Anyone read this?

RIP Paul C. Cook (May 15, 1937- August 3, 2014):
"By age 27, Paul attained the rank of Fire Captain. Later in his career, he worked as a training officer, fire science instructor and as an arson investigator. One of his most memorable (and highly publicized) experiences was being the first unit on scene in response to the 911 call for the singer Karen Carpenter. "
Source:
Paul C. Cook
 
RIP Paul C. Cook (May 15, 1937- August 3, 2014):
"By age 27, Paul attained the rank of Fire Captain. Later in his career, he worked as a training officer, fire science instructor and as an arson investigator. One of his most memorable (and highly publicized) experiences was being the first unit on scene in response to the 911 call for the singer Karen Carpenter. "
Source:
Paul C. Cook

He’s featured in the E! True Hollywood Story episode about Karen. Seen here at 1:17:07:

 
Review of Richard and Karen's concert in Rexburg, Idaho, October 1973:

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Great article NowhereMan, thanks. Quite possibly the smallest (10,000 population in 1973) and one of the most remote cities the Carpenters ever performed in. They were reaching the height of their stardom at that time, "Top of the World" was on the charts and became their 11th Top 40 hit and second to reach number one. Too bad Sherwin still had them touring all over the US doing numerous college towns and playing smaller venues with sometimes two shows a night. Richard has stated that he should have been more proactive during this period when it came to their manager's proposed concert schedules.
 
Review of Richard and Karen's concert in Rexburg, Idaho, October 1973:

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Interesting article, thanks for posting. It would appear all the silly-sounding bird noises and other effects used on songs like End Of The World had been ditched by the time they took the show to Japan in 1974.
 
Best Female Drummers: An Essential Top 25 Countdown
Combining groove with a sense of songcraft, drummers are the driving force of any group. Here we present the best female drummers of all time.
---Published on February 20, 2019, Brett Milano.
#9: Karen Carpenter
"It’s true that Karen Carpenter reached all-time great status more as a singer than a drummer, but the drums were her first love and she had the solid feel that was just right for elegant pop. The credits don’t always make it clear who played on what, but there are two Carpenters albums (their debut and Now & Then) on which she plays all or most of the drums. That’s her on the hit ‘Yesterday Once More’, along with the latter album’s big-fun rock’n ’roll medley."

Complete List:
Best Female Drummers: An Essential Top 25 Countdown
 
This news keeps getting worse. It also appears from the list that Richard and Karen as solo artists were also affected by the fire.

One of the only musicians who has said publicly that he was informed about the destruction of his masters is Richard Carpenter of the Carpenters, the star ’70s pop duo. But Carpenter says the admission — by a staff member at UMG’s catalog division, Universal Music Enterprises (UMe) — came only after multiple inquiries and because UMG was forced into it: Carpenter had booked time at a mastering studio to work on a reissue for the label, and the tapes he requested for the session hadn’t shown up. “They didn’t let me know,” he told me last week. “They really didn’t want to get me on the phone to give me this news.” In a deposition given in a negligence suit brought by UMG against NBCUniversal, its landlord at the backlot vault, a former executive for the record company testified that Carpenter’s persistence and “concern” about his masters in the aftermath of the fire had been a subject of consternation among UMG officials.

Here Are Hundreds More Artists Whose Tapes Were Destroyed in the UMG Fire
 
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"In a deposition given in a negligence suit brought by UMG against NBCUniversal, its landlord at the backlot vault, a former executive for the record company testified that Carpenter’s persistence and “concern” about his masters in the aftermath of the fire had been a subject of consternation among UMG officials."

Is it known what specific masters recorded by the duo were lost in this fire?
 
"In a deposition given in a negligence suit brought by UMG against NBCUniversal, its landlord at the backlot vault, a former executive for the record company testified that Carpenter’s persistence and “concern” about his masters in the aftermath of the fire had been a subject of consternation among UMG officials."

Is it known what specific masters recorded by the duo were lost in this fire?

I remember hearing, but can't remember where, that Richard stores all the masters in/under Iron Mountain where many historic/important archives are stored and where even a nuclear bomb can not get to them; however, when he had the masters sent from Iron Mountain to Universal to work on a project, Universal never sent them back to Iron Mountain; thus, they were subject to the fire and lost forever. Can't remember where I heard this, though, so take it as a grain of salt.
 
I remember hearing, but can't remember where, that Richard stores all the masters in/under Iron Mountain where many historic/important archives are stored and where even a nuclear bomb can not get to them; however, when he had the masters sent from Iron Mountain to Universal to work on a project, Universal never sent them back to Iron Mountain; thus, they were subject to the fire and lost forever. Can't remember where I heard this, though, so take it as a grain of salt.

I did an extended radio interview with Richard in 2014 where we talked at length about this. The reporter from the Times called me a couple of weeks before this was published to fact check, as he’d heard the interview and wanted to include excerpts in the story.

Universal had been slowly sending stuff back but obviously not nearly in time to avoid this tragedy unfortunately.
 
I did an extended radio interview with Richard in 2014 where we talked at length about this. The reporter from the Times called me a couple of weeks before this was published to fact check, as he’d heard the interview and wanted to include excerpts in the story.

Universal had been slowly sending stuff back but obviously not nearly in time to avoid this tragedy unfortunately.

Ah. That's probably where I heard this information. Thanks for the confirmation! Any information on whether any remaining "outtakes" from either solo efforts or as Carpenters were also lost forever? Or do you know if Richard had those digitally backed-up along with everything else?
 
Most everything was transferred over. And again, not *everything* sat in a vault at Universal so it wasn't their entire catalog. But yes to answer your question, all the first gen stuff that was sitting in there had already been digitally backed up. :)

And of course there is clear evidence of this with the Royal Philharmonic project. Many of those tracks originated on multis that burned in the fire, so they mixed from the digital.
 
And of course there is clear evidence of this with the Royal Philharmonic project. Many of those tracks originated on multis that burned in the fire, so they mixed from the digital.

Is there actually a list available anywhere of which Carpenters masters went up in the fire?
 
Is there actually a list available anywhere of which Carpenters masters went up in the fire?
I remember a while back it was mentioned that the tapes had been sent to Universal from Iron Mountain when Richard was remixing the songs that were included on the SACD disc in 2003/04 and then were still sitting there 4 years later.


Two songs that were lost in the fire were the original multi tracks for “Only Yesterday” & “Trying To Get The Feeling Again”. As Richard said in the booklet for “Interpretations”, those two songs were on the same tape.

But we know that Richard still has access to a lot of stuff, as he was able to remix “Make Me Laugh” and “Christmas Alphabet” into stereo for the ‘Christmas Memories’ DVD from their original mono TV mixes.
 
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