Little Girl Blue

by Randy L. Schmidt

  While Debbie and Joey Vaiuso attended St. Bernadette School, a Catholic school in the area, Karen was a student at Nathan Hale School, just around the corner from Hall Street on Townsend Avenue. “Karen was a year younger than us,” says Frank Bonito. “She was the youngest in the class and one of the best students in the class. We were very close through sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, and we always studied together.” Karen and Frank walked to school each morning and returned home at lunchtime. “It was an era when women didn’t work outside the house, so we’d come home,” Bonito says. “There was no cafeteria or anything, so all the kids just went home for lunch. On the way back I’d stop and pick Karen up, and then we’d walk to school together, picking up other friends as we went along.”

  Like most little girls who grew up in the 1950s, Karen had the Ideal Toy Company’s Betsy Wetsy doll, but she preferred playing with her dog, Snoopy, or her favorite toy machine gun or participating in various sports. A favorite was Wiffleball, a variation on baseball that used a perforated plastic ball invented just thirty miles away by a man in Fairfield, Connecticut. Karen pitched and sometimes played first base. “I was a tremendous baseball fan,” she later said. “I memorized all the batting averages long before I knew the first word to a song. The Yankees were my favorites.” She also delivered the New Haven Register on her paper route each day, sometimes adding weekend routes for extra money.

  Teenage Richard was tall, thin, and gangly, somewhat uncoordinated, and not as physically active as Karen. He spent most of his free time indoors with his music. “It was slightly embarrassing,” he recalled. “Karen was a better ballplayer than I was, and when choosing sides for sandlot games, she’d be picked first.” The school bullies sometimes teased and picked on him. This left him temperamental, and he could be upset quite easily. Richard’s rants were short and usually ended with him storming off and back into the house where he remained the rest of the day. Agnes encouraged him to fight back, but she also relied on Karen to watch over her older brother. “She can take care of herself and Richard,” Agnes explained in 1972. “When they were little kids, she always defended him. She’d take on all the roughnecks and make them leave Richard alone.”

  THE CARPENTERS’ dining room was home to the family’s piano and therefore one of the highest-traffic areas in the house. The piano was purchased by cousin Joan, by then a teenager, when Richard was eight years old. He grew disinterested after a frustrating year under the direction of the rigid Ms. Florence June, and in a mutual agreement both teacher and parent decided the talent and interest were lacking and the lessons should cease.

  Three years later Richard taught himself to play by ear, excelling at flourishes and arpeggios. His parents decided to give it another chance, and he began studying with Henry “Will” Wilczynski, a student from Hartford. This time Richard’s interest was sparked and his talent emerged. “During the summer when all the windows were open you would hear Richard play the exercises you have to play,” Debbie Cuticello says. “There was always lots of music coming from that house.”

  Neighbor Bill Catalde saw the Carpenter kids in the same light as any others on Hall Street. “In our world we never thought of them as anything but the wonderful kids that they were. We were just children. With the possible exception of Richard, we never really projected ourselves into the future.”

  Karen looked up to Richard, his musical talents and intuition, so when he began accordion lessons with Henry Will, she wanted to take lessons as well. Will became a regular around the Carpenter house and soon began courting Joan. Although Karen enjoyed her lessons, she was more interested in exploring her other hobbies, most notably her fascination with drawing. She won a poster contest while attending Nathan Hale and expressed interest in becoming either an artist or perhaps a nurse.

  Seeing their son’s natural ability and marked progress, Agnes and Harold invested in a new piano, a black Baldwin Acrosonic. By the age of fourteen, Richard was sure his life would be centered on music in some way. His progress reached a point where Henry Will, who by 1959 had received his music degree from the University of Hartford, felt he could no longer challenge the young pianist. He recommended Richard audition at nearby Yale Music School, where he soon began lessons under the direction of professor Seymour Fink.

  HAROLD CARPENTER spent years loathing the cold New England winters, which meant shoveling snow and placing chains on car tires before braving the icy roads. He watched the annually televised Tournament of Roses Parade and longed to be in sunny Southern California with its palm trees and mild climate. As early as 1955, he made tentative plans to relocate after a friend of the family who had previously made the move out West himself offered him a job at the Container Corporation of America in California. Instead, the money he saved for the move went to pay for a much-needed mastoid operation.

  By 1960 the family’s savings allowed Harold, Agnes, and Richard to vacation in Los Angeles, and they used this opportunity to scout out possible sites for relocation. Karen stayed with her aunt Bernice, uncle Paul, and their children to avoid the lengthy car trip. In addition to their quest for a milder climate, the Carpenter parents saw California—and especially Hollywood—as a place where Richard’s dreams of becoming a famous pianist would have a better chance of coming true. Anticipating the expense of the pending relocation, Agnes went back to work in 1962. She became one of the top machine operators at Edal Industries, a New Haven rectifier manufacturer.

  By early 1963 it was official. Harold sat the family down one evening and announced they would be leaving Hall Street and New Haven altogether. Richard was ecstatic after having visited Southern California with his parents three years earlier, but Karen was not happy. “She didn’t want to leave her friends,” says Frank Bonito. “She had even received scholarships to go to one of the local private schools.” Before leaving New Haven, Karen graduated with the eighth grade class of Nathan Hale School. “Even though it was just a grammar school graduation, they made a big deal about it,” Bonito says. “We had a little dance, and Karen and I made dance cards.” In a class prophecy for the year 2000, Frank was predicted to be the mayor of a city on the moon and Karen to be his wife. “I guess they were wrong,” he says.

  In June 1963 the Carpenters filled their car to the brim with only a sampling of their belongings and said good-bye to their cherished friends and neighbors, leaving behind cousin Joan, who married Henry Will that year. “I remember the day that they left in their shiny car,” Debbie Cuticello says. “I remember that day because I was very disappointed. It was a sad day for me. I was very upset. I was losing my best friend, and she was going so far away that I couldn’t visit. California was way over on the other side of the world from me. I walked over to say good-bye and brought her a dish filled with macaroni.”

  Bill Catalde was also there to watch the Carpenters drive away that summer morning. “I remember a secret pact between Karen and I that we would someday marry,” he says. “I doubt that Karen would have remembered that vow from long ago, but in retrospect we would have probably fared a lot better than what destiny had in store for the two of us.”

  2

  CHOPSTICKS ON BARSTOOLS

  UPON MOVING to Downey, California, Harold Carpenter started his job as a lithograph printer in the nearby city of Vernon at the Container Corporation of America, where he worked double shifts to earn extra money for his family. Although Karen was upset to leave her friends in New Haven, the Carpenters never regretted their decision to relocate. California was a land of opportunity in many ways, and just as they had hoped, Richard was busy within two weeks of their arrival. Downey also allowed the Carpenter family to maintain a quiet, middle class, suburban way of life, not unlike their New Haven beginnings.

  “Head down the Santa Ana Freeway, turn off on San Gabriel, make a couple of rights, and you’re in Downey, a right-wing, unpretentious suburb of the sprawling conurbation that makes up Los Angeles.” According to British journalist Chris Charlesworth, “It’s where
the homes are neat and tidy, where the kids graduate from high school, go to college and [play] football so that bruises will stand them in good stead later in life. It’s where the moms and dads go to each other’s cocktail parties once a week and where they eat TV dinners during the Million Dollar Movie on Channel 9. It’s safe and sound.”

  Waiting for their New Haven house to sell, the Carpenter family struggled to maintain mortgage payments on the East Coast while renting an apartment in the West. “They were all just struggling like the rest of us and trying to get by,” says Veta Dixon, who managed the forty-three-unit Shoji complex, located at 12020 Downey Avenue. “The Carpenters were just wonderful, wonderful people. We loved them immediately, and the kids, too. They lived upstairs on the right in #22.”

  The family soon moved across the breezeway to #23 when a larger apartment vacated. There they lived directly above a police officer for the City of Downey. When the musical vibrations penetrated the floor, he soon complained to the managers about the sounds coming from upstairs. “Do I have to listen to that piano day and night?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Dixon claims to have replied, “and if you don’t like it you can move out! One of these days you’ll be paying big money to see them and hear their music.”

  Driving around Downey one sunny afternoon, Harold pulled the family car into Furman Park on Rives Avenue to ask for directions. A park groundskeeper by the name of Nip noticed the Connecticut plates and asked if they were new to Downey. Agnes began to tell of her prodigy son and how his talents led them to Southern California. Karen and Richard, embarrassed by their mother’s boasting, slumped deep into the backseat of the family car. Nip told the Carpenters that Furman Park’s gazebo was the site of a weekly talent show held every Sunday afternoon. At first opportunity, Richard entered the talent show performing “Theme of Exodus,” Ernest Gold’s Grammy for Song of the Year in 1961, and a 1923 Zez Confrey piece called “Dizzy Fingers.” He also accompanied Karen singing “The End of the World,” a hit for Skeeter Davis in the spring of 1963. Singing with a light, pure, head tone, Karen had an airy quality to her voice, much like other girls her age. There were no signs of the rich, smoky alto register to come.

  As he left the stage that day, Richard was approached by Vance Hayes, the choir director at Downey Methodist Church. In need of an interim organist, Hayes felt the young pianist would be well qualified based on the performance he had just witnessed. Having little experience on the organ, Richard was hesitant to accept the offer, but Hayes would not take no for an answer. He began the following Saturday playing for two weddings at fifteen dollars each. Playing for the weekly church services, Richard was responsible for preludes, offertories, and postludes. He often improvised, disguising melodies from his favorite Beatles tunes, even up-tempo numbers, like “From Me to You” or “All My Loving.” In his words, he would “church them up.” Karen was never far from her brother in those days. She would be in the back of the church or singing in the choir and notice melodies from the Beach Boys, the Beatles, and Burt Bacharach.

  A reporter with the local Downey Live Wire newspaper heard of the new young organist at Downey Methodist and felt the story would make for a pleasant human interest feature. Along with a photographer, the reporter came to the family’s apartment and took Richard’s picture next to the family’s black Baldwin Acrosonic, one of the few large items they had been sure to move across the country that past summer.

  In the fall of 1963, thirteen-year-old Karen entered Downey’s South Junior High as Richard, just shy of his seventeenth birthday, began his senior year at Downey High School and enrolled in the school band. “What can you play?” asked Bruce Gifford, the band director.

  “Piano,” Richard replied.

  “Baby or grand?”

  The two shared a laugh as Gifford explained he had no need for a pianist in his marching band. Richard went home and unpacked a trumpet he had purchased years earlier for four dollars at an auction. He attempted to play the instrument but to no avail. Luckily, the band director did not require an audition after Richard distracted him with a few impressive piano arpeggios. Outside of his teaching career, Gifford also led a nightclub band with his brother Rex. Richard was recruited and became the group’s pianist for a short time, playing at dances, clubs, and weddings. He felt the group’s sound was reminiscent of Louis Prima with Sam Butera and the Witnesses.

  The Carpenter family’s New Haven home finally sold in November 1964. Having tolerated cramped apartment living for a little more than a year, the family packed up and moved to a storybook house located at 13024 Fidler Avenue in Downey. To help offset the purchase of the new home and the higher cost of living in Southern California, Agnes Carpenter took a job running several mimeograph machines in the stockroom at North American Rockwell Corporation. The aircraft assembly plant, Downey’s number-one employer, was responsible for manufacturing systems designed for the Apollo spacecraft program.

  In the living room of their new home on Fidler, Richard finally had space for a larger piano. With money earned teaching piano lessons and playing the organ at church, in addition to the help of his parents, he traded in the spinet for a Baldwin Model L, a six-foot three-inch parlor grand. For a short period of time he studied piano at the University of Southern California.

  ENTERING DOWNEY High School in the fall of 1964, Karen was just fourteen years old, an entire year younger than most of her classmates. Although Karen enjoyed playing sports, she did not like to exercise and detested the idea of running around a track every morning. So she paid a visit to band director Bruce Gifford, by then a family friend, who confirmed her participation in marching band would count toward a physical education credit. Karen also succeeded in opting out of geometry class in favor of joining the school choir.

  Gifford presented Karen with a glockenspiel and a set of mallets and put her right to work in his marching band, where she marched in the percussion section alongside the drums. Karen quickly found the glockenspiel cumbersome. Additionally, the tone of the instrument began to bother her. She detected that it played a quarter-step sharp in relation to the rest of the band.

  Rehearsing with the percussion section, Karen became increasingly intrigued by what classmate Frankie Chavez and the other drummers were doing. As in the Carpenter home, in the Chavez residence music was part of daily life. “He’d been playing the drums since he was three,” Karen said, calling him “a Buddy Rich freak. He even ate the same food as Buddy Rich!” But Chavez denies this allegation. “No,” he says, “I didn’t eat the same foods as Buddy,” but he admits that Buddy Rich certainly influenced his playing.

  Karen marched with the glockenspiel for about two months, by which time it became evident to her that Chavez was the only drummer in the band who had a real passion for his music. “I used to march down the street playing these stupid bells, watching Frankie play his tail off on the drums,” she later said. “It hit me that I could play drums as good as nine-tenths of those boys in the drum line, outside of Frankie.”

  Meeting with band director Gifford, Karen informed him of her desire to switch instruments. She wanted to join the drum line. “I finally had to talk him into it,” she recalled. “At that time, no girl anywhere was in the drum line of a marching band in any school.” This was met with a tepid response from Gifford, to say the least. “Girls don’t play drums,” he told her. “That’s not really normal.”

  “All I ever heard was ‘girls don’t play drums,’” Karen later recalled. “That is such an overused line, but I started anyway. I picked up a pair of sticks, and it was the most natural-feeling thing I’ve ever done.”

  Karen saw Gifford’s cynicism as a challenge. “Well, let me try,” she told Gifford.

  Although the director was doubtful, he agreed to let Karen transition to the drums. First he assigned her to play a pair of cymbals, which was not her goal but did bring her closer to Frankie and the other drummers. Chavez was in charge of writing and developing drum cadences for the group,
and his goal was to have fun and encourage listeners to move or dance. “They were funky and syncopated and kind of infectious,” he says. “We were having such a great time that Karen wanted to play the cadences with the drum line, so she left the cymbals and started playing tenor drum.” Never one to settle short of her goal, Karen aspired to play the snare drum during parades and the halftime shows at football games. According to Chavez, “the most interesting parts were assigned to the snare drums, so that’s where she ultimately ended up. That was the conduit to playing drums.”

  Immediately at ease with the snare drum, Karen spent countless hours rehearsing before and after school. At home she assembled the kitchen barstools and even a few pots and pans to simulate a drum kit. Her father’s chopsticks served as drumsticks. Karen began playing along to LPs like the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Time Out and Time Further Out, which were filled with difficult time signatures like 9/8 and 5/4. “They liked to play jazz,” Chavez recalls. “Richard was a huge Dave Brubeck fan, and Karen and I both loved Joe Morello. They liked everything from Brubeck to Beatles. I remember being at their house and the Beatles’ Rubber Soul had just come out. I remember sitting around listening to ‘Norwegian Wood,’ and we were all saying what a great production the album was and how great the songs were. Karen and Richard were good students of the art form.”