The carpenters

Carpenters is an American vocal and instrumental duet consisting of Karen 's sister and brother Richard Carpenter. Although often referred to as “The Carpenters,” the official name in official records and printed materials was simply “Carpenters,” without a definite article. During the 1970s, when loud and wild rock was in great demand, Richard and Karen created compositions in a characteristic soft musical style, which made them one of the best-selling music artists of all time.

Karen Carpenter & Richard Carpenter
Karen and Richard Carpenter at the White House
basic information
Genres	Pop Soft rock Adult contemporary
Years	1969-1983
A country	USA
City	Los Angeles , USA
Where from
Language of songs	English
Labels
Composition	Karen Carpenter Richard Carpenter
Richard and Karen Carpenter

In total, more than one hundred million Carpenter albums have been sold. Some of their songs are still popular, such as “(They Long to Be) Close to You” (1970), “Yesterday Once More” (1973) and others.

CARPENTERS was based on the family duo Richard Carpenter (born 1946) and his sister Karen (born 1950). In the sixties, the family moved from Connecticut to Los Angeles, where Richard, a talented pianist and arranger, organized a jazz trio: Karen played the drums, and Wes Jacobs played the bass. After winning the competition for young talents, they made several records that were never published, and after Jacobs left Richard and Karen invited John Bittis and created the folk rock band Spectrum. Beattis wrote lyrics to Richard's tunes.

Spectrum’s life was also short-lived, Richard and Bittis worked together at Disneyland, and then Richard, persuading Karen not only to play the drums, but also to sing, invited the session musician Joe Osbourne to record, recorded a demo tape, and then it became clear how the voices of brother and sister are successfully combined and complement each other.

A&M signed a contract with them, the debut album "Offering" went unnoticed, however, when it was reissued in 1972 under the name "Ticket To Ride", it still entered the charts. In 1970, a great production and composing duo, Bert Bakarach and Hall David, invited the Carpenter to record their song “(They Long To Be) Close To You”, previously known by Dionne Warwick, and this hit was the first in a galaxy of twenty-four hits recorded by the Carpenter in the seventies.

At first they sang other people's things, but in 1972, Richard Carpenter and Beattis wrote their first hit “Goodbye To Love”, the same creative team created the central song for the sixth album “Now And Then” - the song was called “Yesterday Once More”. The album was released in 1973, and by that time there were already three Grammy Awards on the account of the brother and sister. In the same year, the first album of the duet was released, which became the No. 1 hit in America - it was a compilation of previously recorded singles.

A series of successful tours around the world followed - the Japanese tour turned out to be especially triumphant, where the melodic compositions of Carpenters and the enchanting voice of Karen instantly gained unheard of popularity. However, the exhausting rhythm of the tour undermined the health of Karen - by 1975, she began to show signs of acute nervous disease. After a long course of treatment, the disease seemed to recede, but not for long. At the same time, their popularity at home began to decline, but interest in them in the UK increased markedly. Product quality remained consistently high, but critics keen on the upsurge of the "new wave" found The Carpenters "obsolete."

In 1979, Karen recorded her solo album, which was never released during her lifetime, leaving only in 1996. But in 1981, she and Richard released the album "Made In America". He became the last Carpenters album - Karen’s nervous disease worsened again, her body ceased to absorb food. In 1983, at the age of 32, she died of a heart attack.

Richard continued to release compilations of their old recordings, recorded two solo albums with guest vocalists, in particular with Dusty Springfield .