Trivia / Carpenters

• Artist Disillusionment: When the Carpenters first began performing, Karen Carpenter, who had been drumming since school, took charge of the drum kit but also sang. As her amazing voice made its mark on the growing audiences, she came under increasing pressure from managers and promoters to stop hiding behind her drums, glam up, and become the lead singer and frontwoman - none of which she wanted to do, and all of which made her uneasy. When her hand was eventually forced, the resulting stress, and the various stage fright coping methods she tried, all contributed to her mental and physical health issues and, ultimately, her untimely death in 1983.
• Creator Backlash: Karen and Richard weren't exactly thrilled about their clean-cut, conservative image, feeling that it was a hindrance when they were surrounded by a new movement of loud rock & roll music. Richard chalks it up to A&M Records not quite knowing how to market them, and he singled out the particularly uncool Close To You album cover.◊
  Richard: I really put up a fuss over the Close To You one. Cuz it was a rush job, and management said nothing about it. And to this day, y'know, that thing is still in print, thankfully; I mean... it's a good album. But it is one crappy cover!
• Creator Killer: Passage saw them attempt to shake up their image after their last two albums underperformed, but simply felt scattershot instead as they tackled a wide variety of genres from jazz to show tunes to Country Music to calypso to Space Rock that were far outside their normal wheelhouse. They only recorded two more albums afterwards, one of them a Christmas album, before Karen Carpenter's death from anorexia nervosa, and they never had another Top 10 single. "I Just Fall in Love Again", however, was later Covered Up by country singer Anne Murray to considerably greater success.
• Died During Production: Karen's death deeply shook Richard and he has only performed rarely since. He largely withdrew from the public eye and has only very, very occasionally produced new music afterwards.
• He Also Did: The lyrics for "Merry Christmas Darling" were written by Frank Pooler, Karen and Richard's choral music teacher at Long Beach State. He'd actually written them in 1944, when he was 18, and dusted them off when they asked him for some ideas for a Christmas song, then Richard wrote a new melody for them.
• Inspiration for the Work: On a visit to England, Richard caught a TV broadcast of the 1941 Bing Crosby movie Rhythm on the River, which is about songwriters, and at several points a famous In-Universe song called "Goodbye to Love" is mentioned but never heard. As he was watching, Richard started putting together his own idea of what a song called "Goodbye to Love" might sound like, including the first few lyric lines, then when he got back to LA he called his old college friend John Bettis in to write the rest of the lyrics while he finished the melody.
• One-Take Wonder: Karen had her vocals down to such a fine point that she'd often nail a recording in a single take. Their final recording, "Now" is an example.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Carpenters gone Country Music? Five years after Lynn Anderson hit #2 on the Country charts in 1973 with her cover of "Top of the World", Karen and Richard landed in the Country Top 10 themselves with a cover of Juice Newton's "Sweet, Sweet Smile," which concurrently missed the pop Top 40. The crossover success led Karen and Richard to consider switching gears and doing a country album, an idea that was shot down by A&M execs who insisted they needed a pop hit. The closest Carpenters got to a "country album" was a four-song "Country Collection" EP released only as a promotional item to radio stations, which included "Sweet, Sweet Smile," "Top of the World," "Jambalaya," and "Reason to Believe."
  • Fans can only speculate as to what might have happened if Karen had been allowed to release her solo album in 1980. Karen downplayed her disappointment in public, but privately was proud of her solo album and believed in it to the end of her life. It's possible she might have had a long and successful solo career while continuing her career with Carpenters, as Stevie Nicks was shortly to prove could be done. Might it even have become a catalyst for her recovery? It's doubtful, but we'll never know.

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