Your First Carpenters Album?
- Thread starter Simon KC1950
- Start date
tomswift2002
Well-Known Member
The first single I bought was the 45 of "A Kind Of Hush" that I found at a thrift store in Winnipeg in the summer of 2000. When I was able to play it back in Ontario, I was surprised to find that the 45 sounded as if it had had only one or two spins. Most 33's and 45's that I had bought from thrift stores in Ontario had had quite a few scratches that usually made a lot of surface noise.
__michael__
Well-Known Member
I purchased Close To You, followed by Carpenters, followed by Ticket to Ride from the Gemco store located a mile for K&R's Downey home. Those were the days...
Graeme
Well-Known Member
Interpretations. 25 December 1994. I was 18 and I'd seen a video for Trying To Get The Feeling Again on the Chart Show and asked for the album for Christmas. I'd never heard of the Carpenters before.
I recently found a Christmas home video which shows me reading the liner notes whilst listening to Calling Occupants for the first time. What it doesn't capture is the panicked rush to the stereo when the track began and I mistook the radio tuning bit for the cassette getting mangled!
I recently found a Christmas home video which shows me reading the liner notes whilst listening to Calling Occupants for the first time. What it doesn't capture is the panicked rush to the stereo when the track began and I mistook the radio tuning bit for the cassette getting mangled!
newvillefan
I Know My First Name Is Stephen
I videotaped that clip and then later lost it. The promo for that has never surfaced since its airing on Top Of The Pops 2 on BBC2 in 1994 but it was amazingly well put together, with snippets of Karen from other promo videos matching her mouth to the lyrics of the song.
Graeme
Well-Known Member
Top Of The Pops 2 would make more sense than the Chart Show. All I really remember of the video was the Disneyland Dumbo ride footage. I look on YouTube for it every so often, but nothing as yet. I miss Top Of The Pops 2.
__michael__
Well-Known Member
Well, I was quite young then (age 14) so I wasn't 'out and about much'. But, I do remember seeing the Carpenters road van at the Gemco store and I believe it was being driven by Mark Rudolph. Other than a concert at the then 'Universal Amphitheater' in 1973 as part of the Now & Then tour, I didn't see Karen and Richard in person. I do remember though some other kids in high school talked about knocking on the Newville door around Thanksgiving time and seeing Karen.
tomswift2002
Well-Known Member
I actually got Interprestations on cassette first, but then a month after buying it Side 1 went all wonky on me (and yet Side 2 played fine, but Side 1 went where it sounded like the tape wasn't going past the head fast enough, so it was really low and garbled), so I returned the cassette to the store and paid the difference for the CD that I now have.
That's so cool! Thanks for sharing these memories. I also saw them 'live' in 1973 on the same tour just a few weeks before 'Now And Then' was released.
Ironically, Karen was shopping at the same Gemco store the day before her passing, according to the 'Little Girl Blue' bio.
Must Hear This Album
Well-Known Member
I had an unfair advantage, because my older sister had purchased all the studio albums (except for TTR), and I didn’t start really paying attention to the albums until the 6th grade, in 1983, shortly after Karen died. I remember lining up the albums chronologically, and, one-by-one, absorbing them, song-by-song. It took me about a month to immerse myself in each individual album before moving to the next one, spending another month in analysis, making note of stylistic progression on each successive album.
I treasure that year of discovery and have subsequently (and in similar form) explored back catalogues of other late discoveries (for me), like The Beatles, America, Carly Simon, James Taylor, and Carole King. The first Carpenters album I purchased with my own money was Singles 69-73. Ticket To Ride was a Christmas gift in 1984, “completing" the studio album collection, and as I’ve noted here, before, I remember thinking my turntable was broken when I first heard Karen’s early vocals (that I’ve subsequently grown to love...).
I treasure that year of discovery and have subsequently (and in similar form) explored back catalogues of other late discoveries (for me), like The Beatles, America, Carly Simon, James Taylor, and Carole King. The first Carpenters album I purchased with my own money was Singles 69-73. Ticket To Ride was a Christmas gift in 1984, “completing" the studio album collection, and as I’ve noted here, before, I remember thinking my turntable was broken when I first heard Karen’s early vocals (that I’ve subsequently grown to love...).
jaredjohnfisher
Well-Known Member
I had, of course, heard their singles on the radio and on TV specials, and heard the Close To You album played at my (older) cousin's house, but the album I begged for and received for my 13th birthday was A SONG FOR YOU. (I later backtracked and got the earlier albums I'd missed.)
Superstar
Rainy Day and Monday Specialist
I got the Yesterday Once More dual cassette tape set for Christmas. I almost panicked because I couldn't remember at first! How does one (almost) forget their first album? That same Christmas, before I opened The YOM set, my stepdad had taken a blank cassette holder, put a small measuring tape and packing material around it (so that it wouldn't rattle in the case) and wrapped it. I was confused when I opened it and he laughed and said, "Hey, you said you wanted a Carpenters' tape for Christmas, didn't you!?" I was not amused. I was probably 12.
Another Son
Well-Known Member
By the time I was eight or nine, I had a sense that I especially liked Carpenters' music, because I regularly heard their songs on the transistor radio that my older sisters, a couple of years before, had started tuning to the one local pop music station, instead of the one available classical music station that my Mum and Dad constantly listened to, when they weren't out working.
I have a vivid memory of 'The End of the World' playing on the family car's radio when we were all out for a family drive one Sunday when I was eight or nine. Right at the end of the song, where Karen hits the low notes, my oldest sister said, 'Karen Carpenter has a strange voice'. I thought, 'I really like it'.
I can also clearly remember riding through the countryside on the school bus when I was about the same age, looking out on wintery paddocks and scrub, listening to 'It's Going to Take Some Time' coming over the bus radio. I was already really into the song - it must have been a current hit - but that day, the lines, 'Like the young trees in the winter time, I'll learn how to bend' really impressed themselves upon me.
At ten, I saw the single for 'For All we Know' in the local shop and asked my Mum to buy it for me for Christmas, but I wasn't exactly sure which song it was. When I played it on Christmas Day, I said, just after reading the title, "Ah! Good! It's 'Strangers In Many Ways!" My Mum laughed and said, "It's called 'For All we Know!"
By these quite early childhood years, Carpenters' sound had already made such an impression on me that I would stop and listen when they came over the radio, or sing along.
There were around 1,500 people in the 45 or so square miles that made up the district where I grew up. There were around nine shops and farming supplies stores in the local town. The next closest town, about the same size, was 25 miles away. One of our stores was extra-dark and dusty and sold washing machines, bikes, nuts and bolts and stocked just two or three records. When I was in there one day at the age of ten, the one record on display was 'Great Hits of the Carpenters, Volume 2, 1969 to 1973', (a recent release). I begged my sisters to help me buy it. Better than that - they scraped all their five cent coins from their pocket money together and bought it for my 11th birthday.
I think they regretted it later, because I used to play this album non-stop and sing along whenever I wasn't outside being active.
It's incredible to think that Carpenters were already providing the soundtrack of my life in my single-digit years. I must admit that I haven't listened to them much over the last ten years or so, but I still look back with a sense of nostalgia at the time when simple life experiences, family, nature, pets, the outdoors, music and my little world in the Australian bush were the essence of existence.
I have a vivid memory of 'The End of the World' playing on the family car's radio when we were all out for a family drive one Sunday when I was eight or nine. Right at the end of the song, where Karen hits the low notes, my oldest sister said, 'Karen Carpenter has a strange voice'. I thought, 'I really like it'.
I can also clearly remember riding through the countryside on the school bus when I was about the same age, looking out on wintery paddocks and scrub, listening to 'It's Going to Take Some Time' coming over the bus radio. I was already really into the song - it must have been a current hit - but that day, the lines, 'Like the young trees in the winter time, I'll learn how to bend' really impressed themselves upon me.
At ten, I saw the single for 'For All we Know' in the local shop and asked my Mum to buy it for me for Christmas, but I wasn't exactly sure which song it was. When I played it on Christmas Day, I said, just after reading the title, "Ah! Good! It's 'Strangers In Many Ways!" My Mum laughed and said, "It's called 'For All we Know!"
By these quite early childhood years, Carpenters' sound had already made such an impression on me that I would stop and listen when they came over the radio, or sing along.
There were around 1,500 people in the 45 or so square miles that made up the district where I grew up. There were around nine shops and farming supplies stores in the local town. The next closest town, about the same size, was 25 miles away. One of our stores was extra-dark and dusty and sold washing machines, bikes, nuts and bolts and stocked just two or three records. When I was in there one day at the age of ten, the one record on display was 'Great Hits of the Carpenters, Volume 2, 1969 to 1973', (a recent release). I begged my sisters to help me buy it. Better than that - they scraped all their five cent coins from their pocket money together and bought it for my 11th birthday.
I think they regretted it later, because I used to play this album non-stop and sing along whenever I wasn't outside being active.
It's incredible to think that Carpenters were already providing the soundtrack of my life in my single-digit years. I must admit that I haven't listened to them much over the last ten years or so, but I still look back with a sense of nostalgia at the time when simple life experiences, family, nature, pets, the outdoors, music and my little world in the Australian bush were the essence of existence.
Last edited:
newvillefan
I Know My First Name Is Stephen
Great post!
That last note on End Of The World has always jarred with me. The syllable it ends on, coupled with that low note, makes it sound like she's saying "aaah" at the dentist. It doesn't sounds natural at all and really spoils an otherwise beautiful reading and version.
Another Son
Well-Known Member
Lol. I like that last note. Thanks for your comment, newvillefan.
Carl
Well-Known Member
My first album was Gold. It was my mums and she got it from a friend. Once I heard Yesterday Once More I was hooked and played the song on repeat. I eventually wore the cd out through excessive play and found a book on Karen Carpenter in my school library and printed out a list of the other albums and began my hunt for them. Now I have most albums and some greatest hits albums.
CraigGA
Well-Known Member
The Singles 1969-1973 was my first album purchase of the Carpenters in 1973 at the age of 12. Before then, I had bought my first single which was Yesterday Once More. I found Karen's voice to be a slice of heaven, and I still feel that way today. Since then, whenever I play any songlist, there is a Carpenters song in rotation. Most of my friends feel I have a strange addiction to the Carpenters and I must admit that I do. If I go a few days without listening I shift into overdrive on the day I open iTunes for listening pleasure. About once a month I even dig out some CD's for more serious listening. The SACD is my favorite. I wish they were all on SACD.
Jeff
Well-Known Member
You said a mouthful!'Close To You' LP, Christmas, 1970, at age 8.
And I haven't been the same since.
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