Post by YesterdayOnceMore on Dec 18, 2008 22:51:25 GMT -5
First, as I was in Kirkland's at noon, searching for the perfect Christmas ornament to exchange at an upcoming Christmas party, and it was cool to hear "Merry Christmas Darling" as I was waiting in line. There were several of us, no kidding, who started singing along with Karen. That's the sort of thing I find so much fun....Carpenters are so more widely known than anyone lets on.
Secondly, I was reading Investor's Business Daily this week, and ran across an article that blew me away. It's called "The Carpenters Were In Tune." It was written by Christopher Caillavet
I can't provide a link, so I'll just retype the story:
For its Man and Woman of the Year in 1969, Time magazine chose the Middle Americans--a nod to what President Nixon called "the silent center who do not demonstrate, who do not picket or protest loudly." That same year, as if on cue, a clean-cut brother and sister duo from Southern California signed a deal with A&M Records.
In one of the top counterintuitive strokes in music industry history, the Carpenters were on their way.
Karen and Richard Carpenter - she the voice and he the maestro - would rise form the apartment complexes of L.A.'s suburban grid, to wealth, fame and Grammy gold.
For their efforts, they would win three Grammy Awards and sell more than 100 million records. It's not overstating things to say the Carpenters built A&M Records into the powerhouse it became.
Just ask Supertramp. When the British pop group first went out on the road, the head of marketing for A&M U.K. said to them: "Whatever god you believe in, bow down to him before your shows and thank him for the Carpenters - because without them, you wouldn't be here." (At least that's how Richard put it to writer Daniel Levitin in 1998).
It's an understatement to say the Carpenters started out swimming against the prevailing tide in popular music.
Picture the late 1960's, if you have the stomach. The Vietnam War rages, campuses are in thrall to student radicals, the occasional city is torched, the generation gap yawns.
Reflecting the turmoil is the presence of edgy artists on the charts and at the festivals: the Doors, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, a newly suspicious-minded Elvis. Music is changing, and it's not for everybody.
THE SINGING SIBLINGS
Into this Maelstrom rode the Carpenters, whose parents had moved the family from Connecticut to Downey, CA, in 1963 to get musical prodigy Richard nearer to the West Coast action.
Karen, the younger of the siblings by four years, was a baseball-playing tomboy who took to the drums to get her musical kicks.
It was only later that she discovered the key to the Carpenters' success: her one-of-a-kind voice, an alto that ranged from sunny-sweet to sultry, often in that order.
Burt Bacharach, who co-wrote the pair's 1970's hit (They Long to Be) Close To You, described it thus: "Clean, clear like a flag flying over the song and the record, unwavering. Just near-perfect."
If Karen was the heart and soul of the Carpenters, her brother was the brains behind the operation.
A gifted pianist and fine singer in his own right, Richard also co-wrote some of the best-loved Carpenters songs, including "Yesterday Once More" and "Top of the World" (recently resurrected to sell bottled water on TV).
Richard's true genius is in arranging music; his retooled version of "Close to You" is, said Bacharach, "20 times better" than the original.
In recordings, the warm sound of Richard's Wurlitzer electric piano served as the backbone.
But he didn't shy away from mixing in horns ("Sing"), a jazzy flute solo (It's Going to Take Some Time) or fuzzy guitar licks (Goodbye to Love).
And, flying above it all was Karen with her heavenly vocals. "We were born, I am convinced, to complement each other," Richard said in a 1996 BBC documentary, "both in background vocals we did, and in her being the lead to my arrangements and productions and songs. We were just born to be a team."
At a time when Black Sabbath was getting a fair hearing on the pop charts, the Carpenters countered with records that were sentimental (some critics said maudlin) and multi layered (some said overdone).
The formula worked. The singles, beginning in 1969 with a lush cover of the Beatles' "Ticket to ride," struck a chord, and the Carpenters dropped out of college and began to tour, crisscrossing the country in learjets.
Karen emerged as the breakout star. For the stage shows, her high-profile role required that she step out from behind her first love, the drums, to take center stage.
Especially in the early years, Karen would sit and play drums and sing at the same time for the live shows. She showed off her virtuoso drumming skills in several of the Carpenters' TV specials.
Carpenters fever peaked with much-ballyhooed visits to the Nixon White House, where the president lauded the example of the reserved, non demonstrating young Americans. By the standards of the late '60's and early '70's, the Carpenters could seem dorky with their coordinated outfits and middle-class wholesomeness. Years later, Richard admitted some of the trappings "really made us look much more... square, if you will, than we really were. If one listens to the music of the Carpenters with an open ear, I think there's no disputing the fact that it's pretty sophisticated stuff."
And there's no disputing the influence on other artists. A 1994 tribute album, "If I Were a Carpenter," drew contributions from Sonic Youth, the Cranberries and Sheryl Crow. The 2003 "American Idol" winner, Ruben Studdard, sang "Superstar" on the show, and the runner-up Clay Aiken performed "Solitaire."
The Carpenters' story of two clean-living kids rising above the trauma of the era to find success and inner peace seemed too god to be true at the time, and of course, it was.
The stresses of constant touring and essentially charting the duo's musical course took a toll on Richard. He became hooked on sedatives, leading to a 1979 stint in rehab.
Karen battled demons of her own, silently suffering from the anorexia nervosa that would ultimately kill her, at age 32, in 1983.
Still, the Carpenters' legacy is overwhelmingly a positive one.
The Carpenter Family Foundation, according to the Carpenters' official Web site, operates as
"a perpetual funding for causes ranging from medical to arts and entertainment to education.
BACKING PERFORMANCES
At California State University, Long Beach, where they attended but did not graduate, stands the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center, built in 1994. The center puts on concerts and other events with the philanthropic support of Richard, 62, and the rest of the Carpenter family.
"Since making the founding gift to this theater, which resulted in their name going on it, Richard has been encouraging and generous to many Carpenter Center programs, " Executive Director Michele Roberge told IBD.
Additionally, Richard serves as caretaker of the Carpenters' music catalog. He oversees the release of the duo's greatest hits collections, which without fail are updated with his remixes and studio tweaks (to the consternation of purists).
He still lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife, Mary. They have five children.
So, there you have it. Not quite as exciting as the nice gift of the audio interview that Rick left for us, but nevertheless, I couldn't believe that I was reading about Carpenters here in 2008 in the "Investor's Business Daily" of all publications. I hope you all enjoyed the read.
Tim
