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Introduction 1) Nurtured By Music 2) Turning Point 3) Enter Karen, The Singer 4) Rising Stars5) Carpenters Join A&M 6) On The Charts 7) The Carpenters Legacy 8) At A Cost9) Reaching The TV Special Pinnacle and Other Spectacular Achievements10) Last Performance, Continued Success
He heard more music on the radio, and soon he was asking his parents to buy him some of the records he heard. Guy Mitchell, Perry Como, Patti Page and Nat King Cole were particular favorites, as were guitarist Les Paul and his wife Mary Ford, and he also enjoyed both the Dixieland jazz of Red Nichols and the comedy of Spike Jones and his City Slickers.
At the age of eight, he started to play some music himself. His first instrument was the accordion, but he soon abandoned that in favor of the piano. By the time he was 15, he was studying piano at Yale and was part of a piano/bass/drums trio, playing at venues in and around New Haven.
Richard attended Downey High School as a senior and during this time studied piano at the University of Southern California. Informed that he could be transferred out of physical education if he were a member of the high school marching band, he was faced with the problem that the piano is not a particularly portable instrument. Upon hearing him play however, the band’s director, Bruce Gifford, asked him to play piano with the concert band in a class performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue. Gifford went on to invite Richard to join his own combo playing music outside the high school itself. By late 1964 Karen’s musical talent was awakening. Now a first-year student at Downey High School and playing glockenspiel in the marching band, she was inspired by the drumming ability of band mate Frankie Chavez. She went home and started adding her own rhythm accompaniments to some of her records, using a pair of chopsticks and a set of bar stools as her drum kit. When her parents responded by buying her a proper drum set, she was able to play it instantly, and before long the idea of some kind of Carpenters group had been born. Karen was just 15 when the Carpenter Trio was formed. The brother and sister teamed up with a classmate Richard had met in June of 1965, tuba and bass player Wes Jacobs, to play jazz. At Richard’s urging, Karen would sing an occasional selection but primarily the trio was an instrumental outfit, as Karen’s distinctive singing voice was just developing and she was not very happy with the sound. By early 1966, however, Karen’s voice had matured quite a bit and, while still a bit rough around the edges, had developed enough to attract the interest of more than a few.
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Last Updated June 4, 2008May 2004 © Richard Carpenter
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