Little Girl Blue (36 page)

Authors: Randy L. Schmidt

BOOK: Little Girl Blue

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To the Carpenter family, a solo venture for Karen threatened the Carpenters as a duo. This was especially difficult for Agnes Carpenter, who saw the idea as her daughter tampering with the established formula she had devised. She was fearful a temporary split might lead to a permanent separation and the end of her son's career. “You have to remember, these were uneducated, unsophisticated people,” says Frenda of the senior Carpenters. “They were going to stay with the tried and the true. Agnes had washed those cars so that Richard could perform. That was her vision and her goal. That was it! And you stayed with the plan. Anything that deviated or threatened was bad. So Karen was bad.”

Initially, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss supported the idea of a solo project for Karen, as did manager Jerry Weintraub. It was Alpert who recommended producer Phil Ramone, “
the Quincy Jones of
the East Coast,” according to Rob Hoerburger for
Rolling Stone
. Ramone's career with such artists as Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, and Paul Simon was thriving. His recent production of Joel's
52nd Street
album won the Grammy for
Album of the Year for 1979. Karen was hopeful the producer would consent. Ramone, too, had a great deal of respect for Karen as a vocalist and was a self-professed fan of the hits she created with Richard earlier in the decade. “The greatness of her is that within five seconds of hearing that voice on the air you know it is Karen,” Ramone says. “Hers is still one of the most instantly identified sounds in the world.”

Ramone first met the Carpenters in 1970 when working on an album with Burt Bacharach on the A&M lot. “Herb asked me to come in his office,” he recalls. “He said, âOh, you've got to hear these two young people we signed recently.' I went crazy. The next time that I heard about them, Burt said they had covered âClose to You.' Fast-forward a little bit, Burt goes out on a tour and the opening act was the Carpenters. That's when I saw them in New York at Westbury Music Fair.”

Jerry Weintraub made the call to Ramone proposing he work with Karen and explained that Richard was taking a year off due to overwork and exhaustion. Phil agreed enthusiastically but was unaware of Richard's bout with quaaludes and his stay at Menninger. “I knew nothing,” he says, although he sensed something might be going on beneath the surface. The call from Weintraub was followed by calls from both Alpert and Moss, with both men expressing their support but reminding Phil they were not looking to replace the Carpenters.

Karen's initial meeting with Ramone was a short and informal one that took place at the producer's duplex on Burton Way in Beverly Hills. “Karen didn't want anybody to know that she was even thinking about doing a solo album,” recalls Karen Ramone, then Karen Ichiuji and Phil's girlfriend. “She was so hard on herself. She was basically hyperactive, and she really wanted to continue her music. She didn't know whether or not Richard would come out of Menninger's and say he wanted to work again. I think she was really trying to prepare herself for any scenario that might happen. She got all thumbs up by everybodyâHerbie, Jerry Moss, and Jerry Weintraubâeverybody. She had a huge support system when she started this thing.”

Arriving at Karen's Century City condo for the first time, Ramone was caught off guard when the doorbell chimed the first six notes of “We've Only Just Begun.” “Isn't that an amazing bell?” Karen said as
she answered the door. “I had a guy make it for me, and it's
exactly
as I sang it!”

Phil was puzzled by Karen. He knew her only as the naive girl he had seen in publicity photos and on album covers. He was familiar with the duo's biggest hits and was well aware of their reputation for attention to intricate details in the music, but Ramone's goal was never to achieve the Carpenters' echelon of perfection with Karen. In fact, his plan for her was to follow no set plan at all. “It was a lot of experimenting,” he recalls. “We were trying to make an artist's complete dream.”

Karen flew to New York on February 16, 1979, for further meetings with her producer, just a week prior to his receiving the Record of the Year Grammy for Billy Joel's “Just the Way You Are.” Ramone interrupted Karen when she began talking about recording tracks in Los Angeles at A&M and how she planned to record with all the musicians and engineers she and Richard had known and trusted for years. “No, no,” he told her. “You have got to come back to New York. A&M's a great studio to cut in, but it will confuse the issue.”

After much consideration, it was agreed that Karen would fly to New York to record with Ramone at his own A&R Recording Studios in Manhattan. “Coming to New York was a big thing for her and for me,” he says. “We talked about what the approach should be. How do you make a record when your whole reputation is built on your life as a Carpenter? I personally didn't want to touch anything in that world. I thought of her as an actor who had been typecast, like Judy Garland was typecast after
The Wizard of Oz
. She made all those
Andy Hardy
movies. Recording artists get typed, too. I said to Karen, âIt is like comedians who want to do a serious role as a singer and singers who want to be comedians. You must be cautious here.'”

D
ESPITE HAVING
put his stamp of approval on a solo project for Karen, Jerry Weintraub's concern for her health and well-being remained. He was intrigued when he came across a television interview with Steven Levenkron, a psychotherapist specializing in eating disorders, promoting
The Best Little Girl in the World
, his new novel about “the obsession
that kills.” Weintraub was immediately impressed with the therapist's convincing tone and perceived knowledge of the subject matter, and felt Karen would surely benefit from meeting with Levenkron. Little did he know, Karen was already familiar with Levenkron after having become engrossed with the book at first reading. Weintraub's call to the therapist was returned after several days, at which time he explained his concern for Karen and the struggle that had become apparent some four years prior.

With Richard present, Karen phoned Steven Levenkron in New York from Weintraub's office on March 27, 1979. She purposely moved away from the men and spoke softly in an attempt to keep the conversation private. During their brief exchange Karen felt she had been able to convince the therapist that she was not suffering with anorexia nervosa but a gastrointestinal problem, specifically colitis. Levenkron urged her to find a qualified gastrointestinal specialist and wished her good luck. Returning to Richard and Weintraub, Karen lied, saying that Levenkron could tell she did not have anorexia from their conversation. They were skeptical but pleased to know she had made a significant step in just making the call, an act that hushed the two, if only temporarily.

To further appease Richard and Weintraub, Karen checked into Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles for a few days of diagnostics. Exhausted and, of course, underweight, she must have thought that going to these lengths would calm the fears of those around herâor at least appear to be an effort on her part to get well.

The April 1979 fan club newsletter told of Karen's solo venture, sparking concern from fans afraid this meant an end to the duo. At that time, no one really knew for certain, not even Karen and Richard themselves. In an attempt to calm fears, the club's next issue included the following statement.

To dispel any rumors that the group has split up, Karen wishes to assure you this is not so. The reason for the temporary lapse in their recordings is that after ten arduous years of concentrating on perfecting music to the Carpenters standards we expect, Richard felt the need for a long vacation which probably will extend into the
New Year. Karen reaffirms they will resume work on their album whenever Richard feels ready. He is really enjoying the freedom from pressures, and we must not be selfish in denying him the time off he deserves.

According to Evelyn Wallace, “It was stuff like that we just kind of skirted around. A person's always allowed to take time off. You don't have to tell people what it's for.”

Phil Ramone recalls that Karen was very frustrated once rumors of a Carpenters breakup began to spread. “That was the thing that drove her crazy,” he says. “The 1970s saw the breakup of Peter, Paul and Mary, Crosby, Stills and Nash. They were all going out on solo careers. People thought if you left a group you never came back or would never work together again. They could never leave the roost. Not in that family.”

In a 1981 interview with Paul Grein, Karen expressed in no uncertain terms that her solo album was never meant to signal an end to the Carpenters as a duo. “
It was never planned
for me to drop the Carpenters and go cut a soloâthat would never happen, ever! If Richard hadn't gone on vacation, I never would have done the solo album.”

With flights and studio time booked, Karen's loyalty to Richard still weighed heavily on the eve of her departure for New York. Having completed Menninger's six-week program, Richard spent much of 1979 visiting friends around the country, relaxing, and putting on some of the weight lost during the crisis. He avoided the stress of the business and even his home life, taking up residence in the Long Beach home of Gary Sims and Dennis Strawn, brother of Doug. On the evening of April 30, Karen phoned Richard at Sims's house, hoping to get his blessing before embarking on the project. She knew very well he did not and would not approve, but she made the call regardless. Distraught and in tears, she told him, “I can't go do this unless I know that you're behind it.”

In an attempt to pacify Karen, Richard offered his blessing. But before their conversation ended he asked that she promise him one thing: “Do me one favor. Do
not
do disco!”