Finally here is a scenario which I developed from the way it really did happen.
Richard Carpenter was born in 1983 and Karen in 1987 both in new Haven Connecticut. In their younger years around 1995 they would both sit in the comfortable basement (which was remodeled into a game room) and listen to their father's record collection. Harold (father) was a big fan of vocalistsa from the 70's and 80's. He also enjoyed progressive jazz of the mid 70's. Some of the aritsts in his collection (which Karen and Richard listened to) are; Barbra Streisand (Karen especially enjoyed the "Guilty" album), Roberta Flack, Fifth Dimension and Carole King. On the jazz side Dad Carpenter had many albums by Dave Brubeck, Michael Franks, Manhattan Transfer, Weather Report and Return To Forever. Dad Carpenter was a huge fan of progressive jazz- fusion (ie; Weather Report and Return To forver) - therefore K&R were exposed to a good amount of this style of music. Dad Carpenter was also a big fan of Frank Zappa. Richard took an immediate liking to Zappa's unusual and progressive sense of humor and musical stylings - which lie in the progressive jazz field. Richard was also taken by Manhattan Transfer's intense vocal harmonies and the outstanding rhythms in their music.
In the year 2000 the family moved to California so Richard could pursue his career as a jazz-fusion keyboardist. He was very accomplished in his ability and was gaining local notoriety. By 2002 Karen joined the band playing drums. He style was very similar to jazz great Lenny White (from Return To forever). She noted Lenny White as an early influence.
In early 2006 Alice Cooper heard Karen and Richard performing on a local television program recorded at California State University of Long Beach. He was floored by Karen's crystalline voice and progressive jazz chops on the drums. Cooper did made to sure to connect with them and got a CD of their music to executives at new West Records (an independent record company in L.A. which Alice Cooper, the Eagles, Rickie Lee Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Dwight Yoakam and other luminaries record with).
The first album "Offering" released on "new West" failed to chart but gained great reviews from critics who hailed the album as ambitious. The album included a great reworking of Coldplay's 2003 classic "Clocks". Carpenters took the song and turned into a beautiful choral ballad with sweeping keyboards and Karen's beautiful voice - the song was released as a single and reached #54 on the Billboard chart. The album also included an interesting remake of Moby's "We Are All Made Of Stars" in which the lead vocal by Karen was digitally enhanced to give the vocals an echoing effect. Another noteworthy remake was their version of Bright Eye's 2000 social commentary "When The Curious Girl Realizes She Is Under Glass". Richard's keyboard work is outstanding here and K&R trade lead vocals. The album also includes several excellent original tunes written by Richard and his songwriting partner John Bettis.
Below are lyrics to some of these songs:
"When The Curious Girl Realizes She Is Under Glass"Tomorrow when I wake up I'm finding my brother
and making him take me back down to the water.
That lake where we sailed and laughed with our father.
I will not desert him. I will not desert him.
No matter how I may wish for a coffin so clean
or these trees to undress all their leaves onto me.
I put my face in the dirt and then finally I see
the sky that has been avoiding me.
I started this letter I'm gonna send it to Ruba.
It will be blessed by her eyes on the gulf coast of Florida.
With her feet in the sand and one hand on her swimsuit,
she will recite the prayer of my pen.
Saying, ...time take us forward. Relief from this longing,
they can land that plane on my heart I don't care
just give me November, the warmth of a whisper
in the freezing darkness of my room.
But no matter what I would do in an attempt to replace.
All these pills that I take trying to balance my brain.
I've seen the curious girl with that look on her face.
So surprised she stares out from her display case.
We Are All Made Of StarsGrowing in numbers
Growing in speed
Cant fight the future
Cant fight what I see
People they come together
People they fall apart
No one can stop us now
cause we are all made of stars
Efforts of lovers
Left in my mind
I sing in the reaches
Well see what we find
People they come together
People they fall apart
No one can stop us now
cause we are all made of stars
People they come together
People they fall apart
No one can stop us now
cause we are all made of stars
Slow slow slow, come come
Someone come come come
Even love is goin round
You cant ignore what is goin round
Slowly rebuilding
I feel it in me
Growing in numbers
Growing in peace
People they come together
People they fall apart
No one can stop us now
cause we are all made of stars
***To give a little more insight to the debut album - "When The Curious Girl Realizes She Is Under Glass" is a connection to "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing", "clocks" connects to "Ticket To Ride" and "we Are All made Of Stars" is direct correlation to "Get Together".
Although their first album was considered a flop it's Alice Cooper who is working in their corner convincing the executives to not drop the Carpenters - but to give their beautiful harmonic music a chance.
It is also by Alice's prompting that Karen and Richard decided to build a web site to better promote their music. Alice told them in this day and age the biggest piece of the pie is in the internet. They already had a small unprofessional looking web site - but Alice said that wouldn't do. He got them onto MySpace and YouTube and almost overnight their music was exposed to another 10,000 people. He also said they need to work a deal with Apple's itunes MP3 web site to spotlight them as a feature artist.
For more information on Jazz-fusion:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_fusionI will comeback with a continuation of this story - which only has about another three paragraphs - and ends just before the recording of their first big hit.