Reference

Because of the Herb Alpert connection, a lot of people think he played the trumpet on The Carpenters' version, but that honor went to Chuck Findley. Carpenter wanted a layered sound for the middle of the song, and tried having multiple trumpet players perform it in unison, but each instrument sounded slightly different.

The track was the Carpenters' song "Superstar" and this updated version appears, alongside updated versions of many of the Carpenter's best-known hits, on an album which only came out just before Christmas last year. ... to that most mournful of instruments, the oboe, for the rest of the intro, every element of the Carpenters' version

Richard's opening oboe theme is all most people need to hear to recognize the song. Two groups recently covered the song - Sonic Youth (on the If I Were A Carpenter tribute album) and Chrissie Hynde (under the pseudo-band name Superfan, from the Wayne's World soundtrack album) - and they left Richard's intro line untouched.