THE SUMMER of 1966 brought several milestones in the lives of Karen and Richard Carpenter. Shortly after having joined forces with Magic Lamp Records, the Richard Carpenter Trio made it to the finals of the Seventh Annual Battle of the Bands, a prestigious talent competition held at the Hollywood Bowl. The event was sponsored by the County of Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation and dubbed “a musical showdown under the stars.” Open to nonprofessionals under the age of twenty-one, the contest began with hundreds of groups competing in five preliminary contests held around Los Angeles County. Acts were quickly narrowed to just three entries in each of the following categories: dance band, school band, combos, vocal soloists, and vocal groups.
On Friday night, June 24, the trio performed Richard’s multi–time signature arrangement of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “The Girl from Ipanema” and an original whole-tone-inspired jazz waltz entitled “Iced Tea,” an ode to their favorite beverage, featuring Wes Jacobs on tuba. From their introduction by master of ceremonies Jerry Dexter, the trio gained full audience attention before even playing a note. The sight of Karen sitting behind a drum kit with her hair piled high was definitely a novelty. “I remember when we walked into the Bowl there were twenty acts on the show, and I was still new to the drums,” Karen later explained to Ray Coleman. “It took me a while to set them up. We’d only been together for like six months, and what was even funnier, I couldn’t lift them. I couldn’t move them, so I had to have everybody carrying my drums, and then I put them together. All the guy drummers were hysterical.”
A lengthy drum solo in the middle of “Iced Tea” gave Karen an opportunity to demonstrate her technique. The enthusiastic audience responded with a roar of applause, cheers, and whistles, which even drowned out the music at one point on a recording of the evening’s performance. “By then she had gone from having a good rhythmical sense and steady time—the foundation you want—to being a very good player,” Frankie Chavez recalls. “She could make some male drummers stand up and take notice, and she actually could outplay some of them, too. She was that good. I thought she made very good progress for the very short time she’d been playing, and it’s a credit to her musicality.”
Despite having to play on a dreadful upright piano the night of the contest, Richard won outstanding instrumentalist. In addition to winning best combo, the trio took home the sweepstakes trophy for the highest overall score in the competition, beating out Gentlemen and Trombones, Inc. “They won!” Agnes Carpenter proudly exclaimed to Frank Pooler, phoning him the day after the Battle of the Bands. “It’s the biggest trophy I’ve ever seen in my life. My God, they’ve got to be good!”
Gerald Wilson, Calvin Jackson, Jerry Goldsmith, and Bill Holman joined Leonard Feather, chief jazz critic for the Los Angeles Times, as the official judges for the event. “The musical surprise of the evening was the Trio of Richard Carpenter,” wrote Feather, describing the group’s leader as a “remarkably original soloist who won awards as the best instrumentalist and leader of the best combo. Flanking his piano were Karen Carpenter, his talented sixteen-year-old sister at the drums, and bassist Wes Jacobs who doubled amusingly and confidently on tuba.” The competition was later broadcast in color on KNBC Channel 4 in Los Angeles.
“The Hollywood Bowl performance was a great place to get exposure,” Chavez says. “People that went there were oftentimes movers and shakers who could make things happen with a career. It was a good move.” On the way to their car following the win at the Bowl, Richard was approached by a man who congratulated the trio and asked if they would be interested in cutting some records. Richard told the man they already had a contract but took his business card anyway. Once Richard realized it was Neely Plumb, prominent West Coast A & R (artists and repertoire) man for RCA-Victor Records, he quickly explained the contract was only a solo singing contract for Karen with Magic Lamp. Plumb (whose daughter Eve would go on to star as Jan in the classic TV series The Brady Bunch) thought the idea of rock tuba might be the wave of the immediate future and wanted to spotlight Wes Jacobs.
The trio signed to RCA-Victor in September 1966 and soon cut eleven tracks, including instrumentals of the standard “Strangers in the Night” and the Beatles’ “Every Little Thing.” They also recorded “I’ve Never Been in Love Before” from the musical Guys and Dolls and a Richard original, “Flat Baroque.” Although he was excited to see the trio signed to a major record label, Richard shared with Plumb his concerns over the rock tuba approach, which he knew had little potential, and even the powers at RCA agreed. Richard told them of Karen’s voice and how she had been signed to a vocal contract earlier that year, but after agreeing to listen, the response was: “Just another folk-rock group. No thank you.” RCA decided against releasing the trio’s music, and the three soon left the label with a few hundred dollars and no record. They considered themselves to have been an artistic success but a commercial failure. “It was really great playing, but we didn’t really have that focus,” Wes Jacobs recalled. “Karen wasn’t singing, and the tuba wasn’t going to sell records. There was a lot of talent, but we didn’t have direction.”
Back on the campus at Cal State Long Beach, Richard spent many hours in the music department practice rooms, where he was able to focus on his own music. As he did on occasion, Richard consulted Frank Pooler for inspiration, in this case in planning their holiday music set. “We’re sure sick of ‘White Christmas,’ ‘Silent Night,’ and doing the same songs every night,” he told Pooler, asking for suggestions.
“I don’t know any new Christmas songs,” he replied, “but I wrote one a long time ago.”
Pooler had written “Merry Christmas, Darling” as a young man. In fact, he composed his original version in 1946, the year Richard was born. Twenty years later, in December 1966, Pooler shared “Merry Christmas, Darling” with Richard Carpenter. “[Richard] was writing tunes at that time,” says Pooler, “and I knew that whatever tune he could write would be better than the one I had already written, so I didn’t give him the tune. I just gave him the words.” Richard said he would work on a new melody, and about fifteen minutes later he was finished. “Merry Christmas, Darling” was written by two teenagers a generation apart. It was among the earliest songs Karen sang with the trio and would provide them with many successes in the years to come.
UPON GRADUATION from Downey High School in the spring of 1967, Karen was presented with the John Philip Sousa Band Award, the highest achievement for high school band students, recognizing superior musicianship and outstanding dedication. “She didn’t strike me as musically talented at first,” band director Gifford later recalled, “but I’ve learned to give people time before judging their talent.”
In a farewell message inscribed in mentor Frankie Chavez’s yearbook, Karen praised his abilities as a drummer and thanked him for inspiring and guiding her talents.
Frankie,
Listen man, it’s hard to believe it, but we made it. Anyway, it’s been a gas in every sense of the word. I can honestly say that it wouldn’t have been near as crazy without ya. I want to thank you for getting me interested in drums. I learned a great deal from you and I’ll always owe it to ya. . . . Oh well, it’s time to split so keep in touch in between gigs.
Love ya,
Karen ’67
3
STAND IN LINE, TRY TO CLIMB
A STRUGGLING POLITICAL science student from San Pedro who often slept on campus in his station wagon overnight, John Bettis had given up on his mother’s dream for him to become an international attorney. Entering Cal State Long Beach, the longhaired folk singer was known for his sense of humor and creativity. He knew very little about music theory but ended up joining Frank Pooler’s college choir as an elective. Still, he had a remarkable talent for writing lyrics.
“John used to slip me little notes,” Pooler recalls. “They were little pieces of poetry; his observations of rehearsals and observations he had about me. I thought they were really kind of beautiful and very
unusual.”
Bettis began to compile his observations for what became “A Cappella Music,” a composition that according to Pooler was not even considered a song. “It was a cantata!” he exclaims. John was quite sure he would be kicked out of the choir once they heard the finished product, which introduced the various sections of the choir and proceeded to poke fun at each with a tongue-in-cheek approach. The choir listened as Bettis struggled to premiere “A Cappella Music” with only a sparse guitar accompaniment. “Buddy, you need a pianist!” Richard blurted out before coming to Bettis’s rescue. Pooler had a feeling the young men’s talents might complement one another. “I thought they were a perfect pair so I said, ‘You guys should work together.’”
Richard and John Bettis shared a love of music, cars, and girls and became close friends. Agnes Carpenter was not as quick to welcome new faces into the Carpenter circle, especially someone with the gypsy existence of Bettis. She was infuriated to learn Richard was splitting performance fees equally with Bettis once they began playing various gigs together. She reminded Richard that he carried the musical load, and he was the only musically literate one of the two. In her opinion Bettis did not do enough or have the experience to warrant half of the profits.
Through mutual friend Doug Strawn, Richard and John learned of an opening for a ragtime piano-banjo act at Coke Corner on Disneyland’s Main Street U.S.A. The two were hired for the summer season of 1967 and worked eighteen-hour shifts. The musicians’ union salary of $180 per week was a fortune to two college students, but they wisely invested their earnings in musical instruments and sound equipment.
Disneyland’s entertainment supervisor, Vic Guder, made frequent stops throughout the park, walkie-talkie in hand, overseeing the park’s wide range of talent. He made certain all acts were in proper costume and performing in accordance with the park’s policies. Stopping by Coke Corner, Guder expected to hear turn-of-the-century ditties, like “A Bicycle Built for Two” and Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” and “The Entertainer.” Instead he discovered the duo granting requests from thirsty patrons wanting to hear modern tunes like “Light My Fire” and “Yesterday.” After months of gentle redirection by Guder, their time with Disneyland came to an end. “They had very strict regimens as to what one could and could not do in the park,” Bettis recalled. “Richard and I were fired for combing our hair in the park. Now, I grant you we did a lot of other things that did not please them before that time, but that actually caused us to be fired.”
According to Guder, the duo was never fired, the season merely came to an end. “Heck no, they weren’t fired,” he says. “Richard was hired for the summertime. He went back to school in the fall and didn’t plan to work full time. Coke Corner is a spot that is a part-time summer job. They’d come back when we’d use the Coke Corner pianist at night for private parties. It’s not a full-time gig.”
Seeking musical revenge, so to speak, the two set out to write a song about the incident immediately upon termination. “We got all the way to the bridge and didn’t finish it because I wasn’t at all sure that it was something that we ought to be doing,” Bettis said. “Richard really felt so strongly about it and liked the music well enough that he actually wrote the bridge to that, lyrically, and finished it.” Like many of their early musical collaborations, “Mr. Guder” was set aside and would resurface several years later.
FOLLOWING HER brother’s lead, Karen enrolled at Cal State Long Beach as a music major in the fall of 1967. Despite the beauty of her newly discovered chest voice, she was expected to use her head voice as it was better suited to the classical art song repertoire required of private voice students. She was also required to sing before a panel of professors called a jury for evaluation at the end of each semester. Such a critical review proved stressful for even the most accomplished musicians. With Larry Peterson, head of the music department, and several other members of the voice faculty present, Karen performed selections from her repertoire before Pooler interrupted. “Look, this is all so serious,” he told his colleagues. “This girl’s really versatile. Do you guys want a laugh?” Pooler urged Karen to do one of many impersonations he had witnessed in their lessons. In particular he requested the “spastic, harelipped singer.”
“They’ll kick me out of school,” Karen objected.
She was surprised and embarrassed by her teacher’s request, especially before such an esteemed gathering. “The thing that really endeared me to Karen,” Pooler recalls, “was the sense of humor she had about everything and how she could imitate people. She could do anything with her voice.”
Pooler was a bit of a maverick in the choral music world, displaying an eccentric approach to his style and work. He was never predictable—at least not musically. Opening the floor to members of the A Cappella Choir, Pooler would allow students to suggest music literature and styles. The subject of black spirituals surfaced. “I don’t want to do a piece that’s foreign to me,” Pooler told the choir. Though he was experienced in music sung in foreign languages, spirituals and gospel music were unfamiliar territory.
“Well, if you can’t show them, I’ll show them,” a voice said, and out stepped Wanda Freeman, one of the few African Americans in the choir. She faced the choir and began to sing.
“I had never done spirituals or black music,” Pooler says. “I just didn’t feel it, but she did. She was sensational. She was the start of a whole host of first-class gospel musicians that came out of that choir.”
Unlike other college choirs in the area that specialized in one style or another, Pooler’s groups tackled a wide range of choral genres. “Frank was very innovative,” Freeman recalls. “We were doing avant-garde stuff and things that other choirs had never done before; songs with just sounds and things. He was very open to trying gospel.”
Made popular by Blood, Sweat and Tears, “And When I Die” was one of several contemporary hits the choir performed. The gospel-style arrangement called for a duet, and Pooler chose the unlikely pairing of Wanda Freeman and Karen Carpenter. “Karen had a nice alto voice,” Freeman recalls. “I never really thought anything of it, but it was a very clear voice. When we did ‘And When I Die’ she really opened up. She really wanted to do that song.”
Pooler often praised Karen’s versatility as a singer and even used her as a model for other choir students. “Her range was spectacular,” he recalls. “She could sing higher than anybody else but also lower than anybody else. At that time her voice was like most adolescent voices. It was not completely unified from the top to the bottom, but she knew how to do it.”
WITH THE departure of bassist Wes Jacobs, who in 1967 left the Richard Carpenter Trio and Los Angeles to study classical tuba at Juilliard, Richard was open to exploring new musical opportunities. He had long been fond of vocal ensembles like the Hi-Lo’s, the Four Freshmen, and the Beach Boys. He had also enjoyed the close harmony sounds of overdubbing pioneers Les Paul and Mary Ford since childhood. But it was Frank Pooler’s choral influence that left a lasting impression on both him and Karen. His philosophy stressed vocal blend, vowel shaping, and precise attack and release. These fundamentals were the basis for what would ultimately become the trademark Carpenters sound.
Richard’s first attempt at forming a vocal group produced a quintet assembled during Karen’s senior year of high school. They called themselves Summerchimes but soon renamed the group Spectrum. Their first recruit was John Bettis, who sang and played rhythm guitar. Over a period of several months, he, Karen, and Richard conducted informal auditions to complete the group. Gary Sims lived in Downey and, like Karen, was still attending high school when the group originated. “He used to perform with an acoustic guitar, like a folk singer,” recalled Bettis, who went with Richard to catch Sims’s act. “He had this great baritone voice and joined the group as a guitar player.” The final recruit was Dan Woodhams, a tenor vocalist enlisted to sing and play bass guitar, although he “didn’t have a clue how to play the bass,” according to Bett
is. “He played violin, so Richard actually taught him how to play the bass. Danny was the final member. That was the original Spectrum.”
The addition of Leslie “Toots” Johnston in the fall of 1967 made the group a sextet. “Johnny Bettis and Gary Sims were friends of mine,” Johnston recalls. “Gary was the Carpenters’ neighbor, and they were looking for another girl to add to the group. They listened to me, and I had a good pop voice style. Richard was looking for someone who could blend with Karen, which I did very well.” A member of the college choir, Johnston sat next to Karen in the alto section during the daily afternoon rehearsals. “We threw jokes back and forth and got along really well,” she says. “Karen was such a great musician but didn’t read music as well as I did, so she listened to me for the part. We struck up a friendship. She had a dry sense of humor and was funny. She thought I was funny, too. She didn’t have a lot of girlfriends, so I think Karen enjoyed having another female around.”
Spectrum rehearsed in the garage at the house on Fidler, where there was never a shortage of Agnes Carpenter’s famous iced tea—the perfect blend of Lipton instant tea and frozen lemonade. “There had to be a jug of that on the table for every rehearsal,” Johnston recalls. “That was the drink!”
KAREN BECAME increasingly mindful of her appearance during her first year of college. She had been chubby as a kid. In fact, Richard often called her Fatso (to which she would reply, “Four eyes!”). It was the type of teasing characteristic of most sibling relationships. But as a seventeen-year-old young woman, Karen was five feet four inches tall and weighed 145 pounds. Her classic hourglass figure was a common trait among family members, including her mother and aunt Bernice. “I was heavier,” Karen said in a 1973 interview. “About twenty pounds heavier, to tell you the truth. I was just tired of being fat so I went on a diet. . . . I found this sweater I used to wear in high school. Good Lord, I think I could get into it three times today. I don’t know how I ever got through a door.”
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