Little Girl Blue

by Randy L. Schmidt

  According to Evelyn Wallace, “It was stuff like that we just kind of skirted around. A person’s always allowed to take time off. You don’t have to tell people what it’s for.”

  Phil Ramone recalls that Karen was very frustrated once rumors of a Carpenters breakup began to spread. “That was the thing that drove her crazy,” he says. “The 1970s saw the breakup of Peter, Paul and Mary, Crosby, Stills and Nash. They were all going out on solo careers. People thought if you left a group you never came back or would never work together again. They could never leave the roost. Not in that family.”

  In a 1981 interview with Paul Grein, Karen expressed in no uncertain terms that her solo album was never meant to signal an end to the Carpenters as a duo. “It was never planned for me to drop the Carpenters and go cut a solo—that would never happen, ever! If Richard hadn’t gone on vacation, I never would have done the solo album.”

  With flights and studio time booked, Karen’s loyalty to Richard still weighed heavily on the eve of her departure for New York. Having completed Menninger’s six-week program, Richard spent much of 1979 visiting friends around the country, relaxing, and putting on some of the weight lost during the crisis. He avoided the stress of the business and even his home life, taking up residence in the Long Beach home of Gary Sims and Dennis Strawn, brother of Doug. On the evening of April 30, Karen phoned Richard at Sims’s house, hoping to get his blessing before embarking on the project. She knew very well he did not and would not approve, but she made the call regardless. Distraught and in tears, she told him, “I can’t go do this unless I know that you’re behind it.”

  In an attempt to pacify Karen, Richard offered his blessing. But before their conversation ended he asked that she promise him one thing: “Do me one favor. Do not do disco!”

  At the Thirteenth Annual Grammy Awards, March 16, 1971. Author’s Collection

  Carpenter family Christmas card sent to fan club members, 1972. Author’s Collection

  Newville at Christmas, 1972. Ken Bertwell

  Between shows in Acapulco, June 1973. Maria Luisa Galeazzi

  At a softball game with Richard in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, July 1973. Maria Luisa Galeazzi

  At Pie de la Questa with Richard and Maria Galeazzi. “If we went anywhere it was the three of us,” Maria says. “Every place we went it was like she and I and Richard. It got old for me, let me tell you.” Maria Luisa Galeazzi

  With boyfriend Mike Curb on a boat in San Diego Harbor, 1974. Mike Curb

  Striking a comedic pose on stage for a fan at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas, 1976. Rhonda Ramirez

  1975 tour program. Author’s Collection

  With the Leffler “kidlets,” Ashley and Andrew, Karen’s godchildren. Frenda Franklin

  Karen shows off her diamond ring to wedding guest Olivia Newton-John. Frank Bonito

  The beautiful bride on her wedding day, August 31, 1980. Frank Bonito

  Agnes Carpenter and son share a dance as the Michael Paige Big Band entertains at the Beverly Hills Hotel wedding reception. Frank Bonito

  With Tom Burris, fall 1980. Globe Photos

  Terribly thin and looking exhausted, Karen prepares to depart Rio’s Jobim International Airport, November 1981. Vitor Bruno/Brazilian Carpenters Friends Club

  At Radio Cidade, Rio de Janeiro, November, 1981. Sydney Junior/Brazilian Carpenters Friends Club

  Karen’s final public appearance came January 11, 1983, at CBS Television City, where she and Richard (fourth row, second and third from left) attended a photo shoot with past Grammy recipients. “Look at me, I’ve got an ass!” she exclaimed to Dionne Warwick. The Recording Academy

  The original Carpenter crypt at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress, California. Randy Schmidt

  Promotional poster for the 1996 release of Karen Carpenter, the original, unreleased solo sessions. A&M Records

  The Carpenter Exhibit on display in the foyer of the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center on the campus of California State University at Long Beach. Randy Schmidt

  The Carpenters’ star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 6931 Hollywood Boulevard. Randy Schmidt

  Cynthia Gibb and Mitchell Anderson star in the 1989 biopic The Karen Carpenter Story. CBS-TV

  13

  POCKETS FULL OF GOOD INTENTIONS

  WITH GREAT anticipation and a mix of emotions, Karen boarded a plane bound for New York on the morning of May 1, 1979. Production meetings commenced the following day with Phil Ramone asking, “Ideally, what would you like to do?”

  “Well, I love Donna Summer,” Karen replied, explaining how Summer’s latest single “Hot Stuff” was her current favorite. “I’d give anything if we could do a song like that!” This certainly surprised Ramone. Disregarding her brother’s plea, she went on to explain that, in addition to singers like Aretha Franklin and Barbra Streisand, she loved just about anything of the disco genre.

  Karen took up residence in a posh suite at the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue. She was fascinated by the panoramic views of the New York skyline and the idea that there were butlers assigned to every floor, but within weeks the novelty of the revered Central Park address wore thin. “We were talking about stupid expenses and the hotel,” Ramone recalls. “I said to Karen, ‘Why would you want to do that? If we’re going to work together, why don’t you come live at my house? We’ve got plenty of room.’”

  Ramone proceeded to move Karen into the master suite of the relaxing estate he shared with girlfriend Karen Ichiuji in Pound Ridge, a small town on the New York and Connecticut border. The quaint surroundings of this rural community were much like Hall Street from Karen’s childhood. The two Karens quickly became close friends. Ichiuji was a singer herself who recorded under the name Karen Kamon and would later contribute the song “Manhunt” to the popular motion picture soundtrack for Flashdance. Phil called her K.K., but Karen preferred her own silly nickname of Itchie. Living together allowed producer and artist to discuss plans for the solo project around the clock. “She was a workaholic,” Ramone says. “That house was a very creative house for me, and it was for her, too.”

  Karen and Phil set out to establish a common vision. Their hour-long commute from Pound Ridge to Manhattan’s A&R Studios, located at 322 West Forty-Eighth, allowed the two to peruse demos for the project. “The laughs and silliness we shared on those trips forever made us friends,” Ramone recalled in his book, Making Records: The Scenes Behind the Music. “While we were driving, Karen would be the DJ, playing all the songs that had been submitted for her consideration. She’d sit with a legal pad, listen intently and rate them. ‘Should this be on the A list, or the B?’ she’d ask.”

  During these initial stages, Ramone extended an invitation to friend Rod Temperton to come to New York to write for Karen. The former keyboardist for the funk/disco band Heatwave accepted and moved into Ramone’s guest house with only a keyboard and a set of headphones in tow. “All you had to do was make coffee and give him cigarettes,” says Itchie. “Our house became this big musical commune.” Temperton offered Karen several of his own compositions, including “Off the Wall” and “Rock with You,” but at that point the songs were just grooves at the piano, still in their most raw form. She declined both charts, saying they were too funky. According to Itchie, “Everyone else loved the idea,” but the project was young and lacked direction. Within a few months, Ramone introduced Temperton to Quincy Jones when the two attended a barbecue held at the home of the pop music titan, and the songs were soon pitched to Michael Jackson.

  Karen visited Jackson in the studio during his 1979 solo sessions while he laid down tracks for “Get on the Floor,” a song he had cowritten with bassist Louis Johnson. “Phil wanted to show her what Michael’s album was like,” recalls Itchie. “He was so upset that Karen didn’t want to do any of Rod’s material at first.” Ultimately she chose two Temperton originals for her project, “Lovelines” and “If We Try,” the latter being a particularly satisfying match for her smooth and flirt
atious vocals. “Once Rod started arranging for her, they got along so well,” Itchie adds. “She loved the harmonies they created, and they were so right for each other musically. She felt comfortable working with him, and it was kind of like being with Richard in a sense, artistically.”

  The two Temperton songs Karen passed on became huge hits for Michael Jackson on his Off the Wall solo album. Also featured on the album was his recording of “She’s Out of My Life,” a song by Tom Bähler long rumored to have been written in response to the end of the composer’s own brief relationship with Karen Carpenter in 1978. “Some believe that I had written that as a result of mine and Karen’s breakup,” Bähler says. “The fact is, I had already written that song by the time Karen and I became romantic. That song was written more about Rhonda Rivera, who later married my friend John Davidson. Rhonda and I had been together for two years, and it was after we broke up that I started dating Karen.”

  Over time, Karen developed a great sense of security as she recorded with Phil Ramone. It was not the same as working with her brother, but she felt comforted and protected by him in the studio. “If he hadn’t been as gentle and sensitive as he is, I couldn’t have done it,” Karen said. “He knows how close Richard and I are.” Aside from the early contract with Joe Osborn’s Magic Lamp Records, Karen had worked exclusively for A&M Records and under Richard’s guidance. “I was scared to death beforehand,” she said. “I basically knew one producer, one arranger, one studio, one record company, and that was it. It was a different surrounding, working with different people with different habits. I didn’t know how they worked; they didn’t know how I worked. I’m used to blinking an eye and an engineer knows what I want or Richard knows what I’m thinking. . . . I’m used to being part of a duo. Richard’s like a third arm to me.”

  For Karen’s sessions, Ramone recruited members of Billy Joel’s band. At the time the men were in the middle of recording Glass Houses, their fourth album together with Joel and one that produced his first #1 single, “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me.” Unlike many of the polished studio musicians Karen was accustomed to working with in Los Angeles, this band was raw—likened to a garage band—and chosen by Ramone for their boundless energy. “Was Billy’s group perfect?” Ramone wrote in 2007. “No—but that’s what I loved. They were a real band that worked together night after night, playing his music with passion.”

  At the age of seventeen, drummer Liberty DeVitto and fellow Long Island teens Russell Javors and Doug Stegmeyer formed the band Topper, which eventually evolved to become Billy Joel’s band. “Phil thought we’d be an interesting core group of musicians to work with her because of the relationship we had with him and Billy as an artist,” recalls Russell Javors. “We were the kinds of musicians that would push the envelope when we worked with an artist, too. I’m sure it was a different kind of atmosphere than Karen was used to working in. We were very vocal about what we thought and what we did. It was a bunch of guys rather than a group of session musicians.”

  For Karen’s album, the band was tracked at A&R’s studio A1, located at 799 Seventh Avenue. “It was kind of a family situation,” Javors says, “but this was a whole different kind of family than she was used to. We were kind of ‘New York’ and Karen was nothing like that. We were a rowdy bunch of bar band guys. Karen became part of the fold, and we didn’t hold anything back. She certainly got into it, and it felt like she was one of the guys. I think she had fun.”

  Bob James, renowned smooth-jazz artist, keyboardist, and former musical director for Sarah Vaughn, was enlisted by Ramone to arrange, orchestrate, and play keyboards for the project. “Karen was an arranger’s dream,” says James, who admits he found himself a bit starstruck at times in the studio. “It was a flattering but also very intimidating assignment. That sound coming through my headphones in the studio was very inspiring and exciting. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I’m actually in the studio playing the piano for Karen Carpenter!’”

  Javors was surprised by the tiny sound he heard coming from Karen in the booth. “When you hear her voice on a record it’s so big and so full. In the studio it was kind of like a whisper. She didn’t really belt it out. She was up close to the mic, and it wasn’t this tremendous voice that you’d hear. It was just a very intimate, focused voice. I was amazed at the ease and how softly she really sang.” DeVitto concurs “She almost whispered into the mic, but Phil was able to capture that and have it sit on top of the music. He never lost sight of Karen.”

  In one of their daily phone calls, Karen told Frenda Franklin that she was in awe of this diverse assembly of musicians. “They treated her like an equal in the studio, and she loved the process,” Franklin says. “She had the best time!”

  At times the band members saw evidence of Karen’s sheltered Downey life and would even poke fun at her, which she seemed to enjoy, given her own knack for humor. “She’d never been on an airplane by herself before,” Javors recalls. “Then she had these road cases with different sweat suits and Nike sneakers, and they were all the same color and all lined up in a row. She came from a different world.” Even Phil would join in and tease Karen, especially when she would show up to a session wearing pressed and starched blue jeans. “This girl loved to be fussy and get it done right,” he laughs. “Karen was fastidious, and I would tease her ruthlessly. She had every satin jacket given out by the record company—and a matching pair of sneakers for each one!”

  AFTER NEARLY a decade of having tried unsuccessfully to shed the Carpenters’ image, Karen realized this break from the confines of the duo might be the perfect opportunity to explore and push the envelope with her music—not in the same manner that Passage pushed the envelope with “Calling Occupants,” but perhaps by establishing herself as an independent twenty-nine-year-old woman. “She didn’t want to do anything totally left field from the Carpenters,” Itchie says, “but she wanted to say that she was an independent artist. The Carpenters had their image, and she didn’t want to present an image that clashed with that, but she did want an image that set her apart. I saw what Phil was doing. Basically he was trying to help her grow up a bit, gain the confidence to be a woman, and state what she felt and what she thought.”

  Olivia Newton-John sensed that Karen was torn between following this desire and staying loyal to her family. “She was incredibly ensconced by or tied into her family and Richard and the whole situation,” she says. “She wanted to break out as a human being and as a woman and live an independent life. She also wanted to feel her way musically into other areas. . . . I think it was really important for her to feel that it wasn’t just Richard or just the production that had made the Carpenters a success. She was just as important and needed to find her own feet and find her own style.”

  According to Ramone, “Karen was twenty-nine, but she couldn’t be a woman who could think like a woman and express herself. . . . Some people still thought that I was taking her down a street she didn’t want to travel. We weren’t out to shock people. I was not interested in putting out a shock record on her behalf. That would be so wrong for me. But some people were shocked. You can’t make a record in fear of what everyone’s going to say. You can’t make a record that doesn’t speak from your heart.”

  The environment was one of “admiration and appreciation for Karen and her talents,” says Russell Javors. “People had such strong feelings about their legacy and what they’d done and the way they did it, but this was Karen, and it should complement anything that she’d already done. Nobody was doing it in the spirit of ‘we’ll show you, Richard,’ or anything. Phil was trying to push the envelope a little bit but let her do it naturally.”

  Song titles like “Remember When Lovin’ Took All Night,” “Make Believe It’s Your First Time,” and “Making Love in the Afternoon” led to accusations that Ramone was force-feeding Karen sexual lyrics and themes to create a new persona, but according to those closely involved, he gave Karen complete choice and control. “Phil was trying to pick mate
rial that would allow her to push the envelope, but it was never forced on her,” says Javors. “He’s a nurturer. He kind of opens the road up to you, and you either take it or you don’t; but he’s not somebody who says, ‘You go down this road.’ . . . She was very intimately involved in everything that was going on, and this was 100 percent her project.”

  A number of Karen’s song choices contained lyrics with overtones of sexuality, some less subtle than others. “I Love Makin’ Love to You” was written by Evie Sands, formerly with A&M Records, and recorded for her Estate of Mind album on the Capital/Haven label in 1975. “When I heard Karen was going to cover it,” Sands recalls, “I imagined her take on it would be similar to mine or closer to the mellow Barbra Streisand version. It turned out to be a perfect blend of both.” Although Karen and Phil finished the ambitious arrangement of Sands’s tune, complete with lush background vocals and an outstanding brass section, it was ultimately set aside. The risqué lyric is likely to blame.

  There’s no lightnin’ or thunder, any seventh wonder

  Mightier than what you’ve got

  Keep it up forever, no one does it better

  Baby, get it while it’s hot

  For the infectious “Making Love in the Afternoon,” Chicago front man Peter Cetera joined Karen in the studio on the song he had written. “Peter was a fan of Karen’s voice,” recalls Ramone, who produced the Chicago 13 album around that time. “Cetera wrote the song for her.” Billed as a duet, Cetera’s role was more of a backup singer to Karen’s lead. According to Itchie, “A true duet would have stepped over the line by stepping on Richard. Harmonizing is one thing, but a duet? No. That would have been trespassing.”