Richard Carpenter returns to The Beach, reminisces about where it all started
He was half of the iconic, Grammy Award-winning duo The Carpenters. As a prelude to their massively successful music career – selling more than 100 million records and earning a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – Richard Carpenter ‘00 and his sister Karen attended and learned music at Cal State Long Beach in the 1960s.
Since The Carpenters’ 1970s heyday, Richard has also served as a record producer, pianist, music arranger and arts philanthropist.
While his name is on the 1,054-seat Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center building, Richard hasn’t been back to the theater in years. He will, however, make a special appearance and performance at the theater this Saturday, to celebrate the Carpenter Center’s 30th anniversary with Grammy and Tony-winning Broadway star Renée Elise Goldsberry. Proceeds will benefit the center’s flagship arts education program, Arts for Life.
Q: It’s the 30th anniversary of the Carpenter Center. What are your feelings about this momentous occasion?
Richard Carpenter: I look at (the center) with pride. And it’s a little bit scary that it’s been 30 years, because it doesn’t seem like it. Karen and I both, and friends and associates, contributed to get it going.
When I was at Long Beach State, the whole lower section where the theater was, that was the gym area and the swimming pool, kind of off by itself. It’s something to see how it’s grown and changed over the years.
Q: What are your fondest memories of Cal State Long Beach?
RC: Working with Frank Pooler, he ran the university choir. You had to have the right stuff to be accepted. He stressed, well, of course, breathing. And attacks, when you enter the beginning of a phrase or song.
He knew I was writing songs, and he brought me a lyric. He said he had written it right around the time I was born – 1945 or ‘46. It was called “Merry Christmas, Darling.” He didn’t like his melody, so he thought I could do a better job. He gave me the lyrics, I took it into one of the practice rooms. Eventually, Karen and I recorded it. And it has proven to have done very well through the years. It still charts every Christmas.
Q: Any other memories from Cal State Long Beach?
RC: (Former music instructor and conductor) Robert Reynolds – I liked the way he approached things. I took a trumpet class with him, and I got to play a certain exercise that he had us do. That has stayed with me all these years. Even the top brass players had to practice every day. If you miss one day, it’s like missing two days of performance potential.
He had a concert band going on tour, and he asked me if I’d come along to play one piece on the piano. We went on a tour of different cities in California. I remember that very well. I like the way he taught and thought musically.
Q: What has motivated you to support the Carpenter Center and the university?
RC: Well, I thought at the time I was there, they had performances in a little theater on upper campus. They needed a bigger theater – that was it. Years later, I got a call from the president; he thought we’d be able to finance (a bigger theater). Would I, Karen and I, be the founders of it? Karen was gone, but I thought we had the resources to be able to do this. We got support from friends and business associates, so we were able to do it. We had the official opening in 1994.
The arts need constant support, and they are somewhere down the ladder when it comes to interest in donating at all.
Q: There’s a display case in the Carpenter Center lobby of old photographs, a drum set, a piano and other memorabilia from The Carpenters. Any thoughts about that?
RC: Again, it’s something I’m proud of. It’s insane that so much time has gone by, and it’s been so long that Karen has not been with us.
It means a lot. Oh sure, The Carpenters are still very popular all over the world. Karen had a timeless voice. She would sing and play the drums at the same time, like in “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” it didn’t have any effect on her at all. She was a real gift.
Of course, we all miss her. She was a character as well. She would have really loved this place.
