I know; I’m in the choir at church. (Bass section.)
It’s interesting how the Carpenters got their first hit. This is the story Karen told on the summer replacement TV show they had.
In 1963, Burt Bacharach and Hal David had written a song. They gave it to Dionne Warwick with no results, so they tried a few other singers. Nothing. They even tried giving it to the actor Richard Chamberlain for an album of essentially talk-singing he was doing. Nothing.
Now, they were with A&M Records, and the A in A&M was Herb Alpert of the Tijuana Brass. Burt was talking to Herb one day and kind of complaining about that song and why it hadn’t gone anywhere.
“Well,” said Herb, “I have these kids I just signed. They just won the Battle of the Bands at the Hollywood Bowl. I think they could do a great job with your song.”
“What can it hurt?”, Burt said.
So Herb Alpert passed the song along to them. Richard arranged it, because he knew how to arrange perfectly for his sister’s voice. It was called “Close to You.”
Thanks for sharing this story. Sounds like a Paul Harvey tale, with the best part at the end, eh?