveland jazz club Nighttown, the singer one evening faced a particularly rambunctious crowd while swinging through jazz hits.
Unhappy about the chatter, Welch decided to shake things up — by asking the pianist to play the 1974 easy-listening ballad “I Won’t Last a Day Without You.”
He told her that she was nuts, she recalled. She told him that the crowd wouldn’t hear her anyway.
“After a minute, you could hear a pin drop,” Welch said. “I thought, this is either vocal suicide or they really like it.”
The audience went crazy for the Carpenters, prompting Welch the next night to repeat the musical selection at an unlikely venue: a biker bar.
“The same thing happened,” she said. “Within a minute, all these leather-clad bikers went completely silent.”
The response struck a chord with her creative side, and Welch — who has produced shows based on music from the Beatles, the Great American Songbook and leading women of jazz — started writing “Superstar” in 2010.
Two years later, she premiered the show, at the Civic Theatre in Akron.
Welch tried to copy the Carpenters, singing most of the songs without explanation or context. Audiences loved the show, she said, but Welch wasn’t pleased with the final results and shelved the project.
“I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what wasn’t working.”
After releasing the jazz-oriented album “Spellbound” last year, Welch was approached by Los Angeles publicist Michael Jensen about revamping “Superstar.”
“It was a huge mountain,” she said, “and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to climb it again.”
After months of additional research and a script revision — a guitarist was added to the show, as were more vignettes about the Carpenter siblings — Welch said that she felt as if “a rainbow had come out.”
She approached Howard Parr — executive director of the Akron Civic Theatre, who also books shows at the EJ Thomas Performing Arts Hall in Akron — about a revamped performance at the hall. The March date in the 800-seat venue sold out.
Parr, who watched both versions, praised not only Welch’s artistic ability but also her show-business sensibility.
“She has a great voice; she has incredible stage presence,” said Parr, 54. “I think being British adds a charm to her performance that makes it unique with the audience.”
At the same time, he said, she fully grasps what’s needed to engage a crowd.
“That’s not something that’s very common,” he said. “A lot of people who are creative ... are not necessarily able to see the more business or strategic side of things, and she’s definitely one of those people who’s able to do both.”
The drive to craft a respectful, uplifting story of the Carpenters’ lives — Welch had contacted Richard Carpenter in 2010 for his consent regarding the show — motivated her to work so hard, she said, that she hasn’t taken a vacation in three years.
Beginning with early hits “Ticket To Ride” (a Beatles tribute) and “Close To You” — which remains the Carpenters’ most popular song — Welch in the first act moves chronologically through the duo’s recording contract and early success.
In the second act, she jumps around the Carpenter catalog to give a better picture of the siblings’ immense popularity — between 1970 and 1976, eight of their singles reached No. 1 or No. 2.
Most fans are familiar with Karen Carpenter’s battle with anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder that was littleknown at the time. The disease ultimately led to her death from heart failure in 1983 at age 32.
Welch, though, prefers to shed light on the uplifting elements of the duo’s story.
“I didn’t want to focus on all the negativity surrounding Karen,” she said. “There was so much more to Karen than Karen’s anorexia.”
Part of Karen Carpenter’s enduring appeal is her low, soothing voice, which Welch credited with giving her the confidence to accept her own voice.
“Without trying to, I sound really like Karen Carpenter,” she said. “When I was young and learning to sing, I felt very inadequate because I wasn’t a soprano. ... Karen Carpenter sort of gave me permission to feel good about being an alto.”
Joe Leaman, Welch’s musical director and pianist, said that Welch has, in turn, given him permission to see himself as more than a regional musician.
She hopes to one day turn the show into a performance viable for Broadway, much like “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.”
“I think the show’s already good, and a lot of people in my position or Helen’s position would be content with that,” Leaman said. “But she’s hungry, and that forces me to keep dreaming and keep being creative.
“She doesn’t seem like she’s going to let off the gas pedal, so I can’t, either.”
Welch draws her relentless energy from an urgency she feels to keep the music of the Carpenters alive beyond the time when the duo’s mostly babyboomer fan base will be around.
“This might sound a little bit crazy, but you feel like there’s this inner voice saying, ‘You just have to do this,’” she said.
“This music is too good to be forgotten.”