Little Girl Blue (8 page)

Disneyland's entertainment supervisor, Vic Guder, made frequent stops throughout the park, walkie-talkie in hand, overseeing the park's wide range of talent. He made certain all acts were in proper costume and performing in accordance with the park's policies. Stopping by Coke Corner, Guder expected to hear turn-of-the-century ditties, like “A Bicycle Built for Two” and Scott Joplin's “Maple Leaf Rag” and “The Entertainer.” Instead he discovered the duo granting requests from thirsty patrons wanting to hear modern tunes like “Light My Fire” and “Yesterday.” After months of gentle redirection by Guder, their time with Disneyland came to an end. “
They had very strict regimens
as to what one could and could not do in the park,” Bettis recalled. “Richard and I were fired for combing our hair in the park. Now, I grant you we did a lot of other things that did not please them before that time, but that actually caused us to be fired.”

According to Guder, the duo was never fired, the season merely came to an end. “Heck no, they weren't fired,” he says. “Richard was hired for the summertime. He went back to school in the fall and didn't plan to work full time. Coke Corner is a spot that is a part-time summer
job. They'd come back when we'd use the Coke Corner pianist at night for private parties. It's not a full-time gig.”

Seeking musical revenge, so to speak, the two set out to write a song about the incident immediately upon termination. “
We got all the way
to the bridge and didn't finish it because I wasn't at all sure that it was something that we ought to be doing,” Bettis said. “Richard really felt so strongly about it and liked the music well enough that he actually wrote the bridge to that, lyrically, and finished it.” Like many of their early musical collaborations, “Mr. Guder” was set aside and would resurface several years later.

F
OLLOWING HER
brother's lead, Karen enrolled at Cal State Long Beach as a music major in the fall of 1967. Despite the beauty of her newly discovered chest voice, she was expected to use her head voice as it was better suited to the classical art song repertoire required of private voice students. She was also required to sing before a panel of professors called a jury for evaluation at the end of each semester. Such a critical review proved stressful for even the most accomplished musicians. With Larry Peterson, head of the music department, and several other members of the voice faculty present, Karen performed selections from her repertoire before Pooler interrupted. “Look, this is all so serious,” he told his colleagues. “This girl's really versatile. Do you guys want a laugh?” Pooler urged Karen to do one of many impersonations he had witnessed in their lessons. In particular he requested the “spastic, harelipped singer.”

“They'll kick me out of school,” Karen objected.

She was surprised and embarrassed by her teacher's request, especially before such an esteemed gathering. “The thing that really endeared me to Karen,” Pooler recalls, “was the sense of humor she had about everything and how she could imitate people. She could do anything with her voice.”

Pooler was a bit of a maverick in the choral music world, displaying an eccentric approach to his style and work. He was never predictable—at least not musically. Opening the floor to members of the A Cappella
Choir, Pooler would allow students to suggest music literature and styles. The subject of black spirituals surfaced. “I don't want to do a piece that's foreign to me,” Pooler told the choir. Though he was experienced in music sung in foreign languages, spirituals and gospel music were unfamiliar territory.

“Well, if you can't show them,
I'll
show them,” a voice said, and out stepped Wanda Freeman, one of the few African Americans in the choir. She faced the choir and began to sing.

“I had never done spirituals or black music,” Pooler says. “I just didn't feel it, but she did. She was sensational. She was the start of a whole host of first-class gospel musicians that came out of that choir.”

Unlike other college choirs in the area that specialized in one style or another, Pooler's groups tackled a wide range of choral genres. “Frank was very innovative,” Freeman recalls. “We were doing avant-garde stuff and things that other choirs had never done before; songs with just sounds and things. He was very open to trying gospel.”

Made popular by Blood, Sweat and Tears, “And When I Die” was one of several contemporary hits the choir performed. The gospel-style arrangement called for a duet, and Pooler chose the unlikely pairing of Wanda Freeman and Karen Carpenter. “Karen had a nice alto voice,” Freeman recalls. “I never really thought anything of it, but it was a very clear voice. When we did ‘And When I Die' she really opened up. She really wanted to do that song.”

Pooler often praised Karen's versatility as a singer and even used her as a model for other choir students. “Her range was spectacular,” he recalls. “She could sing higher than anybody else but also lower than anybody else. At that time her voice was like most adolescent voices. It was not completely unified from the top to the bottom, but she knew how to do it.”

W
ITH THE
departure of bassist Wes Jacobs, who in 1967 left the Richard Carpenter Trio and Los Angeles to study classical tuba at Juilliard, Richard was open to exploring new musical opportunities. He had long been fond of vocal ensembles like the Hi-Lo's, the Four Freshmen,
and the Beach Boys. He had also enjoyed the close harmony sounds of overdubbing pioneers Les Paul and Mary Ford since childhood. But it was Frank Pooler's choral influence that left a lasting impression on both him and Karen. His philosophy stressed vocal blend, vowel shaping, and precise attack and release. These fundamentals were the basis for what would ultimately become the trademark Carpenters sound.

Richard's first attempt at forming a vocal group produced a quintet assembled during Karen's senior year of high school. They called themselves Summerchimes but soon renamed the group Spectrum. Their first recruit was John Bettis, who sang and played rhythm guitar. Over a period of several months, he, Karen, and Richard conducted informal auditions to complete the group. Gary Sims lived in Downey and, like Karen, was still attending high school when the group originated. “
He used to perform
with an acoustic guitar, like a folk singer,” recalled Bettis, who went with Richard to catch Sims's act. “He had this great baritone voice and joined the group as a guitar player.” The final recruit was Dan Woodhams, a tenor vocalist enlisted to sing and play bass guitar, although he “didn't have a clue how to play the bass,” according to Bettis. “He played violin, so Richard actually taught him how to play the bass. Danny was the final member. That was the original Spectrum.”

The addition of Leslie “Toots” Johnston in the fall of 1967 made the group a sextet. “Johnny Bettis and Gary Sims were friends of mine,” Johnston recalls. “Gary was the Carpenters' neighbor, and they were looking for another girl to add to the group. They listened to me, and I had a good pop voice style. Richard was looking for someone who could blend with Karen, which I did very well.” A member of the college choir, Johnston sat next to Karen in the alto section during the daily afternoon rehearsals. “We threw jokes back and forth and got along really well,” she says. “Karen was such a great musician but didn't read music as well as I did, so she listened to me for the part. We struck up a friendship. She had a dry sense of humor and was funny. She thought I was funny, too. She didn't have a lot of girlfriends, so I think Karen enjoyed having another female around.”

Spectrum rehearsed in the garage at the house on Fidler, where there was never a shortage of Agnes Carpenter's famous iced tea—the perfect blend of Lipton instant tea and frozen lemonade. “There had to be a jug of that on the table for every rehearsal,” Johnston recalls. “That was
the drink
!”

K
AREN BECAME
increasingly mindful of her appearance during her first year of college. She had been chubby as a kid. In fact, Richard often called her Fatso (to which she would reply, “Four eyes!”). It was the type of teasing characteristic of most sibling relationships. But as a seventeen-year-old young woman, Karen was five feet four inches tall and weighed 145 pounds. Her classic hourglass figure was a common trait among family members, including her mother and aunt Bernice. “
I was heavier
,” Karen said in a 1973 interview. “About twenty pounds heavier, to tell you the truth. I was just tired of being fat so I went on a diet. . . . I found this sweater I used to wear in high school. Good Lord, I think I could get into it three times today. I don't know how I ever got through a door.”

Frankie Chavez recalls Karen as only slightly overweight in high school, but if she had body image issues at the time, he never noticed. There were no warning signs during the period they were close. “She never gave any indication that it bothered her that she carried a little extra weight,” he says. “She always seemed very self-confident, and I don't think she ever even contemplated dieting when I knew her. Karen was a perfectionist as far as her performances were concerned, and she set the bar very high for herself, but there was no indication that she had any problems at all.”

During the summer of 1967 Agnes took her to see their family doctor, who recommended the popular Stillman water diet that was introduced that year by Dr. Irwin Maxwell Stillman. The plan promised quick weight loss through limiting intake of carbohydrates and fatty foods while increasing daily water intake to eight glasses. Karen hated water, but after only six weeks she shed twenty-five pounds and was determined to maintain her new figure. When Spectrum's late-night
rehearsals ended, everyone in the band was hungry and went for dinner, which was frustrating for Karen. “
All the guys
would want to go to eat at Coco's,” she said, “and I would sit there with my hamburger patty and cottage cheese while the guys ordered forty-seven-layer cheeseburgers and giant sundaes.” From the summer of 1967 until early 1973, Karen remained at or around the comfortable weight of 115 to 120 pounds.