Carpenters

"[Carpenters] were as big as you could get. Amazing how that girl could sing and what Richard could write. They were an amazing group for five years."

"Carpenters had ten gold singles in the Seventies. That kind of run doesn't happen very often, and it just didn't happen at that time. 
We sold millions of Carpenters albums on top of that – we even sold amazing amounts of sheet music for them! A song like 'We've Only Just Begun' still gets played at weddings and football games. They had an amazing run."
--Jerry Moss

"She had it all for her particular genre of singers. Karen had impeccable phrasing,  her voice had a lot of warmth, 
but always with that touch of melancholy, which singled her out from most other singers of her generation."
--Richard Carpenter, Music Week, October 22, 1983

Richard Carpenter told Joe Smith, "We weren't trying to stamp down rock. I like rock. We just made the records we wanted to make, and it so happened that radio was ready for it and it clicked."

A&M undertook an aggressive campaign to support Offering in late September 1969. In August 1970, A&M repackaged the album thanks to the success of the "Ticket to Ride" single. It was the first A&M album to be reissued with a new title.

The single of "Close to You" sold over two million copies by the end of August 1970. It was the largest selling single in the label's 8-year history.

The Carpenters were so popular in Britain that they effectively subsidized the first few years operations by A&M Records, Ltd.

Carpenters was certified as a gold album in its first week of release.

"We've Only Just Begun sold over 2,500,000 copies by mid-1972.

Carpenters was certified a gold album by the RIAA within three weeks of its release.

A Song for You shipped as a gold album.

On May 1, 1974, Richard Carpenter debuted as a classical soloist performing "The Warsaw Concerto" with the Boston Pops Symphony. The performance was recorded for television as an episode of "Eventing at Pops" for PBS.

Thanks to advance orders, the album Horizon was already certified a gold record by the RIAA before it was released in 1975.

Carpenters declined to sing "The Times of Your Life" for a Kodak ad campaign. The song was written by Roger Nichols and Bill Lane. Carpenters had hits with several of Nichols' songs including "We've Only Just Begun," "Rainy Days and Mondays," "I Won't Last a Day Without You," and "Let Me Be the One."

The Made in America album title came from a tag on Karen Carpenter's running suit.

From the Top is A&M's only box set to be produced in two different formats, the original 12-inch by 12-inch and the 6-inch by 12-inch format.

The Carpenters song "Close to You" was used in the movie "Parenthood."

Close to You was ranked #175 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

OFFICIAL PROMOTION BY A&M RECORDS

Carpenters On A&M Records 
Horizon New Music On A&M Records 
A Kind Of Hush New Music On A&M Records
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