Free Little Girl Blue by Randy L. Schmidt Page A

At first, the audience was so restive,” she said. “We thought we were going to get killed, but we kept going, and they shut up and listened.” Again, not what club management preferred.
    â€œSteppenwolf? Oh my God, I was so embarrassed to be there,” says Leslie Johnston. “We’re in the dressing room with Steppenwolf, and they couldn’t have been any more hard rock. In fact, I liked them, but we were so mad at Eddie for that booking. I think we were there maybe two nights. I was just dying because the people were waiting for some hard rock to dance to. They didn’t
boo
us, but they looked at us like we were nuts. We had this great, full sound, but Steppenwolf was probably in the dressing room laughing.”
    As Sulzer struggled to secure live performance opportunities in venues appropriate for Spectrum, the group’s sights were set on securing a recording contract. When two major recording companies, Uni and White Whale, presented contracts on the same night at the Troubadour, the group was encouraged, but Richard declined the offers once he realized the labels were demanding too big a cut. Spectrum’s members became disheartened and soon began to scatter. Leslie Johnston was asked to go on the road with another group as lead vocalist. “I agreed,” she says, “because nothing else was happening!”

    C ONTINUING TO record in Joe Osborn’s studio, gratis, Karen and Richard worked toward the creation of a new demo tape. They usually recorded on weekends or after midnight when Osborn’s other sessions ended. According to Karen, “ Since Richard did all the arranging and chose the material, and we did our own playing and singing, Richard said, ‘We might as well do it ourselves, just overdub it.’ . . . All of a sudden that sound was born.” She marveled over the quality of sound they were able to achieve in Joe’s studio. “That garage studio had a sound that I don’t think we ever matched. It was big and fat.”
    For an a cappella arrangement called “Invocation” they began with two-part harmonies, then built to four-part, and finally eight. Their eight-part harmonies were tripled, totaling twenty-four voices in all. “ Wow, we couldn’t believe the results,” Karen later recalled. “All of a sudden this ten-ton thing was born. This
couldn’t
miss!” Their demo tape also featured Richard’s original “Don’t Be Afraid” and another he penned with John Bettis called “Your Wonderful Parade.” Although the arrangements were identical to those of Spectrum, there was something special about the familial sound that resulted from the layering of Karen’s voice with Richard’s. Now officially a duo, Karen and Richard chose the name Carpenters, sans prefix. They thought it was simple but hip, like Buffalo Springfield or Jefferson Airplane.
    As recording demanded more and more of their time and energy, Karen and Richard saw their obligations at Cal State Long Beach as less of a priority. They often carried copies of
Billboard
and
Cashbox
with them to class and would read them behind their textbooks, so it is no wonder Karen flunked out of a psychology course twice. And she loathed biology: “ What good is biology going to do me?” she asked rhetorically in a 1970 interview. “On the stage it’s of no use, right? A biology major doesn’t have to take a music course.” Frank Pooler went to bat for Karen several times in attempts to justify her continued absences from several classes. “She wasn’t showing up for some boring class,” he says. “I remember going to talk to the president of the university about her. I said, ‘Hey, some people need special consideration. Besides, I wouldn’t take the class myself.’”
    In the summer of 1968 Richard heard about a new national television program called
Your All-American College