John Bettis: "I doubt that there is anyone alive who is the oldies fan that Richard is: also, the area of the country that he came from was very much more doo wop oriented than out here. I'm from L.A. and the whole doo wop thing was known here, but it wasn't anywhere near as common or as radio heavy as it was back East. Richard actually educated me to a lot of records that I had kind of overlooked - he educated me into an oldies aficionado. You can't be around him and not know two things, old records and cars, those are the two things that you learn with Richard. The funniest thing about that was the chorus: 'every sha la la la, every wo wo wo' was kind of a dummy lyric that we were singing along, expecting at some point we would lift that and put real words in there, and Richard was kind of surprised. 
Richard Carpenter: "Well every now and again we used steel guitar because I thought it worked so well for Karen's voice. We'd used it on earlier things we did, and I should have used it in 'Reason To Believe' but I didn't think of it at the time. 'Top Of The World' has quite an interesting story surrounding it. It's odd. It was written by one kid from San Pedro (Bettis) and another one from Downey and it's a country song, but when we finished it for the 'A Song For You' album in 1972, all of us thought 'It's an album cut', and we were proved so wrong, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, when we performed it in concert, it got an ovation from the crowd as if it were one of our biggest hits. The Japanese culled it from the LP and released it as a single and it went gold. Lynn Anderson covered it, almost to the note, and it went to Number One in the country chart. Certain stations in the United States were charting it, based on requests alone. We had kids coming to our parents' home asking when it was going to be made into a small record. So we decided it was time to release it as a single. A&M wasn't all that happy about putting it out, so they kind of talked us out of it. Time went by and it just didn't let up, the requests for it and all, and we ultimately did a little alteration to it. We redid the lead, because Karen thought she could sing it better, and I was never totally happy with the steel guitar on the album. So we did the steel guitar over and then Tony (Peluso) came in and did a little guitar work on it, and then we remixed it. And, of course, it went to Number One in all three trade papers in the States and it was a smash."
Paul Williams: "The next Carpenters hit we had was 'Rainy Days And Mondays'. I didn't go into the studio with them; they weren't looking over my shoulder when I was writing the lyrics, so I didn't look over their shoulder when they were recording. So it was always a surprise for me - when they would play something for me, it was usually pretty well done. And I loved the record of 'We've Only Just Begun', but the record of 'Rainy Days And Mondays' I liked much much more. There was something, I don't know if it was the saxophone (played by Bob Messenger, a longtime member of the touring and studio band who backed The Carpenters), or what it was, but it sounded awfully grown up for something that I'd been involved with. And I don't know, there was something about her that was... I guess I had a crush on her, now that I think about it. When you hear that lady sing those words you've got to know there was a little bit of a connection there. I remember her playing at the rehearsal hall and soundstage at A&M, playing me the record and watching me listening to it, and it was a real pretty memory... I was very young then, of course."
當時與The Beatles、The Beach Boys的作品合稱為「the Three B's」之名作曲家伯特拜克拉(Burt Bacharach)前去拜訪A&M唱片公司的另外一位老闆謝利摩斯(Jerry Moss)，提起在電台廣播中聽到卡本特樂隊的《Ticket to Ride》，非常喜歡。謝利告訴伯特，卡本特樂隊是A&M旗下的藝人，伯特就要求謝利和他的拍擋赫伯幫忙，希望理查可以把一些他的名曲重新改編成一段混和曲(Medley)，為他替某醫院的慈善義演作開場表演。
1965年，卡本特兄妹－凱倫及理查卡本特(Karen & Richard Carpenter)跟一位負責低音結他及大號的朋友共同組成一支三人爵士樂隊－卡本特三人組(Carpenter Trio)，其間認識了一位醉心於錄音工程的電子低音結他手祖奧斯邦(Joe Osborn)，理查加深了多音軌錄音技術的認識，他們在祖的車房改裝的錄音室裡，錄製樣本聲帶(Demo)，發覺凱倫天生有一把適合錄音的好嗓子，而祖和一位拍擋剛成立一間小型唱片公司，但祖並沒有打算和卡本特三人組簽約。1966年，卡本特父母只好替十六歲的凱倫簽了第一張個人唱片合約，理查可以負責作曲。這只是一個開始，凱倫以個人名義推出幾首單曲，但缺乏宣傳，成績未如理想，而唱片公司因經營不善，於一年內即倒閉。同年卡本特三人組在荷理活「碗形劇場」(Hollywood Bowl)的樂隊大賽中奪得冠軍，三人才簽約RCA唱片公司。他們迅速錄製了十一首作品，當中包括翻唱披頭四樂隊(The Beatles)的《Every Little Thing》及原創作品而其後最終成為流行曲的《Flat Baroque》，但RCA當時並不看好，認為爵士樂沒有商業潛質，唱片一直未能推出，最後只好解約。
卡本特三人組解散後，凱倫及理查再和另外四位同學組成史柏尋和聲合唱團(Spectrum)，當中包括其後創作多首經典的卡本特金曲的約翰貝提斯(John Bettis)。理查負責鍵琴樂器，凱倫擔任敲擊樂器及主唱，他們到加州狄士尼樂園等地演出。他們並到處尋求唱片公司支持，但找了很多家都碰壁。1967年，凱倫和理查獲得著名小喇叭手赫伯亞柏特(Herb Alpert)的賞識，於1969年簽約他所主持的A&M唱片公司。
1969年，卡本特樂隊(Carpenters)－最初並沒有「The」－正式推出首張專輯【Offering】，其中翻唱披頭四樂隊(The Beatles)的《Ticket to Ride》大受歡迎，為他們奠定了知名度。於是唱片公司後來更用了「Ticket to Ride」為大碟主題，把專輯【Offering】改成【Ticket To Ride】。
