Days before the wedding rehearsal Burris dropped a bombshell: he had undergone a vasectomy prior to their meeting.

I loved this, but that may have more to do with the memories the book triggered than with the book itself. We had so many hit singles, and usually right in a row, that we tended to be dismissed again by our detractors as a singles band,” Carpenter said. I love the prose style it was written in, and you really felt as though you were with Karen and Richard as they grew up, moved to California, began recording, and the rest is history. Outwardly Karen seemed committed to the idea of therapy, but as evidenced by her daily walking regimen, she was not as committed to making actual changes that would result in real progress.

This book was just so wonderful, a true gift for Carpenters fans but would also be a fine present for casual Carpenters fans too. It made the whole thing seem irrelevant, like we were nothing, and in no time at all, no one would ever remember us. The hyperalimentation process completely replaced all of her nutritional needs, and a precise daily calorie intake was dispensed through the catheter. Karen's quest to be thin seems to have begun innocently enough just after high school graduation when she started the Stillman water diet.

It s a good resource for Carpenters fans, allowing you to watch the duo s story unfold and see how the duo s legacy has been re-evaluated since Karen s tragic death.

I honestly don't know if the reader below is mocking The Carpenters or simply criticizing them, but I feel it's an unfair and biased review, and one that makes me wonder if this person is anything BUT a Carpenters fan? The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Arriving at Levenkron's office at 16 East Seventy-Ninth in Manhattan, Karen weighed in at an alarming 5st 8lb. She told them how sorry she was for having put them in a situation where they felt a need to defend her upbringing, and she went so far as to apologise for ruining their lives. After becoming multi-million selling, Grammy-winning superstars with their 1970 breakthrough “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” Richard and Karen Carpenter would win over fans worldwide with a record-breaking string of hits including “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Top of the World” and “Yesterday Once More.

He cites some unexpected influences, including another man-and-woman duo, Les Paul and Mary Ford, whose early experimenting with vocal overdubs and layered harmonies electrified him. I felt it would have been better if it would have been "heart stopped" or "cardiac arrest" or such instead of "heart attack". The two stopped by the Ramones's apartment to pick up a size 2 light green bikini belonging to Itchie.

If you’re looking for a sad story about the triumphs and tragedies of the Carpenters, choose one of those unauthorized books, but if you want to know about their music and how it came about, you’ll enjoy this walk down memory lane and appreciate even more one of the most amazing female voices and her talented brother of our time.

This loss of control was known to often spark fear in patients, and doctors who oppose hyperalimentation argue that it does not teach the patient to eat properly. She is suffering a severe case of physical and nervous exhaustion," said Dr Robert Koblin in a statement to the press. When the coffee was ready, Agnes dialled the upstairs bedroom phone, but its ring, heard faintly in the distance, went unanswered. It was the focus on the music itself, that's primarily it,” Carpenter told the AP as he sat at his piano in his Southern California home.He found “Superstar,” the Carpenters song probably most beloved of younger generations, when he heard Bette Midler sing it on “The Tonight Show. Many insights in the book and a big plus of this book is that it allows the reader to reach their own conclusions.