The Carpenters

About this book

We've Only Just Begun, Close To You, Top Of The World: these are just a few of the bestselling hits that rocketed the Carpenters to the top of the charts. Karen and Richard typified the best of America's golden youth, selling nearly a hundred million recordings and leaving an indelible mark on the landscape of popular music. Written with the cooperation of Richard Carpenter and with a foreword by Herb Alpert, this definitive biography traces the story of the Carpenters from their white-picket-fence upbringing in Connecticut through their move to California and struggle for recognition. It portrays Richard as the brain and architect behind a winning musical collaboration with Karen its heart and voice; and it explores the pressures of their meteoric rise. Here, also, for the first time, in detail, is the graphic, heartrending story of a brother and sister's personal battles: while Karen dieted incessantly, Richard fought an addiction to pills. Bestselling author Ray Coleman, who has known the Carpenters since their earliest successes, investigates every aspect of how Richard and Karen arrived at their unique sound. He focuses on their exceptional interaction and examines the difficulties that came with fame, contributing in part to Karen's shocking death from anorexia nervosa in 1983 at the age of thirty-two. Drawing on conversations over the years with Richard and Karen, their mother, the family, close friends, Karen's therapist, fellow musicians, and including family photographs and memorabilia, Ray Coleman has written not only the first biography of an extraordinary partnership but a tribute to Karen's yearning yet crystalline voice that was - and still is - cherished by millions.