Pop Rocker Eric Carmen Dies At Age 74
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
“Rock critics got it and 16-year-old girls got it,” Eric Carmen once said of his band the Raspberries.
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Eric Howard Carmen (August 11, 1949 – March 2024) was an American singer, guitarist and keyboardist. He was first known as the lead vocalist of the Raspberries . He had numerous hit songs in the 1970s and 1980s, first as a member of the Raspberries (who had a million-selling single with " Go All the Way "), and then with his solo career, including hits such as " All by Myself ", " Never Gonna Fall in Love Again ", " She Did It ", " Hungry Eyes ", and " Make Me Lose Control ".
Eric Carmen, Raspberries Frontman and ‘All By Myself’ Singer, Dies at 74
He sang on the power-pop pioneers’ 1972 breakout hit, “Go All the Way,” before launching a successful solo career as a soft rock crooner.
Eric Carmen, whose plaintive vocals soared above the crunching guitars of the 1970s power-pop pioneers the Raspberries before his soft rock crooning made him a mainstay of 1980s music, has died. He was 74.
His death was announced on his website by his wife, Amy Carmen. She did not give a cause and said only that he died “in his sleep, over the weekend.”
The Raspberries, which formed in Cleveland, burst onto the American rock scene in 1972 with their self-titled debut album, featuring a raspberry-scented scratch-and-sniff sticker and their biggest hit: “Go All the Way,” a provocative song for its day, sung from the point of view of a young woman.
Dave Swanson of the website Ultimate Classic Rock called it “the definitive power pop song of all time,” as the emerging style, known for grafting bright ’60s-era vocal harmonies onto the heavy guitar riffs of the ’70s, would come to be called.
“The opening Who-like blast leads into a very Beatles-esque verse, before landing in some forgotten Beach Boys chorus,” he wrote . “Thus was the magic of the Raspberries song craft. They were able to take the best parts and ideas from the previous decade, and morph them into something new, yet familiar.”
The Raspberries’ second album, “Fresh,” also released in 1972, would be its highest charting, at No. 36. It featured two Top 40 hits, “I Wanna Be With You” and “Let’s Pretend.”
The band, known for its matching suits and clean image, was dismissed by some as passé.
“Almost every band had hair down to their waist and beards and ripped jeans and they looked like a bunch of hippies, and I wanted to get as far away from that as I could,” Mr. Carmen said in a 2017 interview with the Observer.
The band did earn some critical acclaim and cachet: John Lennon was photographed wearing a Raspberries shirt. Its influence on rock music would only grow over time.
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"....she kissed me and said 'baby please go all the way,' it feels so right...
imo one of the best pop records ever made
Go All The Way - The Raspberries
I Wanna Be With You
Overnight Sensation