This radio special was broadcast on February 4 1993, the tenth anniversary of the death of Karen Carpenter. It features interviews with Richard and Karen Carpenter and people close to them. Posted here with the kind permission of Rocky and his excellent Close To You website. Awesome transcription job by Steve Richardson.
There have been many recognizable voices in popular music, but few have been as special as this:
Why do birds suddenly appear / Every time you are near? ...
Ten years ago today, that voice was silenced: Karen Carpenter suffered a heart-attack and died at the Downey Memorial Hospital, California, February 4th, 1983 - and fans around the world mourned. The loss has been somewhat cushioned by the fact that we've been left with recordings, but recordings are only part of the story; we're all familiar with the music and the songs, and have even heard about Karen's battle with anorexia nervosa. But what do we know about the person behind the voice? In the next two hours, we'll hear - mainly from Richard Carpenter -
Richard Carpenter (RC): To have our music (and Karen felt the same way) be successful in England was very special to us.
...but also from Karen,
Karen Carpenter (KC): There are ups and downs, not only in this business, but in everything...
...Burt Bacharach,
Burt Bacharach (BB): A voice like Karen Carpenter's just threw away them all.
...and Paul Williams,
Paul Williams (PW): She brought a purity to these lyric ideas that made them totally believable.
...as they tell us about the person behind the voice. I'm Mike Reynolds inviting you to join me for Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story.
Long ago / And oh so far away
RC: First off, mine and Karen's roots: my dad was a Brit - from London! He met my mom over here and of course he became a citizen, in 1937, I think. My dad's brother - my namesake Richard Carpenter - still lives in London. Always has. He and his wife Mary.
Karen Carpenter was born March 2nd, 1950, and initially grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, in a house echoing with sounds from her father's eclectic record collection. On the surface there was nothing special about her childhood: she was bright, cheery and often went out playing with her friends. Unlike some of her playmates, Karen was not an avid doll collector, although Richard remembers,
RC: Oh, she had some! (Muses) She had a 'Betsy-wetsy'... but I can't say that she was a typical example of a little girl with dolls. No: she was more into sports, she liked baseball very much... Oh, and of course music!
When Karen entered her teens, the family moved to Downey, California, a few miles from Los Angeles. Karen joined a new school and quickly made new friends. Up until then Karen had given no thought as to what she might do when she grew up. But as Richard recalls:
RC: Of course when people asked her, the two answers she would give were a 'nurse' or a 'stewardess', which I think is what all little girls answer!
If Karen had given this no thought, society virtually dictated what she would do next.
RC: Growing up in the fifties, Karen went through the obligatory accordion lessons. I mean, I had accordion lessons, everybody did! So she had a few lessons, but she didn't like it... Then the band director at our elementary school decided that he needed flutists and Karen was rendered a flute. And that didn't go either! And that was pretty much it, as far as Karen was concerned, for many a year.
The seeds for our future are sown in formative years, and there's a strong possibility that what happened to Karen at this stage would affect everything about her later life: she was beginning to have a weight problem.
RC: Karen was a chubby teenager - definitely.
Karen was growing up at a time when thin was 'in'. Magazine covers constantly sported pictures of Twiggy, the Shrimp and other models. Southern California is renowned for its active outdoor lifestyle and a chubby teenage girl may have been the subject of ridicule. And although Karen liked certain sports and games, at age 13 she finally got into music as a way of getting out of a sporting activity.
KC: Oh that's absolutely true! Rich went to Downey high for his senior year and when I joined him the following year, I didn't like gym. I liked softball and basketball and all that type of stuff, but I DIDN'T like running around a track at 8 o'clock in the morning. 'Cos running ISN'T one of my gifts, believe me!
RC: And I found out that if a person were in marching band, they could be excluded from physical education.
KC: So Rich said "We'll get into the marching band!", and I said "But I don't play anything". And he said "That's no problem - Gifford [the musical director] will let you play the glockenspiel". So I did, but I didn't really like it because it's not a very convenient instrument to play and it's hard to carry... and it's always a quarter-step sharp to the band, which used to drive me crazy! But the good thing about it is, the glockenspiel is a percussion instrument, it marches in the percussion line. And I was automatically TAKEN OVER by a love for the drums! I had no idea whether I could play 'em or not, but I wanted to and I was very determined... but the band director said "That's not really normal". Of course, all you have to tell me is that something's not normal and I'll go for it!! And luckily I had a gift for it, and within a couple of weeks we went out and bought a drum set...
Now a teenager with a drum-set in the house might spell trouble. It was also highly unusual for that teen to be a girl. But as brother Richard explains, they were blessed with exceptional parents:
RC: They were very good, my folks, in every way, and one was encouraging anything like this. Now you have to understand, they were a bit sceptical at first: here comes this 13 year-old girl... oh, you know how it goes with kids! She'd wanted a dog, she SAID she'd take care of him, so they got her the dog and the FOLKS took care of him! And now the latest thing is "I want a set of drums". Well, drums are noisy, they take up room and they cost money... and we all figured this was going to pass within about a month. But we had these stools that went up to the breakfast bar in the kitchen and she'd play on these stools! (It started with dad's chopsticks and then some drumsticks!) And you could tell that she... she knew it! All these cadences and stuff... So they broke down and bought her a little set of Ludwigs brand new and obviously - THE REST IS HISTORY! She took to them, she could play in all time signatures and she possessed the most important thing a good drummer needs to possess, which is time. Rock-solid, like a metronome, her time! And as her teacher Bill Douglas said, she had "good wrists". Obviously she didn't have the strength of a lot of drummers, but she had good time, a good sense of fill and...she was a very good drummer!
And Karen was happy to demonstrate her technique on a recording made in the Carpenters living room in the summer of 1965.
Caravan
KC: Also that year was a horror, what with geometry. I lasted three days and I was totally lost, so I joined the choir, 'cos I didn't sing.
RC: Karen really exhibited... no talent! The little bit I asked her to sing would be for the really high parts that we would use every third blue moon in our recordings. But the lower voice hadn't shown itself yet.
As the playing improved, so too did Karen's singing. Through a friend Joe Osborn who had a garage studio and a record label 'Magic Lamp', Karen signed a solo record deal!
RC: By 1965, the lower voice started to show itself. I have recordings which I won't let anyone hear because... oh boy, she would not be happy! If you heard it, you'd barely know that it's Karen: it's in tune and there is somewhat of the sound, but there is no vibrato, it's kinda 'nasal' and it's just in its embryonic stages. If anything it kinda sounds a little 'country'. But by the time we went into Joe Osborn's garage studio, it was definitely THE VOICE. I mean, she matured somewhat over the years, but the sound was there. She had a hit voice in 1966 by the time she was 16.
I'll Be Yours
Karen's influences up till now had been taken form her father's eclectic record collection and like Richard she too listened to Spike Jones, big bands, Liberace, even Les Paul and Mary Ford. It had been the duo of Les Paul and Mary Ford that had intrigued Richard since childhood, and with Karen's voice now developing into something distinctive and unique, he formulated a sound for the Carpenters.
RC: I was hooked on the overdub sound of Les Paul and Mary Ford back in 1951. I had no idea how they did it, I just knew that was a whole bunch of Mary Fords, I knew it! You could tell! And I remember asking my mother, "How does she do it?" I mean, I was six years old, I didn't know about overdubbing! [Laughs] And of course my mother didn't know! So she said, "She just works at it. You have to work at it!"
In 1966 Karen and Richard decided to pool their musical resources and along with a friend, Wes Jacobs, they entered the 'Battle of the Bands' at the famed Hollywood Bowl.
RC: I was highly competitive and so was Karen... and Wes in his way, but maybe not to the degree then that Karen and I were. But WE knew it was a competition! Oh sure! But it wasn't the type of thing, as people tend to believe, where you get a recording contract if you win. It's just to go through the competition, to see what you can do... of course you get a beautiful trophy, but that's pretty much it! We did two tunes in the competition: one was a multi-time signature of The Girl From Ipanema, the other an original of mine called Iced Tea.
Iced Tea
They won the competition and were feeling pretty pleased with themselves.
RC: I guess I'm heading towards the car and this fellow approaches me. He says he liked it and all of that and would we be interested in... [pauses] I don't know, it had something to do with a contract and a recording studio, and he thinks there may be some potential in our sound... something like this. And I said [chuckles] "Oh, we're already with a record label!" And he replied, "Well, if the situation should happen to change, here's my card" - I still have that card - and it reads: Neely Plumb, West Coast Representative RCA Victor Records. At this point I'm thinking "Oh my God! What a jerk you are Rich! Pull your foot out of your mouth and see if you can dance your way out if this!" So I replied, "Well, my SISTER is signed with the label, and as a vocalist", because he didn't know she sang. He had just heard the trio! Well, this went on for months, we cut some sides up at RCA in Sunset Boulevard and of course - the thumbs down!
But Richard and Karen were undaunted, gathering together more musicians to form another group - Summerchimes.
You'll Love Me
RC: We never thought about giving up, but it was hard. Just in Karen's talent alone, I could not figure someone not picking her up. But I believed in Carpenters sound too, you know; with Karen's lead and then all those overdubs... I just thought it made for a very commercial sound. Anyway, around this time Joe Osborn, who believed in us and especially in Karen, said that we could use his studio, gratis, just to try out things. And when we heard all those overdubs from the group done by just Karen and me... well, Spectrum was good - this was better. You can't beat a blend with yourself!
Don't Be Afraid, from the Magic Lamp sessions, and part of the demo tape sent to Herb Alpert by Richard and Karen, who by now were calling themselves, plain and simply Carpenters.
RC: Around this time there was a group called The First Edition (before it became Kenny Rogers and The First Edition). And they were auditioning for girl singers and Karen decided to have a crack at it. And I figured, once they hear Karen... Karen's voice REALLY became magical when it was amplified. I mean, if she stood in this room and sang she was great, but it was very soft. So once it became amplified, it brought out just how terrific it really was... And I figured, here goes everything I've been working towards because they're gonna sign her and that's that! Come on, this was 1968, Karen sounded like KAREN! And they turned her down! I couldn't believe it! I mean, you are talking about a BIG mistake!!!
But as one door closes, another one opens: through a friend Karen and Richard made it onto a locally shown TV talent contest.
RC: And as a result of this we got a call, some time in '68, from a chap named John Bahler. He and his brother Tom were big jingle singers. And we were invited to join their group, The Going Thing which promoted the Ford campaign on TV. But in addition to doing the campaign, they were going to augment the group and send it on the road... So we went up to the offices at J. Walter Thompson and talked to the ad executives, and it turned out we would be promoting the new Ford Mustang. Well, lo-and-behold - within DAYS of signing this contract, the A&M deal comes through! [Laughs] It's like, either all or nothing at all, you know? Of course it was a big deal giving up $50,000 a year PLUS a car each... but that was to be in another group! Obviously what we were working towards was the two of us. And here was Herb Alpert... Well, the people at J. Walter Thompson were all very nice about it, they let us out of the contract instead of being hard-nosed about it - and on we went to A&M.
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KC: Our first single, Ticket To Ride, was a kind of half-hit, half flop: in some places it was number one, in others it was ash-tray material.
The single may have caught on in some places, but the album it came from didn't:
RC: After the first album didn't go, those people who didn't much believe in the sound to begin with were saying, 'Now Herb, you've had your chance with them, you've used X-amount of A&M's bucks, you really ought to cut your losses.' He told me this years later but it didn't surprise me, I had to figure it. But he thought there was something there and he was gonna give it one more go.
That 'one more go' turned out to be the album Close To You. The title song had been around since 1963 and was written by Burt Bacharach.
KC: And he [Burt] had given the lead-sheet to Herbie, but Herbie was reluctant to sing it because of 'sprinkled moondust'. So Herb gave it to Richard, to put into the medley we were recording for the Charity Benefit concert. Well, a long story short, it never did fit into the medley, but Richard hung on to the lead sheet and kept playing it all the time. And then he started saying 'I think we ought to cut this...' So we went in [to the studio] and Richard added the end, you know, [sings] 'Waaaaaah!', 'cos that wasn't part of the original song.
BB: And the next thing I know, Herb plays it down the phone to me. And there are some records that you hear and you just know it's gonna be a number one record.
Indeed Close To You did give Karen and Richard the number one hit they'd been looking for. Privately, it was something Karen had been wanting for years.
KC: We started trying to get a hit back in 1967 when I was 17, and I remember thinking back then, 'Oh God, if we don't get a hit by the time I'm 20 I have to kill myself!' Well, we JUST made it, because it came out in late May, right after I turned 20, and within 6 weeks it was number one.
So, with Close To You, Richard and Karen's string of chart successes had begun. They followed this with a song that accurately described their career right then: We've Only Just Begun.
KC: Well, Begun was originally a TV commercial for Crocker Citizens' Bank... You see, when we first came to A&M we met Roger Nichols and Paul Williams - they were a writing team for Almo-Irving - so we knew that Paul had kind-of a different voice, you know... And we were just watching TV one night and this ad comes on! And Richard said, 'God that sounds like Paul!' And you really can't miss Paul's voice!
PW: Richard called me and said 'It's great! Is there a full song?' (The commercial only featured one or two verses.) And we said 'Yeah, we wrote it hoping that someone would record it'. And in fact it HAD already been recorded: Mark Lindsay had a lovely record on its way up the charts, but when people heard Karen sing We've Only Just Begun... the song belonged to her. You know, when I'd do my show on stage - before and after her death - I always dedicated it to her, because it's her song.
RC: If there is a signature tune for the Carpenters, it's We've Only Just Begun: it shows up what Karen is as a singer, what I do as an arranger, it's a GREAT song, it has a great lyric... yeah, it's everything.
Paul Williams may have given them their signature song , but he admits that, at first, he looked at Karen and thought:
PW:A girl on a drum... it was unique. And I think a lot of people had a little chuckle up the sleeve and thought, 'A girl on a drum? Come on!' And of course then they saw the act. But I loved it when she got out front and sang. I think it freed her to really sing.
Karen and Richard may have turned to songwriting teams for their first two successes, but their next hit came from a visit to the movies.
KC: Well, we had just put out Begun and it was time to be thinking about the next single. We were touring in Canada at the time. And we had a night off and our manager said 'There's a great movie, why don't you go and see it? It's a real crack-up'. So we went in and BOOM! There was For All We Know playing from the speakers. And Richard went tearing out of the theatre, called home and said 'Get me that lead-sheet!'. It's funny, because around that time Richard and I were approached to do the theme for Love Story. But we were really quite taken with For All We Know. And that won the Oscar that year.
From an Oscar-winner, Richard and Karen returned to another proven winner: singer-songwriter Paul Williams, who gave them Rainy Days And Mondays. Paul explains where the opening line of that song came from.
PW: The opening line actually comes from my mother! She'd wander around the house mumbling, and you could almost discern profanity in there..! And I'd ask her, 'What's the matter, mom?' And she'd say, 'Oh nothing, I'm just feeling old. I just feel old today...' And out of that came....[Karen sings]
Talking to myself and feeling old...
The soft hits of the Carpenters and the gently haunting voice of Karen went against the musical trends of the day. Singer-songwriter Paul Williams:
PW: They were amazing, you know... You have to understand that when Karen and Richard came along and went to number one with Close To You, it marked a BIG turn in music. There was a whole new movement and these people were on the crest of it.
KC: We came out right in the middle of the hard-rock period... it was hard-rock everywhere! But we were ready to make our music, you know? And it was such a turnaround, I guess it caught people by surprise. And obviously a lot of people were waiting for something in that vein. Because Richard and I still believe you can have all kinds of music; it doesn't have to be just one kind. But we were the first: around that time it was the Carpenters and Bread, then Olivia [Newton-John] and Barry [Manilow], and much later came Donnie and Marie [Osmond]. But we didn't plan anything - it just happened. And when it hit, boy did it hit! We were sitting there saying 'What happened?!' Not only the music was different, but being a brother and sister team, too. People were astounded! We were the first brother-and-sister team since Fred and Adele Astaire! Now that was a long time!! But again I add, we didn't plan it...
They may not have planned it but, despite going against the musical trend, Karen's success was growing; no-one was worrying about her weight; everything was focused on coming up with the hits: Karen was truly becoming a Superstar.
RC: Karen... and this has been said too by a number of people - she took on a whole different personality, she was wise beyond her years when she sang. The Karen that would sit here and talk to you, joke around with you, THEN pick up the microphone and go on to something like Superstar, was like a whole different woman.
RC: Superstar! That's one of my favourites! Even though it wasn't tailor-made for Karen, it might as well have been. It is a PERFECT song for her. It's got a great melody, an offbeat lyric but very touching, and it worked well for my arrangemental skills... I just really like Superstar! But that's one that, for some reason, Karen didn't seem to like all that much. Of course she changed her mind!
The duo followed this hit with Goodbye To Love and in September 1972 they toured the UK. In 1973 Karen was heard again, this time on Sing. This too became a hit, but Richard detected some displeasure among the fans:
RC: Sing - either you love it or you hate it, I found. We got letters from fans who called it the "Munchkin song"... Of course it did very well. It went to number 3 and was a million seller, but some fans just plain DIDN'T like it: all the "la la la-la's" and all that crap, they didn't like it!
In the quest for greater success, both Richard and Karen's health took a back seat as they drove themselves tirelessly. And if Richard and his writing partner John Bettis couldn't come up with a hit, they turned to some of the best around. One of the best was Neil Sedaka, who provided the Carpenters with Solitaire.
RC: Solitaire is just a very good song. And a very DIFFICULT song! In fact some singers changed the melody around because of the range (Karen didn't of course). And again, she wasn't particularly wild about that song - but she sang the hell out of it!
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RC: Well I'll tell you, by '75 I was ready to drop - and so was Karen. Of course Karen was doing everything she could to hide the problem with the anorexia.
The anorexia nervosa condition forces its victim to not only starve themselves of food, but to deny they're even doing it - and Karen was a classic case. Richard didn't detect any signs of bulimia, a related condition in which the victim purges the body of food recently taken in.
RC: I don't know that she ever did that. And I may just be fooling myself; but you know that retching is murder on your throat... and Karen REALLY valued her pipes! I just can't imagine her doing this. But we'll never know.
Up until then Karen's weight-loss, accompanied by her less-than-normal eating habits, made it appear to Richard that -
RC: She was dieting. It wasn't like she was losing this weight because we were working too hard... My God, we'd worked hard like that year after year! No, she was making a concerted effort to just have this or that, and to really watch what she was eating. The first time I remember giving me pause was at the 'Au Petit', which is this great little restaurant we used to eat at during breaks from recording. Karen had been seeing this guy, like an 'exercise-guru' person - and she was actually bulking up! I think she only wanted to tone and she started to bulk. Well that REALLY upset her.
You see, to do this whole thing in a nutshell: Karen was a chubby teenager - definitely. In 1967 she decided to lose some weight and went about it the proper way: she went to see the doctor who put her on a water diet, and she went from 140lbs down to about 120lbs. And there she stayed. If you look at her in '70, '71 and '72 she looked absolutely fine. But then you look at when we did the 'Hope Show' in the fall of '73 and you'll see she's starting to bulk up. And that's because of this guy and his training programme: evidently certain things she was supposed to eat started her off.
So now she was starting to come down again and I remember us sitting at the 'Au Petit'. She was around 115lbs and she looked great! Cos that's right where Karen should have been. So I said 'You look great!' And she replied, 'Well, I'm just going to get down to 105'. And I said '105?! But you look great right now!' But of course that was the beginning of the whole thing. It went way past 105 and all of this came together in Vegas, in what would have been the fall of '75: Karen was down to about 80lbs and actually had to lie down in-between shows. Of course NOTHING ever affected her voice, but the audience was gasping when she walked out because she was way, way too thin.
In spite of this Richard says that none of it affected her performance on stage:
RC: Not in the way she took care of the show! Oh no! It's like she called inside, called something up... Well she was a trouper; she always gave her all, a true professional. And of course her voice ALWAYS sounded good! So she could be on her back in-between shows, but then she'd walk out and sing and... it just sounded great!
Despite drawing on hidden resources for live performances, it seemed obvious that Karen had to have medical treatment. Her brother, current boyfriend Terry Ellis, family and friends all agreed:
RC: She HAD to go into the hospital. Just to be monitored and to be told that she needs to rest - which she did - and that she needs to start eating - which she didn't. At any rate we had to do the album, do Vegas, do Tahoe... our manager had a 6 week summer-tour booked as well as huge European and Japanese tours... All with Karen at this weight? I mean, forget it! It was sheer lunacy.
It may have been lunacy, but when the showbiz bug bites, it won't let go, and the desire to stay in the public spotlight and maintain the success outweighs all logic. But as Richard points out -
RC: The Carpenters was not a 'trendy' act - it had longevity. So we didn't have to be busting our asses year after year because we wouldn't be famous in a couple of years time! Not an act like the Carpenters! Come on!
Following a short break to accommodate Karen's hospitalization, the duo spent the next two years making more music, showcasing Karen's vocals on the Kind of Hush and Palladium albums, along with single success with I Need To Be In Love and All You Get From Love Is A Love Song. But despite the success, by 1977 they were looking for something different.
KC: When we cut the Passage album - which was a different direction for us - we felt that we wanted to grow and certainly not stray from our sound, but add to it.
As part of the experiment Karen agreed to record a commercial for Japanese television.
Suntory Pop Jingle #2
Back on the popular music front, the Passage album brought a startling change with one song in particular: Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft.
KC: When we cut that, people didn't know where it was coming from! But Richard wanted to do that more than anything else in the world, and it turned into an epic! We figured it out: we spent more time on Occupants than we did on our third ALBUM! I mean, that song was a job... but it was a masterpiece when Richard got done with it!
Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft
Karen's health deteriorated over the next two years and she refused to get help. Meanwhile Richard was having trouble with prescription drugs and decided to seek help, taking off virtually the whole of 1979. Karen visited Richard several times during his treatment, but on one particular occasion -
RC: Karen - always looking for something to do, and always wanting to record - said, 'Well, if you're not working this year, I want to make a solo album'. Of course I wasn't happy about that, chiefly because I knew damn well she was battling anorexia nervosa! And I said to her, 'I'm in here doing something about this; why don't YOU go and check into something that is meant for anorexics?' And I remember saying 'We'll hit the new decade the same way we hit the seventies' You know? But of course she said, 'No!! There is nothing wrong with me, I don't have anorexia nervosa, I have colitis'. And off she went to make the solo album!
But I remember she was upset about upsetting me and she called me the night before she was planning on going and said she really couldn't go through with this unless she had my blessing. And she was pretty distraught, I'll tell you; she was in tears... and I said 'Karen, if you really want to, go ahead and do it! I just don't feel you're well' - which of course she wasn't.
Karen chose renowned record producer Phil Ramone to work with her.
RC: So she made the album, which was a BIG drag on her, I'll tell you! Because Phil is very successful and was involved in other things, they had to record at weird hours, and she was flying back and forwards across the country... Well she got to be really thin again, like she was in Vegas. She just didn't look well.
Anyway, we went into early '80 (by this time I'm champing at the bit, man, I'm really better!) and I'm wanting to get busy.
Her album was done, so she and Phil played it for... well, I know Herb, Jerry and I heard it... [pauses] As Phil has said, the silence was deafening at the end of the playback. It was all very well done. VERY well done. But in my opinion, and in many other people's opinions... it did not have a hit song on it. And it got to the point where A&M said 'We're not releasing this thing unless you go back into the studio...'
Well, come on, they'd already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on it and Karen was paying for this out of future royalties, so she was footing the bill on this thing...
Of course I get the blame for this , you know. The kind of "anti-Richard, pro-Karen" people say that I talked her out of releasing her album because I was ready to start OUR new album. It was sheer nonsense! If you don't believe me, all you have to do is talk to Herb, Jerry, Derek [Green], or any number of people, who will tell you that the album didn't have any hits... they BELIEVED that it didn't have any hits on it - and they weren't going to release it. It had nothing to do with me!
So that's what it came down to: whether she wanted to start all over or just shelve it and start on a new album with me. Well, she chose the latter! So we're just getting started on what became Made In America, when she meets Tom Burris, who of course would become her husband. So now we're into 1980.
In the midst of her health problems and the never-ending drive for success, Karen had allowed love to enter her life. It surprised many people, including Karen herself.
KC: I never met anybody on the road and I didn't until we took some time off. A friend of mine - Carol Scotti, Mike Curb's sister - called me and said 'I've met a really nice guy, he's good friend of Mike's' and that was it! We went out to dinner one night and I had just got back from New York so I was half-asleep! But I automatically like him: I like his way, his look, his style, his CAR!!! [laughs]
The joke here is that Richard was and still is an avid car-collector. The romance blossomed quickly enough; Karen seemingly doing anything to take attention away from her weight problem, began recording tracks for what was to become the Made In America album.
KC: We started on June 12th and I decided to get married on June 16th! (That's when he asked me and I said 'yes'! Hee-hee!) So in the middle of the album we were also planning a wedding. That's two major feats at the same time! The wedding was August 31st and it took a LOT of preparation, because it was finally going to happen and we wanted it to be really special. But then we thought 'Wow! Who's gonna do the music?' And we decided that maybe we should just do it, so Richard and his writing partner John Bettis wrote Tom and I our own wedding song, called Because We Are In Love. Then Richard flew Peter Knight over here and together they put the rest of the song together and we had a 40-voice choir... But because I was going to be a little busy, Richard said 'We'll record your part of the song'. So that's what we did - we cut Because We Are In Love.
Outwardly Richard may have been happy for his sister, but getting married and still recording didn't hide the fact that she was seriously ill - and he was concerned.
RC: Well, by this time we're dealing with 5 years of this - at least.
But Karen refused to acknowledge her weight problem was brought about by anything other than a career schedule.
KC: Well, we'd been going eight years straight. Truthfully, it was straight: we'd go from the recording studio to the road, into the television studio, back to the studio... And in seven or eight years we never really had a vacation and we were just... pooped!
Knowing When To Leave [1980 Medley]
RC: I did everything and so did my folks and everyone around her - we all did everything we could have humanly done. I tried the heart-to-heart, the cajole, the holler... Obviously it wasn't about to work. What finally happened was, the album came out and we got our last Top 20 off it, Touch Me When We're Dancing, which is one of my favourite records.
We went out to do a promotional tour in October '81 - by then this marriage is on the rocks - and we came home in November for dad's birthday. We went out to dinner to celebrate it and afterwards we all came back to my folks' place. Tom and Karen went upstairs and had it out, and Tom came down and said 'You can have her' and that was that.
But you see, in the past couple of years - '79, '80 and '81 - she was way too thin. And now she was getting thinner, so by this time she decides she's going to finally seek some help - and what I was upset about was the help she was going to seek.
Karen decided to receive treatment from someone practising in New York, but instead of going to hospital, Karen checked in to a luxury hotel.
RC: I know enough, having gone through what I did, that you DON'T check yourself into the Regency Hotel and see a therapist for an hour a day and not on the weekends. It's like an alcoholic saying 'Okay, I'm going to check myself into the Regency Hotel and I'll go see some guy an hour a day'! It DOESN'T WORK! I still don't know whether she was just half-heartedly doing it to appease us, or whether she really felt that it would work. But I knew, and a number of others felt, that it couldn't - here she was, one hour a day! And she'd WALK from the hotel to burn off more calories! It couldn't work - and it didn't.
Of course under the therapist's care her weight went down, down, down and because he wasn't a doctor, he couldn't check her into a hospital, so he got a doctor associate to check her in, and they gave her hyperalimentation, with the tube in her neck to feed her. And THAT'S the only way they got the weight on her.
Now, she came back in Thanksgiving in late November of '82 and she was 108lbs. And in her defence, the day she died - February 4th of '83 - she was 108lbs. So, after being stuck in the hospital and being away from everybody... maybe she was turning the corner, because she did not lose a pound between November and February.
But you see, we got into a tiff because... she didn't look well. I don't mean weight-wise, but her eyes - I could see it in her eyes. And I was REALLY concerned. And I said a couple of things and I guess it got back to her and she just read me the Riot Act! I remember I was shopping at a department store called the 'Broadway' one night, and I came out and there she was in her car! Just waiting in the parking lot for me to come out! And of course she went through this whole thing again, that she is getting better, not to criticise all the time... She was eloquent, articulate, she just spelled the whole thing out and made me feel like a... creep! And I told her 'Karen, the only reason I'm mentioning all of this to people is, I don't feel you're well. Yes, your weight is up and you may be doing your damned best', but I told her, 'I look at you - you DON'T LOOK WELL!' And I said, 'I'm only bringing this up because I love you'. And then there were like a few days and... that was that - she was dead.
The Coroner's report stated that death was due to 'heartbeat irregularities brought on by chemical imbalances associated with anorexia nervosa'.
Superstar plays in the background
RC: I wish - believe me, more than anything else in the world - obviously that Karen was still with me, but at least that we had more to give. There's the tenth anniversary coming up and it would be nice, in a sense, to have a commemorative album, but there's just nothing left.
PW: There's something about Karen's voice that is this strange combination of purity and also a wisdom, almost of children... It's difficult to explain how I feel when I hear her sing. Of course now there's a great sadness. It was a terrible loss.
BB: I can remember sometime in the last year, I hadn't thought about Karen and Richard in a while, and one of her records came on the radio and I was just stunned by how good she is.
RC: Yes, my sister died at 32, but I cannot say that she wouldn't have, had she had this... I don't know this! But she loved her fame and she loved singing and the crowds and recording studios - she LOVED it.
KC: It's kinda nice to be remembered by your peers and your fans, because you can achieve a lot of success and be a creep too! But we try to be nice, just normal people.
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Last changed: Thu Nov 2 17:17:33 EST 2006
