Post by Rick Henry on Feb 12, 2008 23:27:54 GMT -5
Here's an article which showed up in the New Haven Register...
By Randall Beach, Register Staff
NEW HAVEN — Twenty-five years after her death at age 32, singer Karen Carpenter and her brother, Richard Carpenter, will be honored as “hometown heroes” on Valentine’s Day at the New Haven Museum and Historical Society.
“Yesterday Once More: New Haven Remembers the Carpenters” will include a multimedia presentation on the history of the popular singers by museum director Bill Hosley, and a musical tribute by local singer Anne Tofflemire and pianist Andrew Rubenoff.
Although often derided by critics for being overly schmaltzy and saccharine, the Carpenters nevertheless sold 100 million records, most of them in the early 1970s. Their biggest hits included “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Close to You” and “Rainy Days and Mondays.” They won three Grammy Awards.
“There’s been a sort of mini-Renaissance of the Carpenters,” Hosley said. He attributed this to Carpenters music being played on “The Simpsons” TV show and “The Simpsons” movie last year.
Homer and Marge met in the ’70s, so Carpenters music was the soundtrack of their courtship,” Hosley said. He noted “Close to You” was their wedding song.
Karen and Richard Carpenter spent their early years at 55 Hall St. in New Haven’s East Shore neighborhood. Richard, born in October 1946 and Karen, born in March 1950, attended Nathan Hale School. He went on to Wilbur Cross High School until the family moved to Downey, Calif., in 1963.
Hosley said he has been trying to entice Richard Carpenter to attend the museum celebration, but Carpenter, who still lives in California, has not been receptive to the idea.
When the New Haven Register contacted Carpenter’s publicist to request a phone interview, she said he doesn’t talk to reporters.
His reluctance might stem from a weariness over ongoing public interest in his sister’s death. She died in her parents’ home of cardiac arrest, believed to be a consequence of her battle with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa.
In a 1989 Register feature story, childhood friends of the Carpenters noted they nicknamed Karen “Butterball,” but said she was no more chubby than any other kid growing out of her baby fat phase. The friends did not recall her worrying about her weight.
Teachers and acquaintances remember Richard as a musical prodigy. While a student at Cross, he took piano lessons with professor Seymour Fink at the Yale University School of Music. He also joined a local piano/bass/drums trio, playing at clubs in and around New Haven.
Karen’s friends recall she often had drumsticks or wooden sXXXXXs in her hands, although she did not become a serious drummer until after the family moved to California.
People who knew the Carpenters described Richard as hard to know, and Karen as outgoing and “everybody’s friend.”
Even after the pair made it big, their old friends noted, Karen loved to come back to her old hometown and drop in to visit them.
