Sam Amico
Eric Carmen, the frontman for The Raspberries who went to solo success, has died. He was 74.
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Carmen and The Raspberries formed in Cleveland in 1970 and were most widely known for the smash hit Go All The Way. They opened shows for legendary acts such as The Beatles, The Who and The Hollies during their peak.
Later, Carmen embarked on a successful solo career that mostly focused on soft rock and power ballads, with All By Myself climbing to No. 2 on the pop charts in 1976. He also co-wrote Almost Paradise, a major hit in 1985 and sung by Heart’s Nancy Wilson and Loverboy’s Mike Reno.
No cause of death was given.
CNN reported the following:
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Carmen rose to fame as the frontman of the 1970s pop-rock group The Raspberries, whose tidy haircuts and matching suits appeared to reference the uniform looks of The Beatles and other defining groups of the British Invasion.
“We became immensely popular by going completely against the grain in 1970,” Carmen wrote in his website bio. “Prog-rock was ‘in,’ and FM radio clutched it to its bosom. I hated it. I loved the Beatles, The Who, the Byrds, the Stones, the Beach Boys and the Small Faces. I loved bands that could WRITE!”
“All by Myself,” “Make Me Lose Control and “Hungry Eyes” peaked in top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100 and each spent more than four months on the chart. In all, 13 of Carmen’s songs had a place on the chart.
Carmen declined to join The Raspberries when they reunited in 1999 to release the “Raspberries Refreshed” EP. But he did join them onstage in 2004 for a performance at Cleveland’s House of Blues and the crew briefly embarked on a mini-tour in 2005, according to Case Western Reserve’s Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.
