In my lifetime, no singing artists were more angelic with their voices than Elvis Presley and Karen Carpenter. They entertained us with incredible lyricism and unparalleled musicality.

Record producer John Owen Williams says of Elvis, “People talk of his range and power and ease in hitting the high notes, but the real difference between Elvis and other singers, was that he could sing majestically in any style, be it rock, country or R&B - because he had soul. He sang from the heart and that is what made him the greatest singer in the history of popular music.”

I remember the first time Elvis appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on TV. My sister, Nancy literally had her face within 6 inches of the TV screen as he belted out the song, “Hound Dog.” As a little kid, I was fascinated and also a little disturbed by the girls in the show’s audience who screamed and nearly passed out while he sang. The cameraman was instructed not to show Elvis’s gyrating hips, which was deemed to be scandalous back then.

He was a one-of-a-kind phenomenon, a back woods kid from Mississippi whose life would soon become overwhelmed with fame and fortune.

I taught a class called Modern Communications to ninth graders in the 1970s and a unit in the curriculum was “The History of Rock and Roll.”

Of course, Elvis was a front and center topic. I recall mentioning an interview to my class written in the Newark Star Ledger. He was asked if there was anything he still wanted after attaining such incredible stardom that made him wealthy and loved by millions far beyond anyone else in the entertainment business.

He replied, “I want to be able to walk down any street in America and not be Elvis Presley.”

He had wanted a private life that was never to come.

Following an addiction to pain medications and an ongoing unhealthy lifestyle, Elvis died in 1977 at the age of 42.

Karen Carpenter and her brother Richard released “Close to You,” their first big hit seven years before Elvis died. That song and “We’ve Only Just Begun” were number one on the charts for several weeks. To this very day, I have never heard a more talented vocal range than hers.

According to music author, Jim Farfaglia, “Karen normally sang as a contralto, but she had the rare ability to transition from that more typical female register to a much lower range … there is an enduring quality … It was something in Karen’s voice, something that went deeper than words.”

Behind the public performances, and like Elvis, she was struggling to find joy in her life. Plagued by a mother who favored Richard’s musicianship over hers, she put so much pressure on singing with perfection and keeping her body beautiful.

The songs we loved were never good enough to her and she believed she was too heavy in weight so she would literally starve herself so much that she became anorexic, a condition that led directly to a fatal heart attack she suffered at the age of 32.

It is my theory that both Elvis and Karen knew they were not long for life. On the day that he died, he played the piano for a while and reportedly the last song he ever sang was in his home hours before he was found dead on the bathroom floor. That song, “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” reminded me that he had never gotten over the death of his beloved mother in the year 1958, at the very start of his singing career. Words from this song are an eerie premonition to his desire to be with his mother again.

“Love is like a dying ember. Only memories remain … Someday when we meet up yonder, we’ll stroll hand in hand again in a land that knows no parting.”

Despite all the beautiful love songs that Karen Carpenter gifted us with, she had never found lasting love for herself. A marriage to real estate developer Thomas James Burris ended after three years and that was the only love she said she ever felt.

The last song she ever recorded was titled, “Now.” She died 10 months later in 1982. The words to this song suggest it’s time she move on and be loved by a higher power.

“Now when it rains, I don’t feel cold. Now that I have your hand to hold. The winds blow right through me, but I don’t care. There’s no harm in thunder if you are there …. Now when I’m smiling, I know why. You light up my world like the morning sun. You’re so deep within me, we’re almost one …. And now all the fears that I had start to fade …. Love might let me down. Then look who I found. And now when I wake, there’s someone home. I’ll never face the night alone. You gave me the courage I need to win. To open my heart and let you in. And I never really knew how until now.”

It’s just my guess as to why these were the last songs sung by two great artists. Perhaps words from the song, “Broken Halos” by Chris Stapleton define the untimely departures of Elvis Presley and Karen Carpenter better than I could.

“Seen my share of broken halos. Folded wings that used to fly. They’re all gone. Wherever they go. Broken halos that used to shine. Don’t go looking for the reasons. Don’t go asking Jesus why. We’re not meant to know the answers. They belong to the by and by.”

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com