New A&M Corner member “Mr. Guder” has posted a really nifty blog entry on the subject of Karen & Richard Carpenter’s first A&M album, OFFERING (a.k.a. TICKET TO RIDE). This is a must-read for all fans. Called “The Carpenters – A Simple Offering”, the blog can be found at “All Aboard For Skinker’s Swamp“:

Herb Alpert knows a thing or two about music. As a songwriter, he helped pen one of Sam Cooke’s biggest hits, “Wonderful World,” when only 24 years old. As a bandleader, Alpert achieved worldwide fame in the 1960s with his hugely influential group, the Tijuana Brass, racking up 13 million sales in 1966 alone – outselling the Beatles at a ratio of 2:1 in the United States during that year. And as a founder member of A&M Records with partner Jerry Moss, he helped transform his fledgling label into the world’s greatest independent record company, eventually selling the business in 1987 for a reported $500million. Yet perhaps the most inspired achievement of Herb Alpert’s incredible career came via his role as talent scout, when in 1969 he was first presented with a demo tape of an unknown brother-sister duo called the Carpenters. Read more…