Little Girl Blue (21 page)

In a variation on her standard end-of-show monologue, Karen thanked Pooler and the orchestra before going on to say, “I know I speak for all the people that are associated with Richard and me when I say that being invited to the White House to perform, or just being invited to the White House
period
, is not only a thrill, but it's indeed an honor.” She then addressed Chancellor Brandt directly, saying, “Gute Nacht. Auf Wiedersehen.”

President Nixon joined the band onstage as a standing ovation spread across the East Room. “We do have dancing afterward,” he announced, “but we can't afford the Carpenters!”

D
URING THE
summer tour of 1972, the Carpenters introduced a medley of oldies, songs from the 1950s and 1960s that were enjoying a renaissance at the time. In fact, entire radio stations were switching to an all oldie format. Working toward their fifth album release, Karen and Richard realized there was only enough new material for one side of an LP. Desperation and a lack of time fueled Richard's visualization of an entire side of an album dedicated to a version of their oldies medley that would be bookended with an anthem with the message conveying “the oldies are back!” He asked John Bettis to come up with a list of possible song titles. The list of at least thirty prospective titles was narrowed to one favorite, “Yesterday Once More.” The anthem was born as Richard drove up Highland Avenue on his way to A&M. He heard a melody and the start of a song lyric in his head. Arriving at the studio, he played his ideas for Karen and later came up with a first verse.

When I was young I'd listen to the radio

Waitin' for my favorite songs

When they played I'd sing along

It made me smile

Richard returned to Bettis, who created a temporary or “dummy” lyric for the chorus with every intention of reworking the words at a later time. “
Well, are you going to
change this now?” Richard asked as the song neared completion.

“You know what,” Bettis replied, “I don't think so! I think it sounds great this way.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No,” Bettis said. “This ‘Sha-la-la-wo-wo-wo' stuff sounds pretty good!”

A leftover song title suggested by Agnes Carpenter, “Now and Then,” became the name of the new Carpenters album released May 1, 1973, the day of the duo's White House performance. An impressive tri-gatefold cover illustrated Karen and Richard driving past their huge Downey home in Richard's red 1972 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona. The “Now” side of the LP began with its debut single, which hailed from television's
Sesame Street
and composer Joe Raposo. Karen and Richard first heard “Sing” while taping a television special called
Robert Young with the Young
for NBC-TV. The catchy melodic hook left everyone on the set singing and humming the song.

Richard was so taken with “Sing” that he started arranging their version while on set at NBC studios. The finished product featured the Jimmy Joyce Children's Choir on the sing-along “la-la” sections, but it was hardly the type of single the group needed at the time. “The Munchkin Song,” some fans called it. A&M did not want to release “Sing” as a single, but Richard was confident of its commercial potential. He was right, and “Sing” went to #3 on the U.S. charts. When performing the song in concert, the Carpenters often solicited the help of local children's choirs.

The crowning jewel of
Now and Then
came in the form of a Leon Russell tune from his
Carney
album. Overlooked as a single due to its duration, “This Masquerade” was one of the Carpenters' most sophisticated recordings ever, with its haunting melody, Karen's intricate drum track, and an impressive flute solo by Bob Messenger.

Rounding out side A was the Carpenters' 1972 cover of Hank Williams's country classic “Jambalaya (on the Bayou),” completed for this album and released as a single in the United Kingdom. “I Can't Make Music” was penned by occasional opening act Randy Edelman and perfectly suited for the Carpenters treatment. “
The Carpenters have gone awry
,” wrote outspoken rock critic Lester Bangs in his review of
Now and Then
. “Side One's alright, just what you needed; more of that nice, syrupy, ultra commercial pap. ‘Sing' is one of their all time best singles, and the essence of the act: ‘Sing of good things not bad.' But Karen's reading of ‘Jambalaya' is almost as bad as John Fogerty's, and there may be gray clouds passing over Carpenterland because she
manages to sound almost
used
in Leon Russell's ‘This Masquerade' while ‘I Can't Make Music' is the Carpenters' hymn of despair like Traffic's ‘Sometimes I Feel So Uninspired.'”

The “Then” side of the
Now and Then
LP began with “Yesterday Once More” and, as planned, the monstrous medley of oldies that Richard crafted to emulate a Top 40 radio show. Each selection segued into the next and was joined by the radio deejay antics of multitalented guitarist Tony Peluso. Narrowing down their favorites, Karen and Richard settled on a list including “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “The End of the World,” “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Dead Man's Curve,” “Johnny Angel,” “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes,” “Our Day Will Come,” and “One Fine Day.” Their “Yesterday Once More” single went on to become the duo's fifth #2, placing them in a three-way tie with Creedence Clearwater Revival and Elvis Presley for the most #2 singles in chart history. The song also proved to be the Carpenters' biggest worldwide hit and at one point was #1 in Belgium, England, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Venezuela.

B
Y THE
time President Richard M. Nixon had declared the Carpenters to be “young America at its very best,” Karen and Richard were three years into what became a futile struggle for control over their public image, and an endorsement from Nixon only worked against their cause. Early attempts to establish a true identity with the media were brought to a halt by their publicists and record label. But before they were specifically coached by management on how to handle interviewers and questioning, the Carpenters gave several revealing interviews including one in 1970 with Chicago radio legend Dick Biondi. Religion, politics, and current affairs were discussed, and neither Carpenter held back.

BIONDI
: What are your feelings on the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War?

KAREN
: Oh, I think I'd better let him steam first.

RICHARD
: I'm completely against it.

KAREN
: I think it's a complete waste . . .

RICHARD
: First of all, nothing's ever going to be settled. It's like the Korean War. Nothing ever came to a complete end. It's been bubbling over there ever since. That was never won or lost. It just sort of terminated. Nothing was ever settled, and this is never going to be settled because it's not an all-out war. It's an “involvement.” They don't even call it a war.

KAREN
: They never even
declared
one. It's ridiculous.

RICHARD
: And they're over their piddling around. One cat shoots so many one day, and then they shoot back the next day. If you're going to have a war, as much as I am against killing or anything like it, you ought to get in there and
do it
.

On the subject of censorship, Karen explained she felt it could be “very confining. It can be very destructive.” Asked about her religious views she told Biondi, “I don't need to go to church and listen to some preacher tell me what to believe in. I don't dig that at all.” Richard expressed his disgust with the state of organized religion and called it “hypocrisy personified.”

Although the interview was one of the first to allow the Carpenters the opportunity to voice their opinions on important and relevant topics, it would be the last. Their publicist was furious. “Most people were asking them about their songs and stuff, so I went into the drugs and Vietnam,” Biondi recalls. “I was very proud of myself because I could see their promotion man getting more and more upset.”

According to Richard, following the Biondi interview, they were coached by the publicists to avoid controversial topics and anything not in keeping with the image prescribed for them. “
We were told
when you go out to do interviews, don't say anything adverse about anything. Everything is groovy. Everything is terrific. Don't say anything bad. Don't say you dislike anything. You like everything. And we went along with it.”

Meet the Carpenters—A&M Records' young brother-sister hit-makers whose gentle harmony, wholesome image and natural, unpretentious personalities have virtually crashed through to make
them the nation's number one recording team. Their sonorous magic has endeared them to music fans of every age and taste, and may be marking the beginning of a new musical mood for the '70s, bringing back the three H's—hope, happiness and harmony. With soft-pedaled persistence and talent galore, these melodic siblings have revolutionized the music industry.

It was through promotional blurbs such as this 1971 press release that A&M Records crafted their image of the Carpenters, and it quickly caught on. “
Real nice American kids
—in 1971!” wrote
Stereo Review
, saying they were “friendly people, outgoing, well-mannered, casually but tidily dressed, hard-working—and talented. No protest. No defiance. No porn. No blasphemy. No tripping.” And according to the
Washington Post
: “
Karen may eat
a peanut butter cup for quick energy, but not an amphetamine, and there are no groupies camped out in hotels where the Carpenters stay. Autograph hounds perhaps, but not groupies. ‘No,' said Karen. ‘We don't seem to attract that crowd.'”

The rock press of the early 1970s in effect bullied the Carpenters, and because their music went against the grain of rock standards, they were often relegated to second-class status. Although they were not a rock band, more often than not they were reviewed by rock critics. “
They were not rock
,” explained journalist Rob Hoerburger in a 2008 documentary, “they were not jazz, they were not country, they were not classical, but they had facets of all of that in their music. When you put all of those facets together what you get is this really amazing pop gem.”

According to Paul Williams, “The Carpenters were truly one of the first great alternative bands. ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' was the huge #1 album shortly before ‘Close to You' and ‘Begun' were hits. I was so different from them, too. I was such a raging hippie. I was pretty much a part of the counterculture yet writing songs for Karen and Richard and a lot of other middle-of-the-road acts.” Williams was quite a sight on the A&M lot in those days. Often he wore tie-dyed shirts, round glasses, and work boots, with a black top hat resting atop his shoulder-length hair. Leaning on a railing outside an A&M office one afternoon, he noticed Bing Crosby waiting outside the studios for his driver to
arrive. “He looked at me, said something, and pointed, like what is this world coming to?” Williams says. “He didn't know who I was then. That was before I became known as an entertainer and Crosby recorded ‘We've Only Just Begun.'”

Writing for
Rolling Stone
in 1971, Lester Bangs was the first of many who found more at fault with the Carpenters' appearance than their brand of music. “
I would say
that they have the most disconcerting collective stage presence of any band I've ever seen,” he wrote of a concert in San Diego, California. “Besides being a motley crew, they are individually peculiar-looking. Here it becomes almost cruel to go on, but there is no getting around it, especially since most of the music was so bland and their demeanor so remarkable that you could spend the entire concert wondering at the latter without once getting bored. I found the band almost like tintypes of themselves. . . . I'll never be able to hear ‘We've Only Just Begun' without thinking, not of a sentimental autumn as I used to, but inevitably of that disgruntled collection of faces.” Bangs also mentioned their image: “The LP cover and promo pix showed 'em side by side, identical, interchangeable boy-girl faces grinning out at you with all the cheery innocence of some years-past dream of California youth. Almost like a better-scrubbed reincarnation of Sonny and Cher.”