Karen Carpenter: Her Music and Her Struggles

TERRI SCHLICHENMEYER
The Bookworm Sez
”Lead Sister: The Story of Karen Carpenter” by Lucy O’Brien, Rowman & Littlefield, $32.00, 358 pages

It was the background music of a decade.

Every wedding, every anniversary, every prom and graduation, someone played that song. Even today, more than five decades after its release, you can still count on hearing it at least a couple times a year. The first notes are familiar. You know the words. So now read “Lead Sister” by Lucy O’Brien and find a matching story close to your heart.

From the moment she was born in March of 1950, Karen Carpenter played second fiddle to her brother, Richard. Their parents indulged Karen’s tomboyishness and her active nature but, says O’Brien, “Richard was the one destined for greatness.” Their parents bragged about him at every opportunity and they made sure he had piano lessons. It was on his behalf that the Carpenters uprooted the family and moved to California, where better opportunities for Richard could be found.

Meanwhile, Karen discovered the drums and joined a marching band to learn to play them.

She was a popular girl back then, and very athletic; she loved to dance and was “delightfully unselfconscious” about it. She had a bit of trouble settling into her new California life but she soon bounced back, she began to date, and she found mentors to hone her talents. Later, she and Richard were introduced to Herb Alpert, who suggested to them a song that Dionne Warwicke had recorded, called “They Long to Be Close to You.”

Behind the scenes, though, Karen was struggling.

For much of her life, her family had teased her about being “chubby, pudgy, plump, bulky, and rotund.” Karen was “insecure about her appearance,” though O’Brien says that she was actually “naturally curvy.” Long before “Close to You” raced up the charts to a Number One position in the summer of 1970, Karen had started dieting.

At first, she lost a few pounds. Then too many more, and she sought help for anorexia. After awhile, says O’Brien, fans and concert-goers began to notice…

So many books about music stars take one of two paths: they’re predominantly about the songs or they’re mostly about the singer’s career. In “Lead Sister,” author Lucy O’Brien does a nice job melding the two together with a biography.

For the person who must know the discography of an album (they were albums then!) in order to enjoy it, there’s just enough to satisfy you here. The reader who wants to know about the singer herself will be happy with a big biography that includes the smallest tinge of tabloid to keep things interesting. And if you need still more, you won’t be disappointed: there are secrets inside this book, and an overall feeling of bell-bottom jeans, leather headbands, warm summer nights, and a time before disco when a powerful voice and a soft song were on every car radio everywhere.

Despite its heft, this book is a surprisingly fast read, but you’ll want to take your time with it because of the nostalgia. “Lead Sister” is a book you’ll want to keep close to you.