She began to study the drums in high school and joined the Long Beach State choir after graduating. Moved with their parents to California in 1963 and settled in Los Angeles. “I believed in Karen as a singer, myself as an arranger, and the two of us as a sound.They were born in New Haven, Connecticut, Richard Lynn Carpenter (born in 1946) and Karen Anne Carpenter (in 1950). “You know, we were a pair of kids from the suburbs,” he says. While he can never forget the heartbreaking circumstances of his sister’s death, Richard would prefer if fans focus instead on the Carpenters’ musical legacy. She was released in time for Thanksgiving but died three months later. After her weight continued to sink, she was hospitalized at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital, where a feeding tube meant to nourish her accidentally punctured one of Karen’s lungs. Richard believes the medical establishment failed her, and it’s something he still gets upset about.Ī famed psychotherapist treated her in 1982, but did “nothing to help her,” Richard says. Over the years, Karen sought therapy for her anorexia. In 1979, he entered rehab and successfully kicked his addiction. “I just lost my will to do much of anything,” says Richard, who calls their 1978 album, Christmas Portrait, “not a true Carpenters Christmas record” because he did very few of the arrangements. At one point, the 6-foot-tall musician weighed a skeletal 140 pounds. As his tolerance grew, he began skipping meals. Richard, meanwhile, became addicted to Quaaludes, which he’d begun taking to help him sleep. “Nonetheless, she continued to sing as beautifully as ever.” “It had gotten so bad that she had to lie down between shows,” Richard recalls. “Richard said she liked to work more than he did.”īut by 1975, she weighed just 91 pounds. “Whenever Karen was struggling with anything, she threw herself into her work,” explains author Chris May. Yet no matter how thin or weak she looked, she always rose to the occasion. Karen’s dieting, which she began in earnest in 1967, became a bigger obsession. We said, ‘We hate it.’ They said, ‘Learn to love it.’ We never learned to love it.”Īs their stars rose higher, the pressures increased. “They showed up with this heart album cover. The pair hated the album cover art for Close to You, but were bullied into accepting it. “If you look at those schedules, especially all those one-nighters, we didn’t need to be doing them,” says Richard, who notes that the Carpenters did not have a manager to protect them. Very quickly, the Carpenters became a marquee act, and the pressure on the two siblings from the L.A. “It’s still my proudest achievement,” Richard says. Their first album didn’t go anywhere, but their second included the single “(They Long to Be) Close to You.” The song had been previously recorded by Dionne Warwick, Dusty Springfield and actor Richard Chamberlain - but Richard’s fresh arrangement and Karen’s warm caramel voice took it to No. Karen was just 19 and Richard was 23 when they signed with A&M Records in 1969. We were headlining Vegas a little over a year from when we hit. “We really were an overnight sensation,” he says. Inside Karen Carpenter's Struggle With Anorexia Nervosa: 'She Was Afraid of Food'Īlong the way, Richard also hopes to set the record straight on some of the myths and rumors surrounding Karen’s illness, his own struggle with addiction and the pressure and stress that fame put on their lives. Richard allowed the authors access to previously unpublished private photos, tour itineraries and other memorabilia from the heady days when the Carpenters were “on top of the world.” While it’s impossible not to mourn the tragic loss of Karen at age 32, a new book, Carpenters: The Musical Legacy, by Mike Cidoni Lennox and Chris May with Richard Carpenter, seeks to put the focus back on the music. We would have had hundreds of recordings we’d already done, and we’d still be making more. “She’d be 71 now, and I’m certain she’d be absolutely fabulous. “Karen was silenced way too soon,” he tells Closer. Today, her brother, Richard, 74, keeps a copy of that photo on a table in his living room in Los Angeles. Sadly, a mere 24 days after the photo was taken, Karen would be dead from heart failure caused by years of eating issues. In it, the brother-sister duo, who sold more than 30 million records, smile alongside Dionne Warwick, Glen Campbell, Gladys Knight and other music luminaries. At the 25th annual Grammy Awards, Richard and Karen Carpenter joined other past winners for a group portrait.
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