Carpenters On Track: Every album, every song

Dedication

To my mother, Yvonne Hamilton, 1943-2023

Acknowledgements

In researching this book, I am grateful to Carpenters authors Ray Coleman, Mike Cidoni Lennox, Rick Henry, Chris May, John Tobler and Randy L. Schmidt for their detailed research. I am also grateful to those who have shared their knowledge and collections online – including A&M Corner’s Carpenters Complete Recording Resource, The Carpenters: History and News Facebook page, Jonathan Owen’s online collection, David Grant’s discography, and last but definitely not least, Richard Carpenter’s official Carpenters website. Chart positions were principally sourced from Craig Halstead’s book on the band’s Top 40 hits.

I would like to thank Stephen Lambe for this opportunity, my wife Yumi Mashiki for her patience, my sister Cathy for being my Karen Carpenter, and my parents Noel and Yvonne for a musical education. Special thanks to On Track authors Peter Kearns, Richard James and Georg Purvis for their helpful guidance.

I am also indebted to the following for their insights and encouragement – Elizabeth Benitez Morales, Tom Bromley, Kevin Chambers (for road-testing Carpenters’ cover songs at open-mic nights together), Glen Johnson, Paul Sarcich, Jeremy Simmonds, Royston Vince, Stephen Wang, Matthew Welton, and lastly to my supportive work colleagues.

Foreword

Growing up in the 1970s, our kitchen radio was permanently tuned to the easy-listening station BBC Radio 2, and the group I remember hearing the most was the Carpenters. I also remember seeing the ‘Please Mr Postman’ video on TV, no doubt because it was filmed at Disneyland: the place in the world I most wanted to visit.

By the time I was a teenager in the 1980s, my musical taste had outgrown Radio 2, but my yesterday-once-more moment came in the 1990s with the release of the tribute album If I Were A Carpenter. Here, the alternative rock bands I was listening to (like Sonic Youth and Babes in Toyland) had given the Carpenters’ sound a fuzz-and-feedback makeover, and instead of being an ironic takedown of the duo’s soft-rocking music, their interpretations sounded surprisingly reverential, proving that deeply melancholic songs like ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’ and ‘Superstar’ could resonate with Gen X.

Tragically, Karen Carpenter passed away in 1983. Since then, the Carpenters’ story has been retold through books, documentaries and biopics. Their catalogue has been remastered and repackaged, reinterpreted with orchestras, and recreated by tribute acts and artificial intelligence software. The internet has strengthened and increased their fan base from the US and UK to Asia, Latin America and beyond.

To understand their wide-reaching and enduring appeal, I will investigate how the brother-and-sister team created their singular sound, balancing musical sophistication and pop success. I will explore how they drew on diverse influences from jazz and classical to country and pop, and how they chose some of the best musicians, songwriters and studios to realise their unique musical vision. I will review all their studio albums, live and solo releases. Each chapter will begin with insights into an album’s making, along with the factors that influenced their success. My main focus is on their music, so I have limited details of their personal lives to the specific events that most directly affected their careers. For anyone seeking further biographical insight, I highly recommend Randy Schmidt’s thorough biography Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter, Lucy O’Brien’s Lead Sister: The Story of Karen Carpenter, and other informative books listed in the bibliography. Lastly, I’ve used some music terminology that may be unfamiliar to some readers but have attempted to contextualise this as much as possible.

Contents

Introduction – From The Top

Offering/Ticket To Ride (1969)

Close To You (1970)

Carpenters (Tan Album) (1971)

A Song For You (1972)

Now And Then (1973)

Horizon (1975)

A Kind Of Hush (1976)

Passage (1977)

Christmas Portrait (1978)

Made In America (1981)

Voice Of The Heart (1983)

An Old-Fashioned Christmas (1984)

Live Albums And Bootlegs

Bootlegs

Compilations And Tribute Albums

Solo Albums and Reinterpretations

On Karen’s Voice

Selected Bibliography

Introduction – From The Top

The Carpenter siblings (Richard (b. 15 Oct 1946) and Karen (b. 2 March 1950 – d. 4 Feb 1983) grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. As children, they listened to their father Harold’s record collection, which ranged from jazz to western swing, and from piano concertos to traditional Hawaiian music. The pioneering multitrack recordings of guitarist Les Paul and his vocalist wife, Mary Ford, held a particular fascination, as did those by madcap musical comedian Spike Jones. The Carpenter siblings also heard their mother, Agnes, sing along to crooners like Bing Crosby, Perry Como and Nat King Cole on the radio. Both siblings started piano lessons, but gave up within a year, though Richard continued to work out songs by ear on the piano, while Karen was more interested in playing sports and attending dance classes. Richard eventually resumed piano lessons with a new teacher who introduced him to the fake book of jazz chord charts, and who helped him enrol in a weekly piano class at the Yale music school.

At the age of 15, Richard formed a jazz quartet with some High School classmates, which brought his talents to the attention of a group of older musicians. This led to gigs in clubs and restaurants, where Richard hoped the glasses he wore would disguise his true age. It also led to his first recording date, travelling to Manhattan to add Jerry Lee Lewis-style keyboard sweeps to the track ‘Why Don’t You Write Me’ by the New Haven vocal group The Barries. In 1963, when Karen was 13 and Richard 16, the family headed west from Connecticut to California, seeking warmer weather and opportunities for Richard in show business. Spotted at a talent show in a local park, Richard was soon recruited as a church organist, learning to play the pipe organ and sneaking in Beatles tunes alongside the hymns. A local paper ran a story on Richard, which led to an offer from a band in need of a pianist. During his time with this group, Richard met singer Ed Sulzer, who would become the duo’s first manager, supporting them through their early incarnations and helping them land their deal with A&M Records.

By the time that group fizzled out, Richard had joined the school concert band, with additional weekend club gigs backing band leader Bruce Gifford in a cabaret group. By 1964, Karen had joined the school marching band on glockenspiel, but her heart was really set on the drums. She began lessons, and even rehearsed briefly with an all-girl instrumental surf band, playing a set that included Beatles numbers. By 1965, and with a Ludwig kit just like Ringo Starr’s, Karen was ready to join Richard in The Richard Carpenter Trio: a jazz group formed with another college student, Wes Jacobs. Jacobs was a tuba and double-bass player whom Richard met after starting as a music major at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). Rehearsing at the Carpenter home, Karen tried singing a few numbers, including ‘I Who Have Nothing’ and a ballad version of The Beatles’ ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’. Unhappy with how she sounded on tape, she quickly retreated back behind the drum kit, and the trio played weddings and dances with a hired singer instead. But in May 1966, Karen followed Richard to a friend’s audition for the new independent label Magic Lamp. Karen was invited to give a vocal audition of her own and sang the recent Righteous Brothers hit ‘Ebb Tide’. All agreed that her voice had great promise, and she was promptly signed as a solo artist with Richard as her composer/arranger/keyboardist. The studio they visited that night was in the garage of the record label co-founder Joe Osborn: an experienced session bass player and member of L.A.’s legendary Wrecking Crew. Osborn was to give the duo considerable support throughout their career.

The following month, The Richard Carpenter Trio won the Hollywood Bowl Battle of the Bands. They were spotted that day by an RCA Victor talent scout, and were offered a recording contract. They duly recorded demos at RCA studios, but on hearing these, the label obviously thought twice about the prospects of a jazz-rock tuba group, and decided to pass.

By this time, Richard was a member of the CSULB choir, and was learning choral arrangement under its leader, Frank Pooler. Pooler introduced Richard to student and lyricist John Bettis, and the pair became fast friends, working the summer of ‘67 as vaudeville-era musicians at Coke Corner in Disneyland. Back at university, they gathered other choir members to form the group Summerchimes, who soon evolved into Spectrum. Karen sang and drummed with these groups, and enrolled at the university in 1967, joining the choir. Ed Sulzer touted Spectrum’s demo tapes around record labels, and secured them some gigs – most notably as an ill-matched opening act for Steppenwolf – whilst the band often queued up for Hootenanny talent nights on Mondays at West Hollywood’s Troubadour. However, the band’s old-fashioned choral sound and dowdy image failed to engage the Whisky à Go Go audience, and the band never made it past the first night of their three-night booking. Similarly, their demo tape was provoking more bemusement than interest from record labels. Even offers from two independent labels – Uni and White Whale – ran aground.

When both Spectrum and the Magic Lamp label burnt out, Karen and Richard resolved to present themselves as a duo. To name the band, they chose their surname, leaving out the definite article ‘The’, as Richard felt this sounded more hip. Throughout 1968, they demoed songs in Joe Osborn’s 4-track studio, exploring ways to multitrack their harmonies, and creating the demo that – with Ed Sulzer’s help – was to get them signed to A&M Records in 1969.

Offering/Ticket To Ride (1969)

Personnel:

Karen Carpenter: vocals, drums, bass (5, 11)

Richard Carpenter: vocals, keyboards, arranger

Joe Osborn, Bob Messenger: bass

Gary Sims: guitar

Herb Alpert: shaker

Recorded at A&M Records, Hollywood, California

Produced by Jack Daugherty

Engineered by Ray Gerhardt

Release date: 9 October 1969

Charts: US: 150, UK: 20 (1972)

Label: A&M

Retitled Ticket To Ride, 10 November 1970

Running time 36:52

After all those years of preparation, when the offer of a recording contract finally arrived, Karen and Richard had just agreed to an advertising deal with the Ford Motor Company, who were to pay the duo $50,000 each and give them each their own Ford Mustang car. Extracting themselves from that deal, the duo signed with A&M on 22 April 1969. One week later, the Carpenters entered studio A on the A&M lot to begin recording their debut album. In their excitement, they gave no thought to changing any of the repertoire they’d developed over the past few years, which was already sounding out-of-date. All the same, the album had high production values, and contained an ambitious blend of jazz and pop, with even a touch of psychedelia. Since Karen preferred her role as drummer and still lacked confidence as a lead singer, she and Richard shared the lead vocals.

As an unknown act, there was less pressure to deliver the album quickly, and they spent the next few months and a generous budget piecing together the elements of what would become their trademark sound. Karen played bass on two numbers, with the remaining bass parts supplied by either Magic Lamp’s Joe Osborn or Bob Messenger, whom Richard had met when standing in for another pianist at a gig in Downey, CA. Messenger – a multi-instrumentalist who also played saxophone and flute, was to become a fixture of the duo’s touring band.

Richard played the studio’s Steinway model A grand piano on tracks like ‘Someday’, ‘Ticket To Ride’ and ‘Eve’. Elsewhere, he played a harpsichord and the Wurlitzer 140B organ he’d purchased from Jeff Hanna of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Guitarist Gary Sims – another college friend who’d been a member of Summerchimes and Spectrum – played on ‘All of My Life’ and ‘Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing’. The album was produced by former Woody Herman Band trumpeter Jack Daugherty, who’d helped forward the Carpenters’ demo to A&M’s Herb Alpert.

To show off Karen’s voice to its fullest, Richard arranged songs to emphasise the lower end of her vocal range with its characterful warmth and tone. He was also mindful to leave space for Karen’s vocals when creating orchestral arrangements, reserving the opening verse of ballads for voice and keyboards before introducing other musical elements. He also paired Karen’s voice with the near-human tone of reed instruments like the cor anglais and oboe, as heard towards the end of ‘Someday’. And right at the heart of their sound were the multitracked vocal harmonies, which the pair would record and then review, deciding whether a part needed to be doubled or tripled.

The ingredients of the Carpenters’ unique sound were now in place, yet their debut was still subtly different from their later releases – not only in the pair’s shared lead vocals, but in the husky tone of Karen’s youthful voice. Several of the lyrics were aligned with the late-1960s countercultural hippy worldview; not that the rock press were persuaded, however, dismissing the duo as little more than a wholesome brother-and-sister vocal act. It also didn’t help that the label had placed dull photos of the pair on the front and back of Offering. Unsurprisingly, sales were poor, and the album made a loss on its $50,000 production costs. Thankfully, their luck was about to change.

‘Invocation’ (Richard Carpenter, John Bettis)

Side one begins with a religious a cappella pastiche with a lyric stating the album title, Offering. This hymn-like piece shows the influence of the Carpenters’ choral training under Frank Pooler. The lines are delivered in suitably chorister-like tones, while the arrangement uses techniques like antiphony and call-and-response. Richard described the multilayered choir as an excuse to have fun with voice overdubbing.

The album version is a remix of the demo recorded the previous year by Joe Osborn in his garage studio. This demo, like many of their earliest recordings mentioned throughout this chapter, can be heard in the box-set compilations From the Top and The Essential Collection: 1965-1997.

‘Your Wonderful Parade’ (Richard Carpenter, John Bettis)

This recording, made in 1968 in Joe Osborn’s garage, was on the demo tape that secured the A&M deal. Some new features were added to the demo for album inclusion, such as the string section, tubular bells and the spoken introduction. Richard also replaced his original lead vocal with a more enthusiastic take, which, together with the upbeat tempo, makes it a strong choice to open the album. Listeners can compare the changes with the original demo available on the compilations mentioned above.

The song was written in 1967 as a youthful satire on the establishment, ‘of which we were later to become a part’, Richard conceded in the From the Top booklet. The lyric makes an absurdist analogy between the routines of a conventional lifestyle and a circus parade march, as depicted by Karen’s military drum patterns, which she doubtlessly picked up during her time in the Downey High School marching band. The spoken introduction, therefore, features Richard as a circus barker, recalling Harry Nilsson’s announcements at the start of his 1967 Pandemonium Shadow Show album, and The Beatles’ ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite’ on Sgt. Pepper’s ... the same year. The segment closes with a line adapted from Abraham Lincoln’s famous 1863 Gettysburg address – ‘of