The duo soon turned professional, debuting in 1969 as Carpenters with a haunting cover of The Beatles’ “Ticket To Ride”, the first of many to highlight the low-reaching range of Karen’s rich contralto voice. The Connecticut-born siblings showed early aptitude for music: Richard started playing piano at age eight, and Karen was a talented drummer, leading to both of them studying music at university. The combination of Richard Carpenter’s meticulous arrangements and instrumentation and the mellifluous voice of his younger sister, Karen, led to a string of hits, starting in 1970 with the orchestra-kissed “(They Long To Be) Close To You” and “We’ve Only Just Begun”. In the 1970s, perhaps no act embodied soft rock’s pristine sonics and sentimental bent more than the Carpenters.
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