Singles Collections, Carpenters & Other Artists

Another Son

Well-Known Member
From the age of ten, I collected vinyl singles. Carpenters were not the very first, but they were amongst the first artists that I collected, and were obviously favourites. I used to make my money for buying records from selling eggs from my chooks. (Chooks are hens / chickens). Being the only child for miles around, apart from my sisters, who left home when I was 11 and 12, i spent half my time hanging out with my pets / looking after animals on our farm / nature-watching / riding my bike / bushwalking / exploring / running / building rickety structures / and half my time listening to, and later, creating, music. If you remember specific Carpenters singles that you had back in the day, what were you listening to in your singles collection / collecting at the same time, how did you make money to buy them and what were your other pastimes?
 
Singles - 45s - were a real afterthought for me. If I owned a song on an album, I wouldn't even think of buying a single version. In the 60s, the single versions were nearly always mono, while album versions of songs were in stereo, and to me, at that time, stereo was a big deal. So when a lead single from a forthcoming album would hit the stores and the radio stations, I'd go out and buy that - with the idea that when the album arrived, I could dispose of the single - or at least relegate it to never played status.

I think the first time I noticed first-hand that a single could be a different mix (other than mono/stereo) was with Herb Alpert's "To Wait For Love". That single arrived well ahead of the WARM album and I liked it a lot and played it a lot. It was only mono, but that's all there was. When the album came out and I was looking forward to hearing that record in stereo, I was shocked to hear a different lead vocal - and then shocked again to hear the record fade so much more quickly on the album.

From then on, I paid more attention to whatever singles and album versions I encountered. I still didn't buy singles if I already had an album versions, but occasionally those lead singles would be added to my collection. From about 1970 on, most singles were the stereo version anyway.
 
One of my much-played singles, bought when I was 11, was ‘Please Mr. Postman’. I used to play it over and over. The other records that I used to play to death in the same period were mainly from 1974 and 1975 and included ‘Peppermint Twist’ by The Sweet, ‘Last Time I Saw Him’ by Diana Ross, ‘The Way I Want to Touch You’ by Captain & Tennille, SOS, Mama Mia, So Long and I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do, ( the last four by ABBA), ‘I Want to Take You Higher’ by Ike & Tina Turner, ‘You’re My World’ by Daryl Braithwaite, ‘My Little Angel’ by William Shakespeare, ‘I Can’t Stand the Rain’ by Ann Peebles, ‘How Can I Tell You’ by Debbie Byrne’...... ummmm... my memory is failing me here but I must have had a few others. My tastes were probably fairly ‘pop’ and mainstream, because that was the type of music played on the local radio station, although I also had a fair swag of soul-influenced records and very light rock in my collection.
 
Singles - 45s - were a real afterthought for me. If I owned a song on an album, I wouldn't even think of buying a single version. In the 60s, the single versions were nearly always mono, while album versions of songs were in stereo, and to me, at that time, stereo was a big deal. So when a lead single from a forthcoming album would hit the stores and the radio stations, I'd go out and buy that - with the idea that when the album arrived, I could dispose of the single - or at least relegate it to never played status.

I think the first time I noticed first-hand that a single could be a different mix (other than mono/stereo) was with Herb Alpert's "To Wait For Love". That single arrived well ahead of the WARM album and I liked it a lot and played it a lot. It was only mono, but that's all there was. When the album came out and I was looking forward to hearing that record in stereo, I was shocked to hear a different lead vocal - and then shocked again to hear the record fade so much more quickly on the album.

From then on, I paid more attention to whatever singles and album versions I encountered. I still didn't buy singles if I already had an album versions, but occasionally those lead singles would be added to my collection. From about 1970 on, most singles were the stereo version anyway.
Makes sense. We only had a sort of plastic, battery-operated mono record player so I wouldn’t have known if the singles were stereo or mono. (As you said, Harry, they were pretty much all stereo by the 70s). When I discovered stereo on my Auntie’s sound system at about 12, I was in heaven! I can certainly see why you went for stereo versions!

There were lots of old Herb Alpert & Tijuana Brass, Elvis, Dusty Springfield, Petula Clarke and early rock ‘n’ roll era singles in the local electrical store that had probably been there since.... well.... the beginning of the rock ‘n’ roll era and, although I was tempted by them and wanted them, I was always looking for latest releases by my favourite artists.... which weren’t stocked very often, unfortunately.
 
Well, my record collection started with "Miss Happiness" (The answer song to Mr. Lonely) and "It Hurts to Be Sixteen" by Andrea Carroll, "That's the Way Boys Are", by Lesley Gore, "Stay Awhile" by Dusty Springfield and "Remember (Walking in the Sand" by the Shangri-las. I use to make my money by cutting the grass for two neighbors ( and sometimes three). The first albums I got were "Stay Awhile/I Only Want to be With You" by Dusty Springfield and "I'll Cry if I Want to" by Lesley Gore. I can't tell you how thrilling it was to walk into most department stores and find their records in the bins and up on the wall display. When I went to buy "I'll Cry If I Want To", it was up on the wall display and I was to short too reach it so my dad had to get it down for me. Lesley Gore's album "All About Love" was released in November. I had to wait 6 months before I could cut grass again and get the money to buy it. That was a long cold winter. When I finally had the money, I ran into the store to buy it only to find that they had re-issued it with a new cover. I was excited and disappointed at the same time. I had so wanted the original cover. I eventually found it and bought later.

The Carpenters came later. I was a reluctant fan at first. I heard them singing "Close to You" on the radio, and I considered that Dusty's song. It was included on her 1967 album "The Look Of Love" and I wanted it to be her next single. But they went with "What's It Gonna Be" instead. Never even tried to release "Close to You" as anything but an album track. My first reaction was they were stealing Dusty's sound. But after a week or two of hearing it on the radio, I went and bought it. And then "We've Only Just Begun" came out and I was hooked on the Carpenters as well.

I always bought the singles and the albums. For one, I didn't always have the money to buy the albums. And two, sometimes the singles had songs that never made it on to the albums.
 
Well, my record collection started with "Miss Happiness" (The answer song to Mr. Lonely) and "It Hurts to Be Sixteen" by Andrea Carroll, "That's the Way Boys Are", by Lesley Gore, "Stay Awhile" by Dusty Springfield and "Remember (Walking in the Sand" by the Shangri-las. I use to make my money by cutting the grass for two neighbors ( and sometimes three). The first albums I got were "Stay Awhile/I Only Want to be With You" by Dusty Springfield and "I'll Cry if I Want to" by Lesley Gore. I can't tell you how thrilling it was to walk into most department stores and find their records in the bins and up on the wall display. When I went to buy "I'll Cry If I Want To", it was up on the wall display and I was to short too reach it so my dad had to get it down for me. Lesley Gore's album "All About Love" was released in November. I had to wait 6 months before I could cut grass again and get the money to buy it. That was a long cold winter. When I finally had the money, I ran into the store to buy it only to find that they had re-issued it with a new cover. I was excited and disappointed at the same time. I had so wanted the original cover. I eventually found it and bought later.

The Carpenters came later. I was a reluctant fan at first. I heard them singing "Close to You" on the radio, and I considered that Dusty's song. It was included on her 1967 album "The Look Of Love" and I wanted it to be her next single. But they went with "What's It Gonna Be" instead. Never even tried to release "Close to You" as anything but an album track. My first reaction was they were stealing Dusty's sound. But after a week or two of hearing it on the radio, I went and bought it. And then "We've Only Just Begun" came out and I was hooked on the Carpenters as well.

I always bought the singles and the albums. For one, I didn't always have the money to buy the albums. And two, sometimes the singles had songs that never made it on to the albums.
Great stories, 3Favorites. Loved reading them.

It’s amazing that the weather affected whether or not you could buy records - winter too cold for growing and cutting grass! :)

I like the thought of your Dad supporting you with your love of music.

Lesley Gore, Dusty Springfield, Shangri-Las - what icons. I’m not familiar with Andrea Carroll.

Thanks for the stories and images. :)
 
My first 45 was the Carpenters A Kind of Hush/I’m Caught Between Goodbye And I Love Yoy that I found in a thrift store for 25 cents in Winnipeg in June/July 2000. (We were in Winnipeg for a vacation, and the end/beginning of the months happened during that week, so we got to see the fireworks at the Forks from our hotel room.) Funnily enough I also picked up at a HMV in Winnipeg that trip the Remastered Classics CD of AKOH, but I had to wait until we were back in Ontario to listen to them, as we didn’t have either a record player or CD player on the trip (I might’ve taken a cassette Walkman but I don’t remember.)
 
My first 45 was the Carpenters A Kind of Hush/I’m Caught Between Goodbye And I Love Yoy that I found in a thrift store for 25 cents in Winnipeg in June/July 2000. (We were in Winnipeg for a vacation, and the end/beginning of the months happened during that week, so we got to see the fireworks at the Forks from our hotel room.) Funnily enough I also picked up at a HMV in Winnipeg that trip the Remastered Classics CD of AKOH, but I had to wait until we were back in Ontario to listen to them, as we didn’t have either a record player or CD player on the trip (I might’ve taken a cassette Walkman but I don’t remember.)
I, too, have found the occasional musical treasure in thrift stores.

Are you Canadian, Tomswift? For some reason, I was thinking that you were British.
 
I bought very few singles in my youth. I probably bought bought less than 10 at full price and another dozen or so as cutouts. I was more into album purchases.
 
One of my much-played singles, bought when I was 11, was ‘Please Mr. Postman’. I used to play it over and over. The other records that I used to play to death in the same period were mainly from 1974 and 1975 and included ‘Peppermint Twist’ by The Sweet, ‘Last Time I Saw Him’ by Diana Ross, ‘The Way I Want to Touch You’ by Captain & Tennille, SOS, Mama Mia, So Long and I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do, ( the last four by ABBA), ‘I Want to Take You Higher’ by Ike & Tina Turner, ‘You’re My World’ by Daryl Braithwaite, ‘My Little Angel’ by William Shakespeare, ‘I Can’t Stand the Rain’ by Ann Peebles, ‘How Can I Tell You’ by Debbie Byrne’...... ummmm... my memory is failing me here but I must have had a few others. My tastes were probably fairly ‘pop’ and mainstream, because that was the type of music played on the local radio station, although I also had a fair swag of soul-influenced records and very light rock in my collection.
You gave yourself away as a fellow Aussie with your reference to "chooks", Another Son, as well as Daryl Braithwaite, Debbie Byrne and William Shakespeare! My first single was The Bootleg Family Band's version of "The Shoop Shoop Song" in 1974 (Another Aussie release) - remember it? Then "Fairytale" by a relatively unknown Pointer Sisters. Shortly after a second-hand copy of "Top of the World", which I'd thought for years by then was the best song ever. Carpenters dominated my singles purchases after that, beginning with "Postman" and every single up to "I Believe You". Albums were out of range given my allowance at the time.
 
You gave yourself away as a fellow Aussie with your reference to "chooks", Another Son, as well as Daryl Braithwaite, Debbie Byrne and William Shakespeare! My first single was The Bootleg Family Band's version of "The Shoop Shoop Song" in 1974 (Another Aussie release) - remember it? Then "Fairytale" by a relatively unknown Pointer Sisters. Shortly after a second-hand copy of "Top of the World", which I'd thought for years by then was the best song ever. Carpenters dominated my singles purchases after that, beginning with "Postman" and every single up to "I Believe You". Albums were out of range given my allowance at the time.
Oh, yes, I remember The Bootleg Family. I’m a great Brian Cadd fan and, like you, loved ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’, although he’s not on that as a lead singer. Great female vocalist/s on that. I was fully into Brian Cadd from ‘Show Me the Way’ and ‘Ginger Man’, etc. As you know, he and The Bootleg Family were Aussie staples on the radio in the 70s. Axiom was also a great band. I have several of Brian Cad’s earlier albums on CD.

I don’t think ‘Fairytale’ was a big hit for Pointer Sisters in Australia, was it? Their time was to come in the late 70s/ 80s, though.

I notice that you began collecting singles the same year as me.

Remember the buzz when ‘Calling Occupants’ was a hit and ‘Passage’ was selling well? ‘Occupants’ was Top 10 in most states and on the radio all the time but I still never heard any kids admit that they liked Carpenters.

Thanks for responding, John. Good to hear from you.
 
Oh, yes, I remember The Bootleg Family. I’m a great Brian Cadd fan and, like you, loved ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’, although he’s not on that as a lead singer. Great female vocalist/s on that. I was fully into Brian Cadd from ‘Show Me the Way’ and ‘Ginger Man’, etc. As you know, he and The Bootleg Family were Aussie staples on the radio in the 70s. Axiom was also a great band. I have several of Brian Cad’s earlier albums on CD.

I don’t think ‘Fairytale’ was a big hit for Pointer Sisters in Australia, was it? Their time was to come in the late 70s/ 80s, though.

I notice that you began collecting singles the same year as me.

Remember the buzz when ‘Calling Occupants’ was a hit and ‘Passage’ was selling well? ‘Occupants’ was Top 10 in most states and on the radio all the time but I still never heard any kids admit that they liked Carpenters.

Thanks for responding, John. Good to hear from you.
Fairytale reached number 13 on the pop charts in the USA and number 21 in Australia. I found this information on Wikipedia. For a truly country song, that was good charting.
 
Fairytale reached number 13 on the pop charts in the USA and number 21 in Australia. I found this information on Wikipedia. For a truly country song, that was good charting.
Yes, it is.

Speaking of contraltos who can reach low notes, how about Ruth Pointer's lead vocal on their hit, 'Automatic'? I think that Ruth's lowest note on this is probably around 'D' below 'Middle C', (just estimating from the pitch), also round about Karen's lowest recorded note.
 
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