Carpenters - do you like them

The list of artists and bands that recorded for A&M Records (Herb Alpert & Jerry Moss) is way too long to post here and included many big names from the 60s and 70s. They operated at the Charlie Chaplin studios that they purchased in a deal that included the Chaplin mansion.

In the early years The Tijuana Brass, Sergio Mendes and The Carpenters basically carried the label.

 

 

There are a number of covert cats in the record industry, who while successful, were still in it for the love of the music and what could be done with it.

 

On a darker side, my former girlfriend was nearly killed in an auto accident when a wrong way driver, on the off ramp, slammed into Karen Carpenters's luxury car and she (my girlfriend) rear ended Karen's car.  A vacuum cleaner in the back of the car, pushed the ex into the windshield (no airbags then).  Collapsing on the Santa Ana Freeway, face battered, in front of Karen, all she remembered was Karen saying, "Look at what they've done to my Mercedes."  "Why do birds, suddenly appear...?" 

I know Richard was a big vinyl collector then because I saw him one afternoon at the Licorice Pizza record store in Downey. He was pulling albums out of the bins left and right and bought at least fifty that day.

My friend that worked in the store told me he did that every two or three months.