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Post by Rick Henry on May 12, 2005 9:33:38 GMT -5
??! ??! ??! When did you become a Carpenters fan and how? I first remember hearing the Carpenters in the summer of 1971 when my dads friend played the "Close To You" 8-track tape for us. But it wasn't until early 1972 when a friend of mine played "Bless The Beasts And Children" (from the b-side of "Superstar") that I really paid attention. A few months after that I purchased the newly released "A Song For You" album.
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Post by beaner on May 12, 2005 9:44:24 GMT -5
I first heard the Carpenters back in 1970/1971 on someone's 8 track player in her car. That someone is now my sister-in-law. She had the "We've Only Just Begun" which would have been released late 1970 so it was right about that time. She was also the one who gave me the Tan album as my first Carpenters album for my own. I'm sure I must have gotten the Fan Club address from either the Close To You 8 track or off an album from the store and soon after that joined the original Fan club in 1971. 35 years later, I feel the same, if not stronger about them.
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Post by smoothie2 on May 12, 2005 22:54:08 GMT -5
@@ My memory isn't the greatest...but my most vivid memory of first hearing the C's was about 1970 or so...whenever Rainy Days played on the radio...I was 10 or 11 on the farm in the backyard by the swing set w/ a portable radio..and then I heard Karen...( I know I have told this before, but anyway) her voice just struck me...I mean I always had the radio or tv going....and there was a lot of great music that came out back then... many groups had the same kind of group sound..harmony.... but as we know it was Karen ... before long...I received the Close to You album along w/ my first record player. It was my first C's record and perhaps my first of any kind.. So, I must have really made it point to let my folks know I wanted one of their records... That seems like a trillion yrs. ago! What a fun time those days were...in a lot of ways... 1970 my brother grad. and moved out and I got his room...my own...I got to close the door and have privacy!...and so that was part of the whole deal...ha..
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Post by smoothie2 on May 12, 2005 22:59:15 GMT -5
I first heard the Carpenters back in 1970/1971 on someone's 8 track player in her car. That someone is now my sister-in-law. She had the "We've Only Just Begun" which would have been released late 1970 so it was right about that time. She was also the one who gave me the Tan album as my first Carpenters album for my own. I'm sure I must have gotten the Fan Club address from either the Close To You 8 track or off an album from the store and soon after that joined the original Fan club in 1971. 35 years later, I feel the same, if not stronger about them. Yeah, those 8 tracks were really the in thing back then ...my bro. put one in his old Chevy ...he had a lot of Neil Diamond and I think Crosby, Stills, Nash..
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Post by Rick Henry on May 13, 2005 0:11:23 GMT -5
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Post by Carps1000 on May 13, 2005 4:46:54 GMT -5
??$ Well all you have to do is check out Now & Then My Carpenters life Story of my involvement for this one. Carps1000.
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Post by enigma on May 13, 2005 10:44:09 GMT -5
Ok I actually remember my earliest exposure to the Carpenters. It was 1973 and Now and Then had come out I was very young at the time. I remember opening up the 3 gate fold cover and staring at this nice red car for hours I considered it a new toy (I was a kid after all) unfold the record and a car appeared. Then I listened to the record of course sing came on and I recognised it right away from Seseme Street so I thought I was listenening to a childrens performer. As I listened to this record I loved the lady's voice and turned the record jacket around to see who these singers were. I remember how much I loved what I thought was a husband and his wifes songs. Of course I had no idea at the time that I was actually listening to a brother and sister duo with four previous albums released. After that I obtained the rest of their albums and fell in love with the music (though I did not find the covers as fun to play with as N&T) as I did with N&T a year or so later the masterpiece Horizon was playing on my record player and there was no turning back after that. Of course as I got older I appreciated the music, musicians, artist and personalities that are the Carpenters but my real love of them started in my childhood. So I have been a Carpenters fan almost my entire life my childhood, adolesence, adulthood and very likely my old age has and will be spent with the greatest voice of all time and some of the greatest music that it has been my pleasure to listen to. Maybe a little too detailed here but I will never forget my first exposure to the Carpenters it is one of my fondest memories.
&^ *%
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Post by Rick Henry on May 13, 2005 11:06:47 GMT -5
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Post by JIM on May 13, 2005 16:49:17 GMT -5
!@ Hey Rick I also had the same type of suit case looking record player! It was a step up from a Close and Play for the young audiophile. It had the best mono sound going and you could flip the dual plastic stylus from 45 to LP. In 70 my parents were really into the Carpenters, they had the CTY album on vynil at home and 8 track in the car. After they saw how much I loved CTY my dad gave me a 45 and it was spinning 24/7! I just could not listen to that 45 enough. Karen's voice just grabs you by the soul. I guess thats why we use the term chill factor so often.
Jim
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Post by YesterdayOnceMore on May 15, 2005 13:05:11 GMT -5
^^ ^^ The year was 1970 - my buddy and I were both busboys at one of our local country clubs - and we went everywhere together, even to work. I remember it like as if it were yesterday - we were on our way to our busboy job, about 5:00 in the evening. Close To You came on the radio. I turned it up. Who WERE these wonderful people singing all this beautiful HARMONY?? I was absolutely blown away. I remember thinking about it all night long, and as soon as I got home, turned on my AM Radio Station, KICK - it played 24 hours. I called in and asked for a request - "...it must be a new group - all I know is that it had a lot of waaahhs at the end, and I think it was Close To You, or Close to me, or something like that.." The D.J. played it again about 1 a.m. I was in heaven. I found out it was a group called the Carpenters, and the very next day, I was at the record store, and purchased the CTY album. I noticed that there was another in the bin for Carpenters - an album called Ticket To Ride. Well, I was SURE I wanted it, but couldn't afford it at the time - after all, we were talking about $4.00 total to purchase an album, and in those days, that was at least 2-3 hours pay for me. So it would have to wait - ha! Not for long. As it turned out, the minute I listened to CTY all the way through, I was more hooked than one could imagine. And I listened until my mother came in to my bedroom and said if I didn't turn off that record, there would be a hole in it before morning. The next week, after I got paid, I bought TTR. I was absolutely in heaven. I didn't find out about the fan club until a few years later - it was at least after the logo had been developed. That's when I joined - probably 1973 or so. PO Box 1084, Downey CA. I'll never forget that address, and the many notes I got back from Evelyn Wallace, who would always respond to my letters to Richard and Karen. She was delightful, and seemed to understand it wasn't HER I wanted to hear from, but she never failed to respond. I used to get the newsletters, too. I did run across an orange bumper sticker that simply says Carpenters on it, the logo. I have it on my wall in my music room, along with a wonderful poster Jim sent to me - and my long awaited letter/photo from Richard - and of course, my prized possession, my Karen and Richard autographs from State Fair, 1971 in Sedalia, MO. "Every sha-la-la-la, every wo-oo-oo still shines.." Tim
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Post by Rick Henry on May 15, 2005 13:17:18 GMT -5
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Post by cam83 on May 15, 2005 13:53:59 GMT -5
Hi All, Well I have shared my story before, but I guess I will share more details...as my memory wills me to.
I was in Grade Nine, at Calvin Christian School, which is a Private School. The year was 1988 and I was 15. I had been there since my Grade Six year, but finally this year, I was fitting in. See, this was a school for descendants of the Christian Reformed Church in Holland. Well, it wasn't just for descendants of Dutch heritage, but it may as well have been. Because myself and my 2 sisters were of Native ancestry, we did not fit in. Of course, it wasn't later, many years later, that we found out our mother was Dutch background(the Mennonites)...and had we known that we could have fit in way better...but I digress.
So I was inside my classroom, doing what I do best. Reading. It was lunch hour and mostly everyone was outside playing sports or hanging out in groups in the locker room area. I preferred to stay inside and so I read. Basically I read anything. Even my textbooks. Which is why I was reading my Health Text book, and I came across chapters on Mental Health, and was reading about EATING DISORDERS. There was a page with a black and white picture of a woman, holding two men's faces in her hands. She wasn't really smiling, but her teeth looked huge for her emaciated face. Her eyes were huge. She had dark hair and looked to be in her 40's, which to me, seemed old. It said something about her being a Pop singer Karen Carpenter who died of Anorexia Nervosa in 1983. I read more about what Anorexia was, and was puzzled, and then it hit me. I had heard this before from back in 1884...when a girl in a grade ahead of me had this "disease" where she wouldn't eat, and people then were saying, she had that Carpenter Singer's disease. I didn't know who they were talking about, but now, it clicked. Coincidently that girl was a living skeleton, a sweet girl, very nice to everyone, a people pleaser.
So I took the book home to Mom that night, to show her the picture of Karen Carpenter, and interrogate her on who this woman was. Mom was peeling potatoes and carrots for supper with our roast. She saw the picture and recoiled in disgust and told me to close the book. She thought Karen looked emaciated and couldn't handle it. So I asked her what kind of music she sang. I thought she would be an acid rock musician, or a hippie has been singer. From the 1960's or earlier. Mom said we had an 8-track of her. So I went searching and couldn't find out, but Mom found it and I put it in our stereo. The music that came out was beautiful, very heavenly. Very soft and harmonic. Judging from the voices I thought it was a huge ensemble of a group. I turned over the 8-Track to stare at a very tiny picture of what me and my sisters, all thru the years had thought were 2 men. Now we knew it was Karen Carpenter, and who was the other guy...her husband?
Later on, I obtained the MADE IN AMERICA album and loved it. The music was wonderful and I would stare at the inside photo jacked for hours. I wondered if she was Mexican. She had dark features, while her "husband" had lighter features. After that I obtained VOICE OF THE HEART and found out that they were brother and sister. That album cover, she looked so beautiful...so serene. The next album was A KIND OF HUSH which I got, and loved as well...which explains why I loved these albums. But my first album I obtained for my collection(the prev albums had been from the library) was the magestic CLOSE TO YOU.
Since then I have been a fan. I even wrote to the fan club and corresponded with the lovely and kind EV WALLACE who answered over a 100 questions I asked. Every letter I sent her must have had 20 questions. So I wonder if she groaned upon seeing my Saskatchewan address. I always knew when I would get my letter back from California, down to the very day, and if I didnt' get it, I would dream about it at night, that I was checking the mail and it was there. And I would have to go to school, which would kill me, as I wanted to get the mail which came around 9:30. So at lunch, I would race home. If I didn't get it, I would become depressed, but when I finally got it, I would be literally bouncing off the walls. And better yet, if she answered some questions I was very happy. Or if I got a Richard Carpenter autograph, that made my day as well, and would show anyone who would cross my path during the day... Cameron
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Post by YesterdayOnceMore on May 15, 2005 19:30:43 GMT -5
??$ Great story, Cam - and everyone. Fun thread Rick. You come up with some great thread ideas. Thanks. Always keeping us entertained, and we get to know each other just a bit better with every post. ??! ??# ??#
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Post by Rick Henry on May 16, 2005 9:30:09 GMT -5
Thank you to all for your excellent stories. Cam, Tim, Enigma, Jim, Ken, Dave, Kathy and Mary Ann. I finally joined the fan club in early 1976 just before "There's A Kind Of Hush" was released as a single. I had already been a fan for near four years.
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Post by Rick Henry on May 18, 2005 1:35:09 GMT -5
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Post by YesterdayOnceMore on May 18, 2005 17:03:25 GMT -5
$&? Rick, the Carpenters were the headliners. There was no one with them at this time. When I saw them in '73, Skyles and Henderson were their opening act - but in '71, it was just them. I remember it cost all of $1.00 to get into the state fair, and NO ADMISSION COST for the show. I couldn't believe it. Of course, I had absolute nosebleed seats, but that didn't matter to me at all. Yes, Rick - the concert was outdoors. Even so, I recall the sound quality to have been rather excellent - I was surprised by this, but it was crystal clear, and they were very "tight." Karen was wilting, I remember. She wore a long peasant dress, very similar to the one she wore on the Ticket To Ride cover - I can actually tell you it was basic white with a bit of blue in it - and her hair was very wavy by the end of the show, as evidenced by the pictures. I think it was referred to as "frizzy" in those days (Richard's photo of that autograph session clearly shows he had a bad case of the frizzies, too - as did Bobby Goldsboro). See, not only were they outside, but it was AUGUST, and it was HOT!!!! And the humidity level in Missouri in August is typically between 80-90%. So, it was sort of like playing in a sauna. But, they were troupers, for sure, and they performed exceptionally, we know they always did. It was a wonderful, nearly 2-hour show. That's what I recall. Great question, Rick. Thanks for asking. Tim
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Post by cam83 on May 18, 2005 17:43:39 GMT -5
Do you mean the dress she wore on CLOSE TO YOU album? On the TICKET TO RIDE album pic, she wore yellow shirt and dark brown pants...
Cam
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Post by YesterdayOnceMore on May 18, 2005 20:21:52 GMT -5
$&? Yes, sorry, the Close To You Album..with the white sandals. That's the one. Thanks, Cam. Tim
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