🥂 50th The Complete Carpenters Recording Resource

Okay thanks guys for all the helpful info! I have been using the Resource here to correct any wrong info gleaned from the CDDB and iTunes.

And one of our hallmarks is that we've attempted to correct any of our own mistakes with group participation. Please, if you notice anything missing, lacking, wrong, or even speld phunny, let us know in this thread or another. That way corrections can be made and this thing will only be that much more accurate. Changes are easy to make, so it can continue to be a work in progress.

Harry
 
I would think any download service likely just goes with whatever the label gives them as information. As for crowd-sourced data like at freedb.org and others, I find that most of it is filled with errors--capitalization, bad spelling, incorrect words...it's rare I find one that doesn't need any type of modification. Even Amazon's data (which I pull in through dBpoweramp) has had its share of goofs.
 
In honor of the upcoming PBS Singles collection, I've added a little bit of artwork for each A&M single A-side with catalog number and a reference to the b-side. Right now, the artwork is lifted from the old DVD of CLOSE TO YOU: REMEMBERING THE CARPENTERS. There was a US singles discography on there with picture sleeves, so it was handy. Over time, perhaps we can find better scans to use, but at least this is a start.

Harry
 
And right on cue, member Chris-An Ordinary Fool comes to the rescue with some singles scans of both sides at a better resolution. I've added a few of my own, and we'll do more as the situation warrants. Thanks Chris!
 
Amazing! I can't believe I never came across this site until now. What a labor of love, and sorely needed, too. Thanks.
You're welcome! @Harry and @Chris May put in a lot of effort to get all of those releases sorted out. I'm only lucky enough to give the place a home. :wink:
 
Nearly a decade in the making, A&M Corner is proud (and somewhat relieved!) to present The Complete Carpenters Recording Resource!

More than just a discography of Carpenters recordings, the Resource goes in depth, song by song, analyzing the mixing and overdub differences between all of the released versions. For many years, Carpenters fans have been confused as to which versions of these tracks appear on which album releases. With at least two released versions of each album, along with dozens of anthologies and compilations, the choices are overwhelming.

Thanks to many long and critical hours of listening, members of our staff have analyzed and debated each recorded version of every song to report their findings to the A&M Corner membership and the Internet-at-large. The bulk of the listening sessions were conducted by Harry and Chris, with occasional assistance from other staff members when they needed another set of ears to confirm their findings.

The Resource is but one part of the brand new Carpenters site we have launched just now. In addition to information about albums and singles, the site presents Carpenters news postings to visitors, and will soon host other media-related features to build a full-fledged Carpenters destination for collectors and fans. You can find the new site at this address:


In addition to a search function, the site also features a mobile view that is easily navigated on your smartphone or tablet of choice! Very handy for those "record crawls" while you're out shopping for these recordings at your local record/CD retailers. Each entry can also be shared with your favorite social media service, including Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and dozens of other popular services.

This site is step one of a complete makeover of A&M Corner. We currently have other sites in progress, including the main A&M Corner site itself, and will announce each as they are ready. Until then, enjoy the new Carpenters site, and we look forward to getting feedback from everyone as they begin using the new site.

And as I publicly thank Harry and Chris May for putting so many hours into this project, I urge others to do the same. This long-overdue project is now in your hands to utilize and enjoy!

I am currently receiving the following error message Error establishing a database connection when attempting to view the link to the Carpenters Recording Resource, is it currently receiving an edit or anything?
 
I believe there is some technical stuff going on behind the scenes. It should be back soon.
 
New member "syncrasy" (Mark), has pointed out to me that "I Won't Last A Day Without You" in its original album appearance on LP is actually the slightly sped-up version. I've verified that with my own album and found that it matches the speed and key of the faster versions of the song, thus, I've made a note in the Resource listing for the album, and fixed the entry for the song.

Thanks Mark, way to go! And welcome to the A&M Corner Forum.

Harry
 
I am currently receiving the following error message Error establishing a database connection when attempting to view the link to the Carpenters Recording Resource, is it currently receiving an edit or anything?

I believe there is some technical stuff going on behind the scenes. It should be back soon.

I'm having issues with a few things since our server move--I'm on a cloud server now, which is not managed. It allows me a lot more flexibility (we now use the Elasticsearch search index, which provides faster and more relevant results, and I can customize a lot more), but it is also a lot more work, especially with security.

I have a monitoring program in place now which will alert me (via the Pushover app) if a monitored process goes down and cannot restart.

And of course, this comes at the worst time with a client dumping three things on me, on top of having other servers/sites in the middle of major upgrades. There isn't enough of me to go around.
 
The new discography is very good & thoroughly comprehensive.I notice a few minor info errors in the album notes:

TICKET TO RIDE-Two release dates are listed here:November 15,1969 and October 9,1969(Chris May). I do believe 11/15 was the actual release date.

CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT-the album notes state that Richard & A&M elected to combine "Portrait" and "Old Fashioned Christmas" together as the "Special Edition" CD.This is inaccurate-the decision for one disc was made by A&M.The compact disc was in it's infant stage back in 1984 and A&M(and every other label) didn't know how well CD's would sell.The "Special Edition" was concieved by A&M as a "test" disc-while taking advantage of the CD's 70-minute capacity.If A&M knew in 1984 what they eventually found out by 1987,they would've put both Christmas albums on CD individually.

VOICE OF THE HEART-the album notes state that "Now" was the only new recording on the album-the rest being outtakes from other albums.This is inaccurate-"You're Enough" was recorded during the same session as "Now" in April 1982.

LOVELINES-"You're the One was released as a single in early 1990-this is not mentioned in the album notes under "singles".
I thought Your The One was only a single radio release to help promote the sales of Loveliness, thus the single was not available to the public. I could be wrong, it was just told to me by one trying to remember everything told to him by an A&M marketing rep.

Craig
 
"You're The One" was only released in the UK in 1990 as part of a single 3 track package. It was released in the UK 2 ways:

12" LP version single was called "Close to You/Merry Christmas Darling and contained:

1. MCD
2. You're The One
3. Close To You

It was also released in the UK as a CD single in 1990 with the same exact track listing as the 12" vinyl above.

A few years ago I bought the UK CD single here are scans of my CD single.
I have not seen "You're The One" released any other way as a single or part of a single except this UK release.

UK%20Single%20MCD%20Front.jpg~original

UK%20Single%20MCD%20Back.jpg~original
 
"You're The One" was only released in the UK in 1990 as part of a single 3 track package. It was released in the UK 2 ways:

12" LP version single was called "Close to You/Merry Christmas Darling and contained:

1. MCD
2. You're The One
3. Close To You

It was also released in the UK as a CD single in 1990 with the same exact track listing as the 12" vinyl above.

A few years ago I bought the UK CD single here are scans of my CD single.
I have not seen "You're The One" released any other way as a single or part of a single except this UK release.

UK%20Single%20MCD%20Front.jpg~original

UK%20Single%20MCD%20Back.jpg~original
Wow! That's' beautiful! Thanks for posting it!
 
(I hope this hasn't already been mentioned....)
I've noticed on the entry for "Passage" that it's not listed as being available on reel to reel.
It was, indeed, available on that medium.

Not nit-picking... that just happens to be my delivery method of choice when it comes to the Dynamic Duo! :laugh:
Wonderful resource, by the way! Thanks for taking the time to put it together!
 
There were many forms of "delivery" for Carpenters albums back in those 8-track, cassette, and reel format days. We tend to focus more on the music that's contained on the albums rather than delve into the many formats that contained them, and their listing is more for convenience. For the original albums, we tend to look at the vinyl LP as being the definitive format, and then from the 80s on, it's pretty much all CD, as that was the primary sound medium.

Thanks for the pictures - and since it's easy enough to change, I've added the "reel" designation on PASSAGE.
 
Yes, it is mine... and yes, it does sound awesome (even at 3 3/4 IPS!) I was listening to it while I was browsing the forum this morning, actually! That's what spurred me to look it up.

Normally I just lurk here at The Carpenters forum, but I actually posted about this back in '08 asking if "Passage" was the last reel to reel issued. (It is.)
This is what else came with the tape:
Carpenters4WEB.jpg

That is what was sent to the original Columbia Record Club member in December 1977 informing them that "Passage" would be sent to them in January of 1978 as the "Selection of the month". I have all 9 of the original Carpenters reel to reel tapes, and three of them are CRC issues. All three of those CRC issues have the sheet like the one above. I guess the person who subscribed to CRC was a huge Carpenters fan... because they kept up with those sheets for a month before the tape came!
This is the sheet for "A Kind of Hush":
Carpenters6WEB.jpg


And, just to complete the triad, here's the one for "Horizon":
IMG_0868.jpg


Some people like to harp on the sound quality of A&M reel to reel tapes, but they sound great to me... even the later 3 3/4 IPS tapes.
Plus, they're really clean sounding copies of the original issues, which is why I started collection the reel tapes anyway. At the time, I couldn't afford to collect the 1986 CD issues.
 
Yes, it is mine... and yes, it does sound awesome (even at 3 3/4 IPS!) I was listening to it while I was browsing the forum this morning, actually! That's what spurred me to look it up.

Normally I just lurk here at The Carpenters forum, but I actually posted about this back in '08 asking if "Passage" was the last reel to reel issued. (It is.)
This is what else came with the tape:
Carpenters4WEB.jpg

That is what was sent to the original Columbia Record Club member in December 1977 informing them that "Passage" would be sent to them in January of 1978 as the "Selection of the month". I have all 9 of the original Carpenters reel to reel tapes, and three of them are CRC issues. All three of those CRC issues have the sheet like the one above. I guess the person who subscribed to CRC was a huge Carpenters fan... because they kept up with those sheets for a month before the tape came!
This is the sheet for "A Kind of Hush":
Carpenters6WEB.jpg


And, just to complete the triad, here's the one for "Horizon":
IMG_0868.jpg


Some people like to harp on the sound quality of A&M reel to reel tapes, but they sound great to me... even the later 3 3/4 IPS tapes.
Plus, they're really clean sounding copies of the original issues, which is why I started collection the reel tapes anyway. At the time, I couldn't afford to collect the 1986 CD issues.

Sweet! Your collection must be worth quite a bit these days. Reel-to-reel is the coolest consumer home-audio format ever released IMO. Kind of mesmerizing watching those two huge reels going round and round, even more so than watching an LP spinning. Plus all that rich analog warmth without the ticks and pops of vinyl. Kind of a money pit for the average consumer though, lol. Have you digitized these for convenience yet?
 
Sweet! Your collection must be worth quite a bit these days.
I actually looked that up... and, according to recent eBay sales, all 9 original R2R albums together are worth $165.48 (not including the CRC extras).
As far as I'm concerned, $1,000,000 wouldn't get them out of my hands! LOL! But, you gotta tell the insurance man something if your house burns down. Good to keep an eye on investments....

Call me weird, but analogue Karen sounds much better than digital Karen. I'm going to hold onto my analogue Karen as long as I can!

Have you digitized these for convenience yet?
As soon as I received them! Tape stock degrades over time, and I wanted the sound more than the tapes... so I immediately transferred them. Luckily, all the reels I acquired were well-kept.

Thanks for the scans, never seen those before, I wish I could read it but the font is too tiny. Does the article in fine print below the photos talk about the album?
Those were photos. Give me a week or so, and I'll try to post some scans of the text for you.
It will just be the lower text, because my scanner won't take a page that large.
 
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Thanks, Victrolaguy,
Call me weird, also...I could/can part with my cd's....
but, never the Vinyl 45's, LP's, cassettes or 8-tracks.....
(not owning any reel-to-reels):
Analogue Karen does sound better than digital.....
 
In the notes for the song "Get Together" in the Alphabetical Listing, it says that Karen recorded the song live in 1968 for the "Sam Riddle Show". Didn't the "Your Navy Presents" recordings happen in 1970?
 
I'll defer that question to Chris, who wrote the notes section for that song.
 
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