AUTHOR’S NOTE: When I interviewed Karen and Richard Carpenter in 1978, I was struck by Karen’s fragility, the impossible and alluring slenderness of her body and, most especially, the translucent quality of her skin. She was an enigmatic personality who welcomed the attention but disclosed personal information with sweet regret—or was it resignation? My curiosity piqued, I tried to get beneath the surface and so asked about her charm bracelet, an odd and clunky piece of jewelry for the ’70s. Each charm meant something—a personal milestone. Dutifully enumerating them, she sounded like an emissary from a private world.
I talked with friends about the impact Karen Carpenter had on me. I wanted to describe her peculiar detachment in the article; however, I believed my speculations were inappropriate. Her unnerving ethereal presence haunted me then and over the years. I had never seen anyone starving to death before.
”Sweet, Sweet Smile” by Karen and Richard Carpenter has been on the charts for 15 weeks. After ten years at the top of the squeaky-clean pop music field, after millions of records sold, this is their first country hit. They seem a little surprised and confused. Yes, they are happy with the hit, but don’t seem to know what’s next.
The Carpenters’ hometown—New Haven, Connecticut—with its church spires poking through the drizzle and the gulls huddled in the reeds alongside the railroad tracks—is a long, cold way from sunny L.A. Years of back-to-back touring, inhuman schedules and an obsessive attention to detail, sometimes bordering on the neurotic, have brought them light years away from their humble New England beginnings. But even comfortably at home in their A&M Records office, sister Karen and brother Richard, basking in the deflected glow of their 18 gold records, are sunstroked yet with the sudden success of “Sweet, Sweet Smile” from their Passage album.
“I knew it was off the wall,” says Karen, absolutely mystified by the tune’s success. She has just come from an all-night session, putting the finishing touches on a TV special and although exhausted, she is still revved up. “A true workaholic.” Richard’s word to describe them both.
“Ever since ‘Top of the World’ happened with Lynn Anderson, people always ask us how come we didn’t have a hit on it in the country field.” She turns to brother Rich—partner, arranger and companion—and shrugs. He opens his mouth to answer; she blithely reads his mind.
“It’s because we released ours as a single pop after she had the [country] hit. Ever since then we always thought it would be possible but we never did anything.” Rich nods agreement.
The Carpenters, for years the darlings of the squeaky-clean, middle of the road, easy listening sound, with their TV specials and Vegas shows, have wandered across the charts into Opryland and they’re not quite sure how it happened.
“We’re kind of soft, easygoing country,” Richard concedes, groping for the words to properly describe his sound.
“We always try to get one country song on our albums,” adds Karen. “Not for any specific purpose but because we like it. We don’t go in and say we got to record a song that will get on the country charts. We always just go in with what we like.” Then she flashes her famous down-home smile, bright with the reassurance of a flight attendant’s welcome.
For although the Carpenters, versatile survivors of a dozen years and almost as many music trends, are bewildered by their tune’s success, they are genuinely delighted in finally finding a country audience. In the hard rock days of the late ’60s, they nearly got left behind before they really started. Then James Taylor floated in with the easier sound of the ’70s, and they felt redeemed. Through it all, the Carpenters have remained a self-sufficient, inward-looking team who select, arrange and produce their music without ever going beyond the family circle. “Yeah, it’s always been that way,” says Richard. “It seems like if you ask five different people, you get five different answers.”
“It was like when we first got started and we were mixing ‘Ticket to Ride,’ “ recalls Karen. “It finally got around to where we were asking so many people that it seemed that the next person we were going to ask was … “
“The security man,” says Richard, his voice coming in on top of hers.
If their music now has a country flavor it’s because, selfconsciously or not, the sound has filtered through Richard’s ear. According to Karen, when album time rolls around, Richard goes home with a carload of material and begins “the ever-long search through the piles of things that come in.”
“No, I don’t write. It’s sad, isn’t it?” she says brightly, as Rich stares at the floor. “Nothin’ ever came out.”
By chance, Karen was visiting a friend who played a tape of “Sweet, Sweet Smile,” written by singer-songwriter Juice Newton. She brought it home to Rich, and as soon as he heard it, he wanted to add a few things—like a banjo.
“When I hear country, all of it sticks,” he says, tilting his head to the side as if he’s reading off a sheet of imaginary sheet music. When he was a kid, his father was a big fan of Spade Cooley, and Richard spent hours listening to 10-inch LPs recorded in the early ’50s. Cooley’s sound was smooth with full brass and reed sections. “Then there was the steel guitar. See, I remembered it,” he says tapping the side of his head.
“And it’s not like we didn’t do country before,” explains Karen, mentioning “End of the World” on the Now & Then album (1973) and “(I’m Caught Between) Goodbye and I Love You.” Like Kenny Rogers with “Lucille” and Olivia Newton-John, they’ve crossed into country, but whether they have the intention or desire to stay is still in question.
“We were very excited when this thing started,” says Karen cautiously, as if still not believing the charts.
“But if we were going to go in and snap out a country single, well, that wouldn’t happen at this point,” says Richard definitely. “Of course, it would be great if it happened again.”
“To this day people say who did I style myself after? Who influenced me, and to that I say nobody. But when I first began I sounded very country,” says Karen. “You got a country streak in you,” she proudly remembers electric bass guitarist Joe Osborn saying when he recorded their demo tape in his [North Hollywood] garage back in 1968.
They have discussed going to Nashville. “For the players,” says Richard, his eyes gleaming. He’s an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist who once flew to Nashville to record exactly two bars of music for the “Desperado” cut on the Horizon album. But as much as Nashville studio musicians entice him, he’s true to the sound he hears in his head. The only way they’ll make a Nashville album is if the album warrants Nashville talent, and judging by the way their albums get put together, when—or if—that happens is anybody’s guess.
“It’s nice to be able to pick your own stuff, have total control,” says Richard. “The thing is, you’re responsible for it if it hits or if it flops.”
His bottom line is the artistic quality. He started playing piano when he was 12, and knew that one way or another music was his world. Karen “kind of followed him around,” starting to sing when she was about 16, and then getting them both kicked out of clubs because she was too young to drink. That led to an early recording career, and both claim that over the years their ears have sharpened. Rich just about shudders remembering the creaking of a closing door that made it on to one of his albums.
Then followed years of hectic touring until Karen collapsed in 1975. “We realized then that we didn’t need to run all over the world like maniacs,” says Richard, and instead they developed a Vegas act. “If it costs, it costs,” says Richard, “because it’s got to be what I hear.”
Since “Sweet, Sweet Smile,” there’s been talk of the Grand Ole Opry. Karen is especially intrigued by the possibility of a new audience. There are the TV specials and the Vegas show that needs to be overhauled, but she’s looking for something new—even considering TV roles.
“We pride ourselves in being trendsetters for the easier listening sound.” She speaks slowly, as if oppressed with the role. “When we started we were knocked for being dressed cleanly, for taking a bath. We were titled sweet and clean,” and when she says, “Goody four shoes,” Richard laughs and shakes his head.
Now he wants to produce other artists. Both of them, too, would like to marry and set up private lives.
“But schedules make it difficult to meet people and date,” says Karen wistfully. “We always worked together,” she says, looking back over eight albums, her hand resting beneath a gold charm in the shape of a record, a Christmas gift from a grateful record company. “I’m hoping—but I—neither one of us—have found anybody we’d want to get married to. We have so much to give and we’ve accomplished a lot on our own. It would be nice to share it with somebody [but] at this point, we’re just sharing it with each other.”
“The group, too, has been together for 10 years,” says Richard about the guys in the band who are like an extended family.
And if they cut another surprise country hit or if they took up the invitation to the Grand Ole Opry?
“We’d have to go just the way we are,” says Richard unhesitatingly. And doing things in their own sweet time, living like cactus in the desert of L.A., off their own juices, the Carpenters may be just a little more country than they think.