Eric Carmen, whose plaintive vocals soared above the crunching guitars of the Seventies power-pop pioneers the Raspberries earlier than his tender rock crooning made him a mainstay of Nineteen Eighties music, has died. He was 74.
His demise was introduced on his website by his spouse, Amy Carmen. She didn’t give a trigger and mentioned solely that he died “in his sleep, over the weekend.”
The Raspberries, which fashioned in Cleveland, burst onto the American rock scene in 1972 with their self-titled debut album, that includes a raspberry-scented scratch-and-sniff sticker and their largest hit: “Go All the Way,” a provocative track for its day, sung from the perspective of a younger lady.
Dave Swanson of the web site Final Traditional Rock referred to as it “the definitive energy pop track of all time,” because the rising model, identified for grafting brilliant ’60s-era vocal harmonies onto the heavy guitar riffs of the ’70s, would come to be referred to as.
“The opening Who-like blast leads into a really Beatles-esque verse, earlier than touchdown in some forgotten Seaside Boys refrain,” he wrote. “Thus was the magic of the Raspberries track craft. They have been capable of take the most effective components and concepts from the earlier decade, and morph them into one thing new, but acquainted.”
The Raspberries’ second album, “Contemporary,” additionally launched in 1972, could be its highest charting, at No. 36. It featured two High 40 hits, “I Wanna Be With You” and “Let’s Pretend.”
The band, identified for its matching fits and clear picture, was dismissed by some as passé.
“Virtually each band had hair all the way down to their waist and beards and ripped denims they usually regarded like a bunch of hippies, and I needed to get as far-off from that as I may,” Mr. Carmen mentioned in a 2017 interview with the Observer.
The band did earn some essential acclaim and cachet: John Lennon was photographed sporting a Raspberries shirt. Its affect on rock music would solely develop over time.
After the band broke up in 1975, Mr. Carmen went solo. He swerved into tender rock, shortly scoring a success single with “All by Myself,” which peaked at No. 2.
Within the Nineteen Eighties, two of his largest hits got here from soundtracks. For 1984’s “Footloose,” he co-wrote “Almost Paradise,” which was recorded by Mike Reno and Ann Wilson, and he wrote and sang “Hungry Eyes,” from 1987’s “Soiled Dancing.” “Make Me Lose Control” reached No. 3 in 1988.
Mr. Carmen’s songs could be lined by artists as assorted as Shaun Cassidy (“That’s Rock ’n Roll”), Celine Dion (“All By Myself”) and John Travolta (“Never Gonna Fall in Love Again”). In 1989, he started showing with Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band.
The Raspberries reunited in 2004. A present from that tour was featured on a 28-song reside album in 2017, “Raspberries Pop Art Live. The liner notes have been written by the filmmaker Cameron Crowe, who featured “Go All of the Approach” in his 2000 film “Virtually Well-known.”
Mr. Carmen was sanguine in regards to the impression of the Raspberries.
“Rock critics obtained it and 16-year-old ladies obtained it, however you recognize, the 18-year-old man who preferred Megadeth was by no means going to love the identical report 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 listing 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 slightly silly. However Bruce checked out me and he goes, ‘You already know, whereas I used to be writing “The River” all I listened to was Woody Guthrie and the Raspberries’ best hits.’”