Release date: 08-08-2007 (originally from 1973 album)

2007 Japanese exclusive strictly limited edition 15-track LP pressed on 200gram VINYL, originally released in 1973, this is an album that will have you laughing, smiling, and inflecting. It is as good a Carpenters album as any of their million sellers and will charm you endlessly. - Superbly presented in high quality fold-out picture sleeve with Japanese/English lyric sheet+obi strip.

Tracks:
01. Sing
02. This Masquerade
03. Heather
04. Jambalaya (On The Bayou)
05. I Can't Make Music
06. Yesterday Once More
07. Fun Fun Fun
08. The End Of The World
09. Da Do Ron Ron
10. Dead Man's Curve
11. Johnny Angel
12. The Night Has A Thousand Eyes
13. Our Day Will Come
14. One Fine Day
15. Yesterday Once More (reprise)

Now & Then is a concept album about the music that inspired Karen and Richard in their childhood. Besides the hit single "Sing" and a charming take on Hank Williams' "Jambalaya," the centerpiece of Now & Then is Richard Carpenter's and John Bettis' nostalgic "Yesterday Once More." Given Karen's immense skills as an interpretive singer

Now and Then is the Carpenters salute to the golden age of rock and roll, the hits of the 1960's. This is the music that both Karen and Richard Carpenter grew up listening to and in this album, they make it their own.
The album begins with the "Now", by presenting their new smash hit of 1973, "Sing". Although criticized and condemned by rock purists of the day, "Sing" (originally written for Sesame Street!), captured the public's attention and became a big hit for the Carpenters. Also in the "Now" section is "This Masquerade", a haunting song about the break-up of a relationship, of course interpreted and performed flawlessly by Karen Carpenter. It amazes me how Karen, at just 23 years old, could put so much appropriate emotional inflection into her lyrics!
"Jambalaya", the hit 1952 Hank Williams song, lifts the mood with it's infectious foot stomping beat. Karen once again renders a flawless vocal rendering, which became a huge Carpenter hit in Japan, Germany, England, and Mexico.
The "Then" portion of the album begins with the colossal hit "Yesterday Once More", setting the stage for the eight 1960's classics songs that follow. Each song is an absolute delight in itself, with the band's Tony Peluso royally hamming it up as a 60's radio dee-jay introducing each song and hosting the all-too familiar "Guess the Song and Band Contest", that all of us (oldsters) once heard on AM Top-40 radio. It all comes together so neatly thanks to Richard Carpenters' inventive and unique musical arrangements.

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The Japanese are meticulous in the pressing of their records and each album will be pressed on dead-quiet, 200g Japanese Virgin Vinyl, obliteraterating pressings done elsewhere. Only the highest-quality titles are being released from the original analog tapes. This is a strictly one-time pressing run and quanities will be extremely limited. You definitely do not want to miss out on this extremely collectable run of AAA titles, so we strongly urge you to order now.

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Karen Carpenter's white-bread image and sad fate — she died of anorexia in 1983 — have overshadowed her chocolate-and-cream alto voice. But other performers know the score: Elton John called her "one of the greatest voices of our lifetime," and Madonna has said she is "completely influenced by her harmonic sensibility." Impossibly lush and almost shockingly intimate, Carpenter's performances were a new kind of torch singing, built on understatement and tiny details of inflection that made even the sappiest songs sound like she was staring directly into your eyes. Still, she's a guilty pleasure for many. "Karen Carpenter had a great sound," John Fogerty once told Rolling Stone, "but if you've got three guys out on the ballfield and one of them started humming [a Carpenters song], the other two guys would pants him."= Rolling stone