Post by Rick Henry on Oct 15, 2003 10:21:39 GMT -5
Several members of the Carpenters musical family have worked with other artists before and after working with The Carpenters.
Here is a beginning of THE FAMILY TREE.
JOHN BETTIS: Bettis met Richard in 1966-67 at Cal state Long Beach when Frank Pooler (co-writer of Merry Christmas Darling) asked Bettis if he would perform with the university's choir. In 1967 Bettis and Carpenter landed a job working at Disneyland's Coke Corner. carpenter and Bettis wrote several songs together including the hits; "Goodbye to Love", "Yesterday Once More", "Top Of The World", "Only Yesterday", "I Need To Be In Love".
Since working with The Carpenters Bettis has gone on to cowrite hits for others including, "Slow Hand" (cowritten with Michael clark) which was a 1981 million selling top three hit for the Pointer Sisters and also a top ten country hit for Conway Twitty one year later.
Bettis also cowrote "Crazy For You" with Jon Lind. "Crazy For You" was a million selling #1 hit for Madonna in 1985. Many have noted the Karen Carpenter sound in Madonna's voice in the first few notes of the song.
TONY PELUSO: Peluso's encounter was in 1971 when the band he was playing in at the time named Instant Joy was opening for The Carpenters in concerts. Instant Joy was headed by Mark Lindsay who was the lead singer of the group Paul Revere And The Raiders (the Raiders had the chart topping 1969 hit "Indian Reservation", Lindsay had a solo hit with "Arizona"). About a year later he joined The Carpenters band and made history with his fuzz guitar solo in the song "Goodbye To Love".
Peluso went on to co-produce Sam Harris' 1984 debut album which included the hits "Sugar Don't Bite" and "Over The Rainbow". Peluso also provided the guitar solo on the song "Don't Look In My Eyes".
Can anybody else add more to the family tree?