Richard Carpenter

The Close to You Lead Sheet at A&M

Herb Alpert signed the Carpenters to A&M Records in April 1969. Their first entry on the Billboard Hot 100, a cover of "Ticket to Ride," stalled at No. 54.

The record that changed things came from Alpert. In a 2024 interview with Grammy.com, Richard recalled that Alpert gave him a lead sheet for "(They Long to Be) Close to You," a Burt Bacharach and Hal David song copyrighted in 1963. He worked out the arrangement on a Wurlitzer electric piano on the A&M soundstage and wrote the slow shuffle that opens the record. The vocal part was built the same way the duo would build most of its hits. "I arranged a four-part harmony, which was actually 12, because we overdubbed the voices," he said.

Billboard reports that the single reached No. 1 within six weeks of its chart debut, and it finished 1970 as the second biggest single of the year, behind "Bridge Over Troubled Water."

Arranger, Producer and A&R Man for a Duo

Karen's voice was the part of the Carpenters most listeners noticed. Richard's work was the frame around it. The Los Angeles Philharmonic biography credits him with arranging and orchestrating almost all of their recordings, producing most of them, writing many of the songs and playing keyboards on all but a few. He found "We've Only Just Begun" in a Los Angeles television commercial for a bank. With the lyricist John Bettis he wrote six of their singles.

He also chose the material. "It didn't take long for me to realize that I was the band's A&R man, in addition to being the writer, arranger, and singing the songs with Karen," he told Grammy.com. Of the job he did most, he said: "I've always believed that arrangers are the unsung heroes in this business." Of his sister: "Her breath control was beyond belief."

Top of the World, Please Mr. Postman and The Singles

The Carpenters had three No. 1 hits on the Hot 100. After "Close to You" in 1970 came "Top of the World" in December 1973 and "Please Mr. Postman" in January 1975. Their compilation The Singles 1969-1973 topped the Billboard 200 in January 1974, the only album of theirs to do so.

Billboard ranks the Carpenters No. 36 on its list of the greatest Hot 100 artists of all time, and second among duos, behind Hall & Oates. They won three Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist at the 1971 ceremony, and both "Close to You" and "We've Only Just Begun" are in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Sources do not agree on how many nominations Richard received for his arrangements: Billboard and the Los Angeles Philharmonic say five, Steinway says eight, and the Recording Academy's own artist page lists twelve.

The last studio album released in Karen's lifetime was Made in America in 1981. Its single "Touch Me When We're Dancing" was the duo's final top 20 hit.

After February 4, 1983

Karen Carpenter died on February 4, 1983, at the age of 32. The duo ended with her. Richard did not form a new group. "Whatever I did wouldn't have been as good without her," he told Grammy.com in December 2024, at 78.

He married Mary in 1984. The Encyclopedia.com entry gives the date as May 19, 1984, in Downey, California, and her maiden name as Mary Rudolph. Sources differ on the size of the family: that entry lists four daughters, while the Los Angeles Philharmonic biography says the couple has five children. With Mary he founded the Carpenter Family Foundation, and the family's name is on the Carpenter Family Theater at Westlake High School.

Most of his work since then has gone into the existing recordings: demos, outtakes, remixes and anthologies such as Christmas Once More, a remastered collection of the holiday songs. He lives in Thousand Oaks.

The 2017 Royalty Suit Against Universal

Who controls the money from those recordings has been a live question. On January 11, 2017, Richard Carpenter sued Universal Music Group and its subsidiary A&M Records, for himself and for Karen's estate, seeking more than $2 million in digital royalties. Billboard reported that the suit leaned on a 2010 appellate ruling in a case involving Eminem's label, which held that downloads are licenses rather than sales. "It seems only fair that these companies account fairly to my sister's estate and to me," he said in a statement. We did not find a public record of how the case ended.

No dated estimate of his net worth from Forbes or Bloomberg exists, and his share of the catalog income has not been disclosed, so this article gives no figure.

Abbey Road With the Royal Philharmonic

In August 2018 he went to Abbey Road Studios in London to record new orchestral backings for 17 Carpenters songs with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He produced, arranged and conducted the sessions. According to uDiscover, a site run by Universal, it was the first time a featured artist on one of the orchestra's albums had taken all three roles. Carpenters With the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra came out on December 7, 2018. He called the project "a dream come true."

The Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach

The other lasting mark is at his old campus. The Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center, a 1,054-seat hall at Cal State Long Beach, opened in 1994, and the university names him as its founder with Karen. Its 30th anniversary was marked with a performance by Renee Elise Goldsberry. On fundraising for it he told the university: "The arts need constant support, and they are somewhere down the ladder when it comes to interest in donating at all."

Sources

• Richard Carpenter - LA Phil
• Carpenter, Richard | Encyclopedia.com
• Richard Carpenter returns to The Beach, reminisces about where it all started | California State University Long Beach
• Carpenters: Remembering the Sibling Duo 50 Years After Their Hot 100 Debut | Billboard
• Still Close To You: Richard Carpenter On The Power Of Karen's Voice & Pop Infamy | Grammy
• Carpenters' Surviving Member Suing Universal Music Group Over Digital Royalties | Billboard
• Richard Carpenter Grammy Awards and Nominations, Song & Bio
• Carpenters' Orchestral Album Is An Intimate Labour Of Love | uDiscover
• Richard Carpenter - Steinway & Sons