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Tribute duo brings home a Christmas with the Carpenters
FloridaWeekly.com, by Sue Wade - November 30, 2023
The Carpenters’ Christmas TV specials of 1977 and 1978 were so iconic that one soundtrack’s album cover portrayed the clean-cut siblings in a Norman Rockwell-esque painting-of-a-painting, with Santa hard at work re-creating them on canvas.
Today, Las Vegas entertainers Sally Olson and Ned Mills are hard at work re-creating them in an uncannily accurate tribute — “A Christmas Portrait” — touring nationwide for the holidays.
Gulf Theater at Punta Gorda’s Military Heritage Museum will stage three performances by the three-time “Best of Las Vegas” award winners, in a production unlike any other the venue has seen.
It includes so many first-evers, one-and-onlies and never-befores that it’s held audiences in awe and in tears ever since Olson went from solo Karen Carpenter to partnering with Mills (onstage and in life) five years ago.
Las Vegas-based Legends in Concert has a stable full of Eltons and Elvises, but Sally Olson was its first-ever and only Karen Carpenter, and the couple’s show is the first-ever and only Carpenters tribute with a Las Vegas residency (V Theater at Planet Hollywood).
Theirs is the only Carpenters tribute with both a Richard and a Karen, who act fully in character, with spot-on vocals, arrangements, dialogue and costuming.
“I really needed somebody like Ned,” said Olson, “not only to play Richard, but also who has the piano chops and arranging ability, much like Richard, to put this show together.”
The duo studies archival footage almost daily, to perfect their Carpenters impressions.
In fact, their new Las Vegas residency projects a video of the originals behind them while they perform — a fairly intimidating way to keep upping their game.
The eerier similarities aren’t lost on them, either.
Mills says that Richard, who just turned 77, has an October birthday close to his.
Olson — who’s collected so many memorabilia that their home has a Carpenters “museum” —understands Karen on a nearly personal level.
“I have a spiritual, kindred-spirit connection to her,” she said. “There are moments onstage when the singing is so effortless that I wonder if she’s there with me and I’m channeling her. If that’s what’s going on, I feel very honored and proud to be able to carry on her legacy.”
Michael Lansing, Carpenters audio engineer, assistant tour manager and Karen’s personal assistant in 1976, said of Olson’s portrayal, “Never have I heard anyone sing like Karen with such richness without pushing. … The way you grip the microphone with your right hand is Karen. … Your clothing, your hair color, and your mouth when you are singing. … It’s Karen all over again.”
Theirs is the only tribute that shows not just the hits, but also the live-entertaining, comedic side of the Carpenters, which most people have never experienced.
This is your only chance to see what you would have seen if you’d bought a ticket to their 1976 live tour.
“We do a side of the Carpenters that you’re not going to expect,” said Mills. “Karen was voted best drummer in the world in a 1975 music poll, so Sally learned how to play drums. And I do a classical Gershwin feature and a Spike Jones parody, like Richard.”
People might be taken aback, he said, because they haven’t been introduced to these facets of Karen and Richard Carpenter, but nearly half the show will still be Carpenters favorites.
Theirs is the only Carpenters tribute to re-create the actual concerts of the 1976 UK tour, and their holiday show is the only production with word-for-word dialogue from the Carpenters’ Christmas TV specials, a live band, endearing humor and memories of Christmastime in millions of living rooms.
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