The Carpenters: The Untold Story : An Authorized Biography

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Toni Lee is ‘mesmerising’ and utterly ‘Unique’ in that she recreates the voice of Karen Carpenter like no one else alive and it is simply the best celebration of The Carpenters’ music to be heard anywhere in the world. Levitin, John Tobler, Digby Diehl, Ray Coleman, Robert Hilburn, and Lester Bangs provide insight into the music and personalities of the duo who produced such timeless pop music. I’m unsure whether I’ve ever waved my phone around as a fake lighter in the crowd before, a gesture of appreciation for the music, but I did here.

Karen was and still is the finest female singer of all time, her vocals were always clear, perfect and heart-wrenching, a legacy that remains of a woman who had so much talent and fame, yet yearned for love and family. She began to layer her clothing, a strategy her agent Sherwin Bash noticed in the early part of 1975. Throughout the book are also numerous listings of dates and places and activities (including going home to visit mom and dad and such). He reimagines several of the band's biggest hits for solo piano on the album slated for a January release.Their records are still being bought, their songs listened to and admired while the artists and critics who deplored them have long been forgotten.

This beautifully illustrated definitive biography, with exclusive interviews and never-before-seen photographs, is a must-have for any Carpenters fan.

I love the prose style it was written in, and you really felt as though you were with Karen and Richard as they grew up, moved to California, began recording, and the rest is history. Reading this book brought back memories of my teen years, and every album released by the Carpenters. So we were constantly trying to shove food at Karen… My opinion about anorexia is it's an attempt to have control – something in your life you can do something about, that you can regiment. The heyday of The Carpenters might have been the 70s but don’t let that put you off; the music is timeless. My hope is people will realize that the story of Richard and Karen Carpenter is not the most tragic in pop music — it is one of the most triumphant,” Lennox says.

It’s made clear early on that the coffee table book is all about their careers and not their personal lives: how songs came together, tour schedules and plenty of rare memorabilia reproduced. Carpenter's ear for finding hits, often in unlikely places, was as essential as his ear for making them. With that, the music was written by others for the most part so there wasn't really anything personal with the Carpenters (Karen and Richard) themselves in the music. But despite their personal troubles and turmoil, the Carpenters music remained beautiful, enriching, and touching. Richard's motorcycle accident in January 1973 is briefly mentioned as Richard was in casts but the motorcycle accident didn't really slow things down any.

Personal insights are added when they affect the music, but this is about the music and not about "personal demons" and such. Melody Maker reported that the Carpenters' tour would have been the highest-grossing tour in Britain and that approximately 150,000 people were set to see them during the planned 28-day European trek.

Once the patient has transferred their dependence on to him, he tries to teach them how to create their own sense of identity, and he helps them disengage from their dependence on him with new behaviours, habits, and thought patterns.I'm ready to record again, and Richard and I have been talking about getting the group together and performing. Levenkron explained that the family's attempts to threaten or bribe Karen out of her behaviours would never make them go away. Richard and Karen Carpenter, who had spent the past four years scoring massive soft-rock hits like “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Superstar,” and “Top of the World,” took the opportunity to vent to Nolan about the uncool, wholesome image that they felt the press had created for the sibling duo. Gigantic plus here for me as I get so tired of that stuff where people try and talk on other's behalves instead of their own when dealing with stuff.