Terry began his music career in 1954 at the age of 4, when he received a trumpet for a Christmas present. From that point forward, all he ever thought about was music and the spoils that come along with the entertainment business. Terry began writing lyrics by the age of 8. He never imagined that his gift of writing lyrics would get his dreams realized. In 1967, Terry and several other students from Philly's Bok Vocational-Technical High School, formed a singing group called the Futures. However, Terry got asked to sit out because he really couldn't sing. In 1969, Terry formed his own singing group called the Novacks. This North Philly group went on to be one of the most sought after acts for parties, cabarets and functions throughout the USA and Canada. Terry would often run into his friends from the Futures at local group battles. In 1975, Thom Bell signed Terry to his first exclusive songwriter contract with Mighty Three Music and Philadelphia International Records. Wouldn't you know that the Futures was the first act Terry was chosen to write for. What goes around, comes around! You could hear a pin drop in that room!
By the time Terry resigned from P.I.R., he had written and produced music for Jean Carne, Archie Bell & The Drells, The Futures and The Stylistics. In 1980, Terry was signed as an exclusive writer at the rival W.M.O.T. Records (Steve Bernstein & Alan Rubens), where he went on to pen hits for Fat Larry's Band, Jean Carne, Brandi Wells, Booker Newberry, Kiara, Keith Patrick, and Rose Royce. After W.M.O.T. folded, Terry was signed by Ted-On Music where he wrote and produced seven songs on Teddy Pendergrass' "Truly Blessed" LP. The song "It Should've Been You" went #1 in 1992. In 1993, Terry became partners with longtime friend John Whitehead of McFadden & Whitehead and formed Shaprice Records headed by businessman Kenny Shapiro. John and Terry went on to write and produced an LP on John and also traveled to Israel to produce Israel's songbird "Rita" for manager Arnold Beizer. Later Terry reunited with Steve Bernstein to write and produce for Steve's Place One Entertainment Group, where he worked with releases on Charlene Holloway and the Philly based vocal group 'At Last'.
Terry later partnered with his son Derrick Carpenter to form Get Tough Entertainment. The company boasted 12-15 songwriting/production teams, studios and offices where one of the vocal groups went on to open up for the Cedric The Entertainer Tour. Since then Terry & Derrick (father & son) have ventured to invest their lucrative publishing holdings into what will become the first non-artist recording company called Spin Drop Music Group. While VeryTerry Music will continue to sign and record artists like Terry's longtime friend Arthur (Sugarbear) Aiken [lead singer of the Legendary Bluenotes], Charlene Holloway and Phee Brown, he will continue to produce music for SpinDrop and of course tend to his responsibilities as a minister.