who was eric carmen? I was born and raised in the Eastern suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio in the same year that Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen were born (you do the math). I grew up listening to the great songs of Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Hoagy Carmichael, Irving Berlin, Henry Mancini and all those guys who REALLY knew how to write great songs, on the radio. I was singing before most kids could talk (Johnny Ray songs, I’ve been told) so my parents, sensing I had some talent, enrolled me at the Cleveland Institute of Music at the age of two and a half. My Dad’s sister was a prodigy on the violin and viola and played with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra for forty three years under the great George Szell, and I used to get to sit on stage with them while they rehearsed. I was sort of their mascot. It was quite an experience. I was so moved by “West Side Story,” that I went to the theater to see it eleven times! Leonard Bernstein rocked my world. I continued with my classical training to the age of 15-1/2 and then the Beatles happened and nothing would ever be the same again. After seeing The Beatles film, “A Hard Day’s Night,” I dropped everything and immediately decided I wanted to do THAT! I taught myself to play guitar (sort of) and joined my first band a few months later. For the next few years, I bounced from one band to another until I eventually wound up with three guys who had, at one time, been my heroes. That band was the Raspberries. Solo career Carmen’s first two solo singles were chart hits in 1976. Both were built around themes by Sergei Rachmaninoff. The first of these singles, “All by Myself” – based on Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2[8] – hit number 2 in the United States, and number 12 in the United Kingdom where it was his only charting hit. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in April 1976. The follow-up single, “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again”– based on the main theme of the third movement of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 – reached number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100, and hit number one on the US Adult Contemporary Chart, as well as number nine on the Cash Box chart. In the UK, Dana took it to number 31 and in Australia Mark Holden took it to number 13. Those songs featured on his 1975 self-titled debut album, along with “That’s Rock and Roll”, a number 3 hit single for singer Shaun Cassidy. The album made number 21 on the Billboard album chart and was certified gold in 1977 for sales of more than 500,000 copies. Carmen’s second album, Boats Against the Current, came out in the summer of 1977 and received mixed reviews.[10][11][12] It featured backup players such as Burton Cummings, Andrew Gold, Bruce Johnston and Nigel Olsson. The album spent 13 weeks in the Billboard Album chart, peaking at number 45. It also produced the Top 20 single “She Did It”, but the title track only managed to scrape the bottom of the chart. The title track was later covered by Olivia Newton-John on her album Totally Hot. A third single taken from the album, “Marathon Man”, became his first solo single not to hit the Billboard Hot 100 chart. However, Shaun Cassidy again made the Top 10 in 1978 with Carmen’s “Hey Deanie”. For several weeks in the fall of 1977, Carmen had three compositions charting concurrently on the Billboard Hot 100, Cassidy’s two big hits and Carmen’s own “She Did It”. Carmen followed up with two more albums. Despite declining chart fortunes, the single “Change of Heart” broke into the Pop Top 20, and reached number 6 at AC in late 1978, with this hit also being covered by Samantha Sang on her Emotion LP, but in 1980, after the release of the album “Tonight You’re Mine” and single “It Hurts Too Much” (number 75 Billboard Top 100) he temporarily withdrew from the music industry. In 1984, Carmen and Dean Pitchford co-wrote “Almost Paradise”, the love theme from the film Footloose. The song, performed by Ann Wilson and Mike Reno, peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1985, Carmen resurfaced on Geffen Records with a second self-titled album and a sizable comeback hit “I Wanna Hear It from Your Lips”.[5] The single hit the Adult Contemporary Top 10 as well as the Pop Top 40. The follow-up single, “I’m Through with Love”, also climbed the Billboard Hot 100 and reached the Top 20 of the Adult Contemporary chart. Another track from the album, “Maybe My Baby”, later became a Country hit for Louise Mandrell reaching number 8 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. “I Wanna Hear It from Your Lips” was also covered by Mandrell only managing to peak at 35 on the same chart. In 1987, Carmen’s contribution to the hit movie Dirty Dancing, “Hungry Eyes”, hit number 2 on the Adult Contemporary Chart and also returned him to the Pop Top 10. “Reason To Try”, a further contribution to the One Moment in Time compilation album of songs recorded for the Seoul Summer Olympics, kept Carmen’s profile high in 1988, during which the nostalgic “Make Me Lose Control” also returned him to the number one position on the Adult Contemporary chart – where it stayed for three straight weeks – as well as number 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100. The year 2000 saw the stateside release of I Was Born to Love You, which had been released in 1998 only in Japan as Winter Dreams. Carmen eschewed the use of a band on the recording, playing most of the instruments and programming the drum parts himself. The album did not find a large audience, but Carmen has continued to enjoy success placing songs with other artists over the years. In 2000, he toured with Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band.[14] On December 24, 2013, the first new recording in over 15 years by Carmen titled “Brand New Year” was released. The track, written and recorded in November/December 2013 in Ohio and Los Angeles, was issued via a gratis download by Legacy Recordings as a special “Christmas gift”, to herald the March 2014 arrival of a 30 track career retrospective entitled The Essential Eric Carmen.. Personal life Carmen married three times. His was first married to Marcy Hill from October 31, 1978, to August 3, 1979; the marriage ended in divorce. His second marriage, to Susan Brown, was from May 22, 1993, until 2009. The couple had two children, Kathryn and Clayton, before divorcing. He married his third wife, former newscaster Amy Murphy, in 2016.[16] Carmen moved from Los Angeles back to Gates Mills[17] in northeast Ohio in the 1990s. On March 11, 2024, Carmen’s wife Amy announced on his website that he had died “over the weekend” (March 9–10) in his sleep, giving neither a cause nor a specific date of death. He was 74.[18][19] We became immensely popular by going completely against the grain in 1970. 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! I also loved Bacharach and David, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and the songs they wrote. So the Raspberries rebelled against prog-rock and made 3-1/2 minute pop rock with melodies and power chords. Eric Carmen, the writer and performer behind the hit ballad “All By Myself,” died at age 74, according to a statement on his website. The Cleveland native died in his sleep. His wife, Amy, posted a message on his website late Monday night: “It is with tremendous sadness that we share the heartbreaking news of the passing of Eric Carmen,” the statement read. “Our sweet, loving and talented Eric passed away in his sleep, over the weekend. It brought him great joy to know, that for decades, his music touched so many and will be his lasting legacy. Please respect the family’s privacy as we mourn our enormous loss.”