The Carpenters, The #18 Artist of the Rock Era, Part One

"Everyone mentions Karen's beautiful voice !! Richard's arrangements are absolutely stunning!!"

"Their music is truly timeless, & the most beautiful in the world!"

"That voice touches me every time."

"This brother and sister duo were so gifted and talented. Karen's voice was unmistakable and so pure, and Richard not only played a mean piano was the mastermind behind the group."

"What GREATNESS."

"Karen had the most amazing voice, singing a song that gives me chills. Her voice was everything...."

"The sweetest, most soothing voice you will ever hear. That sweet voice could calm the savage beast. Sublime! The Carpenters were magical."

"Pure music both from Karen in her majestic voice and amazing drumming along with Richard's great songwriting and arrangement skills."

"Time can't change the joy of hearing Karen's magic, enchanting, mesmerizing voice." They were simply sensational, with one great song after another."

"Karen's voice is mesmerizing and haunting."

"Karen's voice is Hauntingly beautiful... otherworldly.... ethereal... graceful.... POWERFUL. "

"The Carpenters sound is iconic to this day and can, or will never be, rivaled."

"You could tune a piano to Karen's voice and Richard's arrangements were brilliant."

"Pure class."

Here is another artist which ranked in The Top 10* from the mid-70's until the end of the 1980's.  They are still solidly in The Top 20*, as the "error rate" (derived from the closeness of the point total) is just plus or minus two in this range.

Richard Carpenter was born October 15, 1946 while sister Karen was born March 2, 1950.  Richard grew up playing piano at an early age, taking lessons when he was eight.  He grew frustrated with the formal nature of the lessons and began teaching himself how to play by ear.  When he was just 14, Richard started lessons at Yale School of Music.  Karen liked music too, taking ballet and tap classes when she was four, but also liked to play sports.

In 1963, the Carpenters moved to Downey, California, and Richard became the organist for services and weddings at the local Methodist church.  In 1964, Richard enrolled at Cal State-Long Beach, where he met songwriter John Bettis.  Karen was at Downey High School and became interested in the drums.  She took lessons from jazz players in the area.  In 1965, Karen and Richard performed for the first time as part of the pit band for the play Guys and Dolls.

By the end of the year, the two siblings, together with friend Wes Jacobs, began the Richard Carpenter Trio.  The group featured jazz songs, all arranged by Richard.  Karen became the vocalist for the group and took lessons from Frank Cooler.

The next year, while session musician Joe Osborn was recording a demo with Richard and Friberg, Osburn asked Karen to sing.  He was immediately impressed and signed Karen to his label, Magic Lamp Records, and Richard to his publishing company, Lightup Music.  But a single featuring two of Richard's songs didn't catch on, and the label shut down the next year.

 

That summer, The Richard Carpenter Trio entered the annual Battle of the bands competition at the Hollywood Bowl.  Performing an instrumental version of "The Girl From Ipanema" and their own song, "Iced Tea", the group won the competition.  

Karen graduated from Downey High in 1967 and soon joined Richard at Long Beach State as a music major.  Meanwhile, Osborn continued to let Karen and Richard record demo tapes in his studio.  Jacobs left the group to study classical music and the trio disbanded.  

Richard and Bettis were hired to play turn of the 20th century songs at a refreshment shop at Disneyland's Main Street.  But when the pair honored requests by patrons to play popular music, they were fired by their supervisor, Victor Guder.  Bettis and Richard didn't take this very well and later wrote the song "Mr. Guder" about their former boss.

Karen and Richard joined other students at Long Beach State, including Bettis on guitar, guitarist Gary Sims, bassist Dan Woodhams, and singer Leslie Johnston to form the group Spectrum.  Spectrum played regularly at the famous Whisky a Go Go, once opening for Steppenwolf, and sent demos to record labels in L.A. with no luck.  

In 1968, Spectrum too disbanded and Richard and Karen decided to form the duo called Carpenters.  They appeared on the television program Your All American College Show performing a cover of "Dancing In The Street".  Sulzer became their manager and got a copy of their demo tape to A & M Records.  Owner Herb Alpert saw the tremendous potential in this brother and sister act and signed them to a recording contract on April 22, 1969.  Importantly, the arrangement gave the duo the ability to record material with creative control.  

 

The Carpenters began work on their debut album, which included much of the material they had performed with Spectrum.  Osborn played bass on the album and would do so for the rest of the duo's career.  In October of 1969, the Carpenters released the album Offering, which was later renamed Ticket to Ride.  A slower cover of the Beatles' "Ticket To Ride" was released as a single and became a minor hit.  

"Someday" is a standout track--a masterpiece of musicianship.

Karen and Richard met accomplished songwriter Burt Bacharach, who liked their sound and invited the Carpenters to open for him at a charity concert.  Alpert asked Richard to come up with a different arrangement of a song written by Bacharach and Hal David that first Richard Chamberlain (in 1963) and then Dionne Warwick (in 1964) had recorded.

Famous session drummer Hal Blaine was added for the recording and the Carpenters released "(They Long To Be) "Close To You" in March of 1970.  The song reached #1 in July and remained there for four weeks in the U.S.; it also ruled charts in Canada and Australia.

"Close To You" won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus, the Carpenters captured the award for Best New Artist, and "Close To You" was also nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocals.  

 

The duo finished recording songs for the album of the same name and released it in August.  The next single was a song Richard had heard as a commercial for Crocker National Bank, written by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols.  Williams went on to write many hits, including "Evergreen" for Barbra Streisand; both wrote television theme songs--Williams for The Love Boat and Nichols for Hart to Hart.  The Carpenters wove their magic on the song which became another smash, landing at #1 in Canada and Australia and #2 in the states--"We've Only Just Begun".

Williams recalled to Songfacts:

       We wrote the first two verses of "We've Only Just 

         Begun".  We wrote a second version of the

         commercial that became the bridge of the song.  We 

         added a third verse just in case anybody would ever 

         want to record it.  And then I assumed that it would 

         never, ever get cut again.  Richard heard me singing it 

         on the TV commercial, and called and asked if there

         was a complete song.  And we went, "Well, funny you

         should ask."

 

Close To You was nominated for Album of the Year and Best Engineered Recording for this superb performance.  A popular song never released as a single, "Love Is Surrender", is from the Christian musical Tell It Like It Is that Richard and Karen heard.  Richard and Bettis changed the lyrics to reflect a romantic relationship.  

 

Another album track has been gaining in popularity through the years and it now tanks high in The Top Unknown/Underrated Songs of the Rock Era*.  Here is the wonderful "Crescent Noon", featuring Karen's hauntingly beautiful Alto voice.

Richard sang lead on another of the top tracks--"I Kept On Loving You".

Richard and Bettis wrote "Maybe It's You" for their previous group Spectrum.  Earle Dumler delivered the oboe solo.

The album has now sold over two million copies and both singles went Gold.  

The group hired Woodhams and Sims as well as Bob Messenger and Doug Strawn to form their live band and began touring.  They selected Sherwin Bash as their new manager about this time, and appeared on several television shows, including The Ed Sullivan Show. 

 

The lyrics to this song were written in 1944 by 18-year-old Frank Pooler.  In 1966, when Pooler was choral director at California State University, Long Beach, two of his students, Karen and Richard, asked him if he had any ideas for holiday songs.  Pooler gave them the lyrics of the song he had written and told them he didn't think much of the melody.  Pooler said that Richard wrote a new melody in 15 minutes. 

Four years later, at the end of 1970, the Carpenters released the single "Merry Christmas, Darling", which ranked high on the holiday charts.  It would return to those charts again and again in the years that followed and has become a Christmas staple. 

It may have seemed they exploded out of the gate, but you know from reading this that they put in a lot of work and paid their dues before making it big.  They were deciding what to release after their two monster hits "Close To You" and "We've Only Just Begun" when their manager suggested they go see the movie Lovers and Other Strangers.  Richard and Karen were immediately taken with a song that Bread had recorded for the movie.  They knew then what they wanted to release as the next single.  

In 1971, the duo released their self-titled album.  The first single was a song that Bread had recorded for the movie Lovers and Other Strangers.  The Carpenters' version raced to #3 in the U.S. (and was their third consecutive #1 Adult hit), #6 in New Zealand, #7 in Canada and #10 in Australia. 

"For All We Know" also sold over one million copies and earned an Oscar for Best Original Song.  The Carpenters were nominated for Album of the Year and Best Contemporary Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus and the album picked up another nomination for Best Engineered Recording.

 

The album has gone over four million in career sales and reached #2 on the Album chart, behind only Carole King's masterpiece Tapestry. Another song written by Williams and Nichols, "Rainy Days And Mondays", continued the Midas touch for the Carpenters, giving them their fourth consecutive Gold record and another Top 5 hit (#2 in the U.S., #3 in Canada, and #1 on both countries' Adult charts). Once again, the group was able to land members of The Wrecking Crew (drummer Hal Blaine, bassist Joe Osborn, Tommy Morgan on harmonica and Bob Messenger on tenor sax) as backing musicians.

 

The group toured to support the album, including  a sold-out show at Carnegie Hall.  The Carpenters scored a third smash on the album with the Leon Russell song "Superstar", another Gold record and #2 song, kept out of #1 only by Rod Stewart's "Maggie May".  It was their fifth consecutive #1 Adult song and also reached #3 in Canada, #7 in Japan, and #9 in New Zealand. 

Richard was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist for "Superstar".   The duo starred in their own television series, Make Your Own Kind of Music.  The flip side of "Superstar" was written by Barry DeVorzon and Perry Botkin, Jr., who would go on to enjoy a huge hit with "Nadia's Theme" in 1976.  

From the film of the same name, "Bless The Beasts And The Children" was nominated for Best Song from a Motion Picture at the Academy Awards and it earned a Grammy nomination for Best Album of Original Score, Written for a Motion Picture.  It could easily have been the "A" side and charted as well, but with a peak of #67, it is one of The Top Underrated Songs of the Rock Era*. 

Very few artists in the Rock Era have thoroughly dominated an era as the Carpenters did.  Catch more of their greatest in Part Two!