Karen Anne Carpenter (March 2, 1950 â€" February 4, 1983) was an American singer and drummer. She and her brother Richard Carpenter formed the 1970s duo the Carpenters. Her skills as a drummer earned admiration from drumming luminaries and peers, but she is best known for her vocal performances. She typically sang in a contralto vocal range.
Carpenter suffered from the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, which was little known at the time. She died at age 32 from heart failure caused by complications related to her illness. Carpenter's death led to increased visibility and awareness of eating disorders.
Early life
Karen Anne Carpenter was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the daughter of Agnes Reuwer (née Tatum, March 5, 1915 â€" November 10, 1996) and Harold Bertram Carpenter (November 8, 1908 â€" October 15, 1988). Harold had been born in China where his parents were missionaries and was educated at boarding schools in England, before working in the printing business.
When she was young, she enjoyed playing baseball with other children on the street. On the TV program This Is Your Life, she stated that she liked pitching and later, in the early 1970s, she would become the pitcher on the Carpenters' official softball team. Her brother Richard developed an interest in music at an early age, becoming a piano prodigy. Karen enjoyed dancing and by age four was enrolled in tap dancing and ballet classes. The family moved in June 1963 to the Los Angeles suburb of Downey.
When Carpenter entered Downey High School, she joined the school band. Bruce Gifford, the conductor (who had previously taught her older brother) gave her the glockenspiel, an instrument she disliked, and after admiring the performance of her friend Frankie Chavez (who idolized famous jazz drummer Buddy Rich), she asked if she could play the drums instead. She and her brother made their first recordings in 1965 and 1966. The following year she began dieting. Under a doctor's guidance, she went on the Stillman Diet. She rigorously ate lean foods, drank eight glasses of water a day, and avoided fatty foods. She was 5'Â 4" (163Â cm) in height and before dieting weighed 145 pounds (66Â kg; 10Â st 5Â lb) and afterwards weighed 120 pounds (54Â kg; 8Â st 8Â lb) until 1973, when the Carpenters' career reached its peak. By September 1975, her weight was 91 pounds (41Â kg; 6Â st 7Â lb).
Music career
From 1965 to 1968 Karen, her brother Richard and his college friend Wes Jacobs, a bassist and tuba player, formed the Richard Carpenter Trio. The band played jazz at numerous nightclubs and also appeared on the TV talent show Your All-American College Show. Karen, Richard and other musicians, including Gary Sims and John Bettis, also performed as an ensemble known as Spectrum. Spectrum focused on a harmonious and vocal sound and recorded many demo tapes in the garage studio of friend and bassist Joe Osborn. Many of those tapes were rejected by record companies. According to former Carpenters member John Bettis, those rejections "took their toll." The tapes of the original sessions were lost in a fire at Joe Osborn's house and the surviving versions of those early songs exist only as fragile acetate reference discs. Finally A&M Records signed the Carpenters to a recording contract in 1969. Karen sang most of the songs on the band's first album, Offering (later retitled Ticket to Ride), and her brother wrote 10 out of the album's 13 songs. The issued single (later the title track), which was a cover of a Beatles song, became their first single; it reached #54 on the Billboard Hot 100. Their next album, 1970's Close to You, featured two massive hit singles: "(They Long to Be) Close to You" and "We've Only Just Begun". They peaked at #1 and #2, respectively, on the Hot 100.
Carpenter started out as both the group's drummer and lead singer, and she originally sang all her vocals from behind the drum set. Because she was just 5 feet 4 inches tall, it was difficult for people in the audience to see her behind her drum kit, so she was eventually persuaded to stand at the microphone to sing the band's hits, while another musician played the drums (former Disney Mouseketeer Cubby O'Brien served as the band's other drummer for many years). After the release of Now & Then in 1973, the albums tended to have Carpenter singing more and drumming less. At this time, her brother developed an addiction to Quaaludes. The Carpenters frequently cancelled tour dates, and they stopped touring altogether after their September 4, 1978, concert at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The Carpenters' Very First TV Special aired December 8, 1976. In 1980, she performed a medley of standards in a duet with Ella Fitzgerald on the Carpenters' television program Music, Music, Music. In 1981, after the release of the Made in America album (which turned out to be their last), the Carpenters returned to the stage and did some tour dates, including a final live performance in Brazil.
In addition to being a drummer and a singer, Karen Carpenter could also play the electric bass guitar. She played it on two songs, "All of My Life" and "Eve", on Offering, later retitled Ticket to Ride, the Carpenters' first album, released by A&M. Although Karen's bass playing is heard on the original album, Richard remixed both songs (as he has done with almost every Carpenters song), and Joe Osborn's bass playing was substituted on later "greatest hits" releases.
Recognition of drumming skills
Carpenter started playing the drums in 1964. She was always enthusiastic about the drums and taught herself how to play complicated drum lines with "exotic time signatures," according to her brother. Carpenter's drumming was praised by fellow drummers Hal Blaine, Cubby O'Brien and Buddy Rich and by Modern Drummer magazine. According to her brother, Carpenter always considered herself a "drummer who sang." Despite this, she was not often featured as a drummer on the Carpenters' albums. She was, however, the only drummer on the albums Ticket to Ride and Now & Then (except for one song) and on the songs "Mr. Guder", "I'll Never Fall in Love Again", "Love is Surrender", "Bacharach/David Medley", the piano instrumental "Flat Baroque" (highlighting her use of brushes), "Happy", "Another Song" and "Please Mr. Postman." The role of drummer in the Carpenters entourage was mainly taken over by Hal Blaine as she went from being behind the drum set to the front of the stage.
Karen Carpenter was known for endorsing Ludwig Drums and she had two setups (20" bass drum, 14 and 16" floor toms, 13" mounted tom, 4, 6, 8 and 10" concert toms and the Ludwig SuperSensitive snare drum, which was the one snare drum she favored greatly). She also used a Rogers hi-hat, a Rogers bass drum pedal, Zildjian cymbals, 11A drumsticks (brand unspecified) and Remo drumheads. On Made in America, Karen provided percussion on "Those Good Old Dreams" in tandem with Paulinho da Costa and made a final return to playing drums on the song "When it's Gone (It's Just Gone)" in unison with Larrie Londin.
Solo album
In 1979, Richard took a year off to treat his addiction to Quaaludes, and Karen decided to make a solo album with producer Phil Ramone. These sessions produced music that was noticeably different from the usual Carpenters material, tending more towards disco and up-tempo numbers, with more explicit lyrics and taking full advantage of Karen's upper vocal register. The album met with a tepid response from Richard and A&M executives in early 1980. The album was shelved by A&M Records co-owner Herb Alpert, in spite of attempts by producer Quincy Jones to convince him to release the record after a remix. A&M subsequently charged the Carpenters $400,000 to cover the cost of recording this album, to be paid out of the duo's future royalties. Carpenters fans got a taste of the solo album in 1989, when some of its tracks (as remixed by Richard) were included on the album Lovelines, the final album of Carpenters' unreleased new material. In 1996, the complete album, titled Karen Carpenter, was finally released.
Personal life
Carpenter lived with her parents until she was 24. In September and October 1971, two years after their debut album, she and her brother bought two apartment buildings in Downey as a financial investment. In 1976, Carpenter bought two Century City apartments which she combined into one; the doorbell chimed the opening notes of "We've Only Just Begun". She collected Disney memorabilia and liked to play softball and baseball. Petula Clark, Olivia Newton-John and Dionne Warwick were close friends.
Carpenter dated a number of well-known men, including Mike Curb, Tony Danza, Terry Ellis, Mark Harmon, Steve Martin and Alan Osmond. After a whirlwind romance, she married real-estate developer Thomas James Burris on August 31, 1980, in the Crystal Room of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Burris, divorced with an 18-year-old son, was nine years her senior. A new song performed by Carpenter at the ceremony, "Because We Are in Love", was released in 1981. Burris concealed from Carpenter, who desperately wanted children, the fact that he had undergone a vasectomy. Their marriage did not survive the deceit and ended after 14 months. In addition to that, Burris was said to have been broke and living well beyond his means, borrowing up to $35,000 and $50,000 at a time from his wife, to the point that she had only stocks and bonds left. He was also said to have been abusive towards her, often being impatient with Karen, who shared with close friends that she remained fearful when he would occasionally lose his temper with her. Close friend Karen Kamon recounted one incident where she and Carpenter went to their normal hangout, Hamburger Hamlet, and Karen appeared to be distant emotionally, sitting not at their regular table but in the dark, and wearing large dark sunglasses, unable to eat and crying. According to Kamon, the marriage was "the straw that broke the camel's back. It was absolutely the worst thing that could have ever happened to her."
In September 1981, Carpenter revised her will and left everything to her brother and parents. Two months later, following an argument after a family dinner in a restaurant, Carpenter and Burris broke up. Carpenter filed for divorce while staying in Lenox Hill Hospital.
Final months
"Now" (April 1982) was the last song Karen Carpenter ever recorded. The session took place during a two-week break in her anorexia therapy with psychotherapist Steven Levenkron in New York City. Anorexia had driven her to abuse thyroid replacement medication, which increased her metabolism, and laxatives, which caused food to pass quickly through her digestive tract. Despite Levenkron's treatment, her condition continued to deteriorate and she lost even more weight. Karen told Levenkron that she felt dizzy and that her heart was beating irregularly. Finally, in September 1982, she was admitted to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, where she was placed on parenteral nutrition (i.e., intravenous feeding). The procedure was a success, insofar as it allowed her to gain weight (30 pounds) in a relatively short time, but regrettably, the sudden weight gain put a strain on her heart, which was already weak from years of improper diet.
Carpenter returned to California in November 1982, determined to reinvigorate her career, finalize her divorce and begin a new album with Richard. On December 17, 1982, she gave her last singing performance in the multi-purpose room of the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California, singing Christmas carols for her godchildren, their classmates and other friends. On January 11, 1983, Karen made her last public appearance at a gathering of past Grammy Award winners, who were commemorating the show's 25th anniversary. She seemed somewhat frail and worn out, but according to Dionne Warwick, Karen was vibrant and outgoing, exclaiming to everyone, "Look at me! I've got an ass!"
Death
On February 4, 1983, Carpenter was scheduled to sign papers making her divorce official. Shortly after waking up, she collapsed in her bedroom at her parents' home in Downey, California. Paramedics found her heart beating once every 10 seconds. She was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital at 9:51Â a.m.
An autopsy released March 11, 1983, ruled out drug or medication overdose, attributing death to "emetine cardiotoxicity due to or as a consequence of anorexia nervosa." How the emetine got into Carpenter's system was not specified. Two years later the coroner told colleagues that Carpenter's heart failure was caused by repeated use of ipecac syrup, an over-the-counter emetic often used to induce vomiting in cases of overdosing or poisoning. This was disputed by her mother and brother, who said that they never saw ipecac in her apartment or evidence she had been vomiting. Richard believed Karen would not have used ipecac syrup, because of the potential damage to her larynx that would have been caused by the regurgitation of stomach acid. He was convinced that she had been abusing laxatives to maintain her low body weight.
Karen Carpenter's funeral was February 8, 1983, at Downey United Methodist Church. Approximately one thousand mourners attended, including her friends Dorothy Hamill, Olivia Newton-John, Petula Clark and Dionne Warwick. Thomas Burris also attended, and placed his wedding ring in the casket. Carpenter was buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress, California. In 2003 her body was moved, to be placed with her parents in a mausoleum at the Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village, California.
Legacy
Carpenter's death brought media attention to anorexia nervosa and also to bulimia. The general public had little knowledge of anorexia nervosa and bulimia prior to Carpenter's death, making the condition difficult to identify and treat. Her family started the Karen A. Carpenter Memorial Foundation, which raised money for research on anorexia nervosa and eating disorders. Today, the name of the organization has been changed to the Carpenter Family Foundation. In addition to eating disorders, the foundation now funds the arts, entertainment and education.
On October 12, 1983, the Carpenters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Accolades
- 1975 â€" In Playboy magazine's annual opinion poll, its readers voted Carpenter the Best Rock Drummer of the year.
- 1999 â€" VH1 ranked Carpenter at #29 on its list of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll.
- 2008 â€" Rolling Stone ranked Carpenter number 94 on its list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.
Discography
Studio albums
- Offering (later reissued as Ticket to Ride) (1969)
- Close to You (1970)
- Carpenters (1971)
- A Song for You (1972)
- Now & Then (1973)
- Horizon (1975)
- A Kind of Hush (1976)
- Passage (1977)
- Christmas Portrait (1978)
- Made in America (1981)
Posthumous albums
- Voice of the Heart (1983)
- An Old-Fashioned Christmas (1984)
- Lovelines (1989)
- As Time Goes By (2001/2004)
Solo albums
- Karen Carpenter (1996)
Biographical films
The 43-minute film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987) was directed by Todd Haynes and was withdrawn from circulation in 1990, after Haynes lost a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Karen's brother and musical collaborator, Richard Carpenter. The film's title is derived from The Carpenters' 1971 hit song, "Superstar". Over the years, it has developed into a cult film and is included in Entertainment Weekly's 2003 list of top 50 cult movies.
On January 1, 1989, the similarly titled made-for-TV movie The Karen Carpenter Story aired on CBS with Cynthia Gibb in the title role. Gibb lip-synced the songs to Carpenter's recorded voice, with the exception of "The End of the World." Both films use the song "This Masquerade" in the background while showing Carpenter's marriage to Burris.
Richard Carpenter helped in the productions of the documentaries Close to You: Remembering The Carpenters (1997) and Only Yesterday: The Carpenters Story (2007). PBS aired the 1997 documentary with reruns starting in December 2015.
See also
Notes
Resources
- Coleman, Ray (1994). The Carpenters: The Untold Story. An Authorized Biography. HarperCollins.Â
- Fogarty, Rod (2001). Karen Carpenter: A Drummer Who Sang. Modern Drummer Publications.Â
- Gaar, Gillian G. (1992). She's a Rebel: The History of Women In Rock and Roll. Seattle, WA: Seal Press.Â
- "Karen Carpenter". E! True Hollywood Story. 1997.Â
- Nolan, Tom (1974). "Up From Downey". Rolling Stone.Â
- Schmidt, Randy (2010). Little Girl Blue: The Life Of Karen Carpenter.Â
- Stockdale, Tom (2000). Karen Carpenter. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers. ISBNÂ 0791052257.Â
- "The Carpenters". Behind the Music. VH1. 1998.Â
- Zerbe, Kathryn J. (1995). The Body Betrayed: A Deeper Understanding of Women, Eating Disorders, and Treatment. Carlsbad, California: Gürze Books, LLC. ISBN 0-936077-23-9.Â
External links
- Richard and Karen Carpenter â€" Official site
- Karen Carpenter on IMDb
- Karen Carpenter at Find a Grave