Anyone read this?

November 19,1983 Observer-Reporter:
Carpenter completed nearly 20 tracks (for Voice of The Heart) and considers the ones not on it as good as the ones on it.
The Cover picture was taken either late 1979 or early 1980 in New York.

Richard Carpenter:
"I think it's a beautiful combination, a great singer and a pop choir"
"I wanted to take 1979 off. I was getting a little tired and needed to recharge.
Karen didn't, and so she thought about a solo album. It was fine with me.
It was never finished. But, that is why the picture exists." (-sic. Voice of the Heart Cover).
"I Want to start with a solo album--as writer, producer, arranger--I'd sing on it, but it won't be ten tracks of my leads."

Source:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...I9iAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wHcNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1259,2743857
 
Story Behind the Song: 'An Old Fashioned Love Song'
With "Old Fashioned Love Song," Three Dog Night is the band of the planet at the time ... How did the song get to them?

You know, I wrote the song thinking it was perfect for The Carpenters. It was money in the bank with them, I thought. A nice fit, kind of a throwback song with a rinky-dink sound to it and all. Richard Carpenter, I don't think made it through the first verse before he picked up the needle off of the (acetate). Richard didn't love it. Chuck Kaye, who was head of publishing at A&M Records sent it to Richie Podolor, who was the producer for (the band). And all three hits that I had with Three Dog Night started off with them not loving it and the producer loving it. All three of them were great records, and thank God they became hits. But, you know, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, we get that good fortune.

Source:
http://www.tennessean.com/story/ent...behind-song-old-fashioned-love-song/18996381/
 
Billboard Magazine, November 15, 1975:
"Chrysalis co-founder Terry Ellis is now living permanently in Los Angeles.
Ellis personally manages Jethro Tull and has recently taken on The Carpenters.
'The only way I could do this is to give them overall career direction without
being required to provide day to day guidance', says Ellis.
As Ellis explains, he had clear "personal reasons" for wanting to see the Carpenters' career
run smoothly after they decided to leave their long-time management office. Since this spring,
Ellis and Karen Carpenter have been a steady couple.

Source:
books.google.com/books?id=exEEAAAAMBAJ
 
Oddly enough I wrote the Downey F/C suggesting Old Fashioned Love Song with response came 'K&R are concentrating on new music'. Also once mentioned there that they re-record Baby It's You for single release. Same answer. This was '74-75ish.
 
I remain puzzled, Jeff, as to why 'Old Fashioned Love Song' was passed up by Richard Carpenter.
Another good question to run by Richard Carpenter!
The snippet on The Carol Burnett Show clearly shows that it would have been an awesome Carpenters' rendition.
Richard could have done some arranging, overdubbing, magic--as only he could do-- with he and Karen.
 
Somewhat of a sidelight, but of some relevance to our duo:
July 29,2978, Billboard Magazine
"...And despite all their success with A&M, The Captain and Tennille are less than pleased with the label,
which, according to Daryl, is ignoring their 'Bread and Butter' artists, namely themselves and Karen and Richard Carpenter."

Source:
books.google.com/books?id=hSQEAAAAMBAJ


 
Rolling Stone, on A&M' s 50th Anniversary:
Alpert: "An interesting part of the Carpenters' story is they laid an egg on their first album. It didn't even get a positive response from people in our own company! What turned them around was, I was in New York with [esteemed lyricist] Hal David, and asked him to send me every song he couldn't stop listening to; he sent me '(They Long To Be) Close To You." I recorded it myself, and thought I had a good record, but an engineer friend told me, 'You sound terrible singing this song.' Then Carpenters came along, I slipped 'Close To You' to Richard [Carpenter], and that was the one that did it for them. Richard had a feel for wonderful melody, and Karen [Carpenter] had one of those god-given voices. I closed my eyes as I sat on couch listening to her audition tape, and it sounded like her voice was sitting next to me. She had something magical, but didn't think of herself as a singer – she thought of herself as a drummer. It took a while to get her in front of the drums. Unfortunately, she didn't realize how many people she touched."

Moss: "Carpenters had ten gold singles in the Seventies. That kind of run doesn't happen very often, and it just didn't happen at that time. We sold millions of Carpenters albums on top of that – we even sold amazing amounts of sheet music for them! A song like 'We've Only Just Begun' still gets played at weddings and football games. They had an amazing run."



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/a-m-records-greatest-hits-20120907#ixzz3JY6Kt5Ot
 
September 2010:
Herb Alpert: Godfather of easy listening

"...and, biggest of all, The Carpenters.
Their breakthrough hit came, eventually, with a song Burt Bacharach had sent to Herb years before as a possible follow-up to This Guy’s In Love With You.
“Karen Carpenter had a stunning voice and Richard knew how to put the records together but for the first year their experience at A & M was kind of dismal.
“They didn’t sell many records, they didn’t get much attention and I was getting strange looks from people in my own company who were thinking: ‘why in hell did you sign these kids’? Then when Close To You happened it was: ‘Wow, this guy knows what he’s doing’. ”
Was he aware of the eating and weight problems that would lead to Karen’s death in 1983 at the age of just 32? “I was certainly aware of the problems but it wasn’t identified in those days as to exactly what it was.
“To be honest, this is a tough one for me,” he says, his voice beginning to choke with emotion. “I loved that girl. She was innocent, she didn’t really receive, or was able to accept, the acknowledgement or the adulation of all the people she touched.
“The part that just kills me is that she bounced into my office two weeks before she died and she had just come out of the hospital in New York and she was raring to go.
“She was happy, she wanted to do concerts again; everything was positive. Two weeks later, bang. It was just terrible.”


Complete Interview here:
http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/music/200440/Herb-Alpert-Godfather-of-easy-listening
 
Milwaukee Sentinel, October 31,1974:
Carpenters Styling a' la' Liberace
"...If Liberace ever had any children, he would undoubtedly want them to grow up to be just like Karen and Richard Carpenter.
Karen and Richard performed here, before two sell-out crowds,of 2350 each. They were--and this must be the right expression-
just the cat's pajamas.
"...They just can't resist taking fine ballads..and giving them their characteristic rococo trimmings."
"...everyone seemed to regard the Carpenters as worshipfully as if they were inside a panatheon."
"....ooohs and aaahs emanated from the audience.
"...While everything about the Carpenters' show was predictably insipid from beginning to end,
two comedians who opened the concert were delightfully uproarious."

Source/with photo:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...nhQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=khEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4838,3237601
 
GaryAlan said:
A Snapshot of the musical industry in 1979, from January 29,1980 Bulletin Journal:
Record Industry sees Drastic Plunge in Sales
"..sales of single records and albums plunged to an abysmal low.."
"...Another reason why 1979 was a low point....was the absence of big new stars...like the Carpenters..."

Complete Article here:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...BYuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=oC4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6634,2011392
Click to expand...

The oil crisis of the late seventies also contributed.
 
A Passage, of some slight relevance :
The A&M 25th Anniversary Publication,
Herb Alpert "...1979...the whole record business was in a decline at that time, and when business is bad, you have to pay for
returns from retailers and 'rack-jobbers'. The black joke at the time was that you shipped a record Gold and it came back Platinum.
Anyhow, it was a crucial spell in the industry and in the history of our company."
Jerry Moss: "...We had to put our houses up for collateral,and the bank was initially a little on the cold side, to say the least. While
getting our signatures for the loan documents..secretary turned to us and asked 'Now, which one of you is Herb Alpert' ?.."
 
From July 31,1998 News-Herald Author-Paisley Yankolovich:
A Review of :
Richard Carpenter:tongue:ianist, Arranger, Composer,Conductor:
"..I doubt anyone on the planet spends much energy challenging the musical genius of Richard Carpenter. He and
his sister Karen recorded some of pop music's most beloved tunes and his talent was clearly evident.
Too bad Mr. Carpenter chose to skate backwards and release an instrumental album of Carpenters' songs.
Sure, he makes the selections beautiful,but it is impossible to overlook that this is merely a creepy vanity project.
Only on the under-two-minutes-long Flat Baroque do we get something new, magnificent and not-Karen related."

Source:
news.google.com/newspapers?nid=875&dat=19980731&id=A2tIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PVYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6664,2790815
 
April 21, 1983:
Rogersville Review (Tennessee)
"...A resolution to rename Kingsport Press Road to Karen Carpenter Drive was defeated.
The request came from Strolee of California, of which Ms. Carpenter, a world-renowned recording star,
was a substantial stock holder."
September 1983:
The Karen Carpenter Strolee Plant is located in Hawkins County on the old Kingsport Press Road southwest of Church Hill.
Plant dedication on September 26th,1983.
 
A Book Excerpt:
Afterlife Afterimage,edited by Steve Jones, Joli Jensen
Peter Lang International Academic Publishers (July 2005)
(from the chapter on Karen Carpenter p.115)
in conclusion:
"..It has been well publicized that Karen's family disapproved of her 'solo career'.
The systematic repression of this image of Karen has been an important part of the hagiographic myth, and by extension,
to the anorexic subject that she would come to idealize. More importantly, the Carpenter family attempted to manage her legacy
in a way that allowed them to celebrate her moral purity from the disease that killed her. Despite this effort, a growing discourse has
emerged that critiques this seamless narrative.."
"These detours in the myth of Karen continue to present a more complex and conflicted history of feminine pathology in the twentieth
century as the struggle to control the image of the secular saint continues. Commentators such as Todd Haynes and Phil Ramone have
attempted to revise the Carpenter image--to re-read Karen's narrative in such a way that the sources of her pathology are accurately
portrayed and a more complex analysis of feminine identity rendered. From the family's point of view they would prefer she remain forever
their little girl who just happened to make some bad decisions when she entered the world outside their protection. Given the powerful
relationship between femininity and popular music, Karen Carpenter remains a resonant template for young women, in particular,
struggling for a sense of self in a male-dominated industry."
"Her failure to author her own voice would in many ways become symbolic for a generation of young women striving for moral perfection.."
 
May 18, 1974 Billboard Magazine:

" 381,512 requests for tickets to the concerts scheduled for the Carpenters May 31st and June 12th, at the
11,000 seat Nippon-Budokan were received by Kyodo-Tokyo prior to the public drawing April 12th, far exceeding
the Beatles in June of 1966.
All 25,000 tickets to the duo's slated performances in Osaka, Kobe and Fukuoka were sold out the day they went on sale.
King Records, with whom A&M has a foreign licensing agreement, estimates that the Carpenters accounted for 5% of
total international A&R sales in Japan in the past year."

Source:
books.google.com/books?id=bQkEAAAAMBAJ
 
July 14,1973, Billboard Magazine (see page 16 for the entire article):
Creative Trends-
"Carpenters..Blend Multi- Multi Dubs and Techniques"

Prototype record album takes three months and $50,000 to make, and as long for mixing.
Since 1969, 18.5 million singles and albums sales.
On the road, five harmony members among the eight musicians in the 20 member road crew.
Uses Shure Microphones, now, for wider range pick-up; and, a rule that no one move from microphone range in concert.
Latest method is an expensive, sophisticated unit--the Eventime Digital Delay--which works like a portable echo chamber,
reverberating the voices picked up through the vocal microphones and is activated by a sound technician when a sustained multiharmony
phrase comes up.
Richard has gotten into the habit of recording a cassette tape of each night's concert from out front, after discovering that his stage monitor did
not really give an accurate account of what the audience was hearing.
Although Richard professes annoyance with the ultra-clean Carpenters' image, he admits to restricting the act to material that doesn't
contradict their public concept of them.


Source:
books.google.com/books?id=MQkEAAAAMBAJ
 
GaryAlan said:
Richard has gotten into the habit of recording a cassette tape of each night's concert from out front, after discovering that his stage monitor did not really give an accurate account of what the audience was hearing.
Click to expand...

That's interesting and would explain the section in the Coleman book where it was detailed that Richard recorded most of their concerts for his personal collection. Now we know why :)
 
Billboard Magazine, November 3,1979:
Spotlight Argentina....
"Top selling albums last year were from...Alan Parsons Project, Queen, Supertramp,...Carpenters..."
 
September 6, 1975, Billboard Magazine:
Inside Track--General News--page six--
"Neil Sedaka's Las Vegas opening act gig for the Carpenters was 'ended prematurely at the request of the Carpenters' Fridat (28th),
says spokesman for the Riviera.
Insiders interpret this to mean Richard and Karen finally had enough of Sedaka's dynamic performances stealing most of the rave
reactions on their tour package, which has played eight cities, since July 21st. (see Billboard review of the show-this week).
The axing comes after seven SRO days at the Riviera. The Carpenters play through Wednesday (3rd)."
"A lengthy written statement from Sedaka, said, in part:
'Every performer has to do what is best for them. I'm sure the Carpenters have done so by choosing to end the tour early.
I have the utmost respect for them and their decision.' "

Page 29: Talent in Action
"...Although Sedaka was obviously second-billing, it was more co-equal status with the Carpenters in this musical blockbuster
triumph for the Riviera.
...The Carpenters, recently reviewed here, made their seventh Riviera booking a solid performance in a shorter and more
entertaining one-hour package featuring familiar million-selling hits and their well known brand of perfect musical execution
and mellow sounds."

Source:
books.google.com/books?id=SCgEAAAAMBAJ
 
And, by September 1975, Richard Carpenter was approaching his 29th birthday...was this a middle-age crisis?
As much as I find Karen Carpenter a mystery, I find Richard Carpenter even more so.
He was (un-)knowingly(?) setting the stage for a career downfall.
And, though normally the assumption has persisted that
the decline was due to Karen's anorexia--that, supposition I find to be unfounded.
By his own admission he was the leader, the architect of Carpenters and their successful career.
As such, I wonder if it has ever dawned on him how bad his decisions truly were (at times) and,
how much more could have materialized, if not for his ego (at times).
 
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