Eric Carmen, whose plaintive vocals soared above the crunching guitars of the Seventies power-pop pioneers the Raspberries on hits like “Go All of the Means,” and whose soft-rock crooning later as a solo artist propelled anthems like “All by Myself” and “Hungry Eyes,” has died. He was 74.
His demise was introduced on his web site by his spouse, Amy Carmen. She didn’t give a trigger or specify the place he died, saying solely that he died “in his sleep, over the weekend.”
The Raspberries fashioned in Cleveland in 1970. With the preternaturally melodic Mr. Carmen churning out hits and serving as frontman, the band represented a throwback of types, by way of each sound and picture.
Rising at a time when FM radio playlists tilted towards the thundering blues-rock of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple; the orchestral pomp of progressive rock bands like Sure and Emerson, Lake & Palmer; and the glittery glam rock of T. Rex and David Bowie, the Raspberries recalled the intricate songcraft and luxurious melodies of the mid-’60s pop masters.
“I had spent my youth with my head between two stereo audio system listening to the Byrds and the Beatles and in a while the Seaside Boys,” Mr. Carmen mentioned in a 1991 interview printed on his private web site.
Much more retro was the band’s look: They initially wore matching fits — an idea that had seemingly gone out of trend with Herman’s Hermits, though of their case the fits regarded extra like harbingers of John Travolta’s discowear from “Saturday Evening Fever.”
To Mr. Carmen, the comparatively sq. look was a cheeky option to stand out within the panorama of Seventies rock. “Nearly each band had hair all the way down to their waist and beards and ripped denims and so they regarded like a bunch of hippies, and I wished to get as distant from that as I may,” he mentioned in a 2017 interview with The Observer.
All of it labored. The band burst onto the rock scene in 1972 with its debut album, titled merely “The Raspberries,” which included a raspberry-scented scratch-and-sniff sticker, a touch of the sugary pop hooks contained inside.
The album’s greatest hit, “Go All of the Means,” contained lyrics about an implicitly younger couple transferring haltingly towards intercourse, which Mr. Carmen thought-about riskily suggestive for the pop charts of the time. “Both it’ll get banned as a result of it’s soiled, then possibly individuals will purchase the album to test it out,” he recalled pondering, “or if it ever will get on the radio, I believe it’ll simply be a success based mostly on the title alone.”
The tune was a success, all proper, climbing to No. 5 on the Billboard Scorching 100 in October 1972. It turned “the definitive energy pop tune of all time,” as Dave Swanson wrote on the positioning Final Basic Rock in a 2017 appraisal. Energy pop, pioneered by the early Who and others, was an rising fashion that grafted shiny Sixties-era vocal harmonies onto the driving guitar riffs of the ’70s.
“‘Go All of the Means’ was an ideal melding of Seaside Boys, Beatles and Small Faces, all delivered with a Who-like assault,” Mr. Swanson wrote. “Proper right here is the place energy pop was born.”
One in all Mr. Carmen’s idols apparently accepted of the band: John Lennon was photographed round that point sporting a Raspberries shirt. The band’s affect would solely develop over time, with acts as numerous as Low cost Trick, Kiss and Nirvana citing the Raspberries as an affect.
The Raspberries broke up in 1975, however Mr. Carmen’s time on the charts was removed from over.
Eric Howard Carmen was born on Aug. 11, 1949, in Cleveland to a household of Jewish immigrants from Russia and grew up in Lyndhurst, an japanese suburb of the town. Exhibiting a eager curiosity in music early on, he was finding out violin along with his aunt Muriel Carmen, a member of the Cleveland Orchestra, by age 6. By 11 he was taking part in piano and writing his personal songs.
His musical future modified eternally with the arrival of Beatlemania when he was in his midteens. “After seeing the Beatles movie ‘A Arduous Day’s Evening,’” he later mentioned, “I dropped every part and instantly determined I wished to do this!”
Inside months, Mr. Carmen had taught himself to bang out chords on a guitar, and he spent the subsequent few years bouncing from band to band. Whereas a pupil at John Carroll College in suburban Cleveland, he joined a preferred native band known as Cyrus Erie, which included the long run Raspberries guitarist Wally Bryson and opened for main acts like Who and the Byrds.
Mr. Carmen and Mr. Bryson ultimately joined forces with the guitarist and bassist Dave Smalley and the drummer Jim Bonfanti, veterans of one other outstanding native band, the Choir, to type the Raspberries.
When that band’s run lastly ended, Mr. Carmen went solo with the intent of displaying off his full vary as a songwriter and performer.
“Unshackled from having to write down for 3 particular guys and myself, my mind simply sort of opened up,” he advised The Observer. “Additionally, I didn’t wish to make a file that sounded similar to the Raspberries, as a result of I assumed, Jesus, all people will go, ‘Oh, right here he goes once more, he’s simply repeating what he already did.’”
He clearly completed that with “All by Myself,” a lush if lachrymose ballad from his first solo album, launched in 1975, that was, as he put it, “definitely as distant from ‘Go All of the Means’ as you can get.” The tune soared to No. 2 on the Scorching 100 and was ultimately hailed as a soft-rock traditional.
The follow-up single, “By no means Gonna Fall in Love Once more,” with its nods to Brian Wilson of the Seaside Boys, made it to No. 11.
The Raspberries reunited in 2004. A present from that tour was featured on a 28-song reside album, “Raspberries Pop Artwork Dwell,” launched in 2017. The album’s liner notes had been written by the filmmaker and former rock journalist Cameron Crowe, who showcased “Go All of the Means” in his 2000 film, “Nearly Well-known.”
Full details about Mr. Carmen’s survivors was not instantly out there.
Late in his profession, Mr. Carmen was sanguine concerning the affect of the Raspberries.
“Rock critics obtained it and 16-year-old women obtained it, however you already know, the 18-year-old man who preferred Megadeth was by no means going to love the identical file his sister did,” he mentioned within the 2017 interview, earlier than recounting the primary time he met Bruce Springsteen.
“I walked in his dressing room earlier than a present and he was writing out the set checklist, and we each checked out one another for a few minutes — I used to be very uncomfortable being on the fan finish, so I felt a bit of silly. However Bruce checked out me and he goes, ‘You realize, whereas I used to be writing ‘The River,’ all I listened to was Woody Guthrie and the Raspberries’ best hits.’”