Iconic Singer Gone at 74

Eric Carmen, lead singer of the Raspberries, has away at the age of 74, as reported on his website. Carmen was famous for his solo songs, including All By Myself, Hungry Eyes, and Make Me Lose Control. Over the weekend, his wife Amy Carmen made the announcement that he passed away peacefully in his sleep. She kindly requested that the family be granted privacy during this difficult time of mourning.

Midway through the 1970s, Carmen’s solo effort All By Myself peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1987, with the song’s inclusion in the film Dirty Dancing, Carmen’s Hungry Eyes hit #4. Nobody knows what killed them.

After the Raspberries broke up in 1975 as a result of a drop in the group’s financial popularity, Carmen, who was born in Cleveland in 1949, began his solo career. Carmen asserted that he merely decided to record his popular single “Hungry Eyes” due to a lack of other activities. According to the singer, he was “ice cold” and not in demand back then, so he decided to record Dirty Dancing even though he didn’t think it would be a hit.

Since the dance scene had already been filmed, the singer felt the song was too slow and decided to add guitar to “juice up” it. The soundtrack for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy contained the Raspberries’ Go All The Way, a song with sexually suggestive lyrics that the BBC rejected. After his solo single “All By Myself” was featured in the film Bridget Jones’s Diary, he became even more famous in the film industry. Another artist who covered the song was Celine Dion.

While Carmen’s songs didn’t chart again after the 1980s, he did go on tour with Ringo Starr and the All-Starr Band in 2000 and had a brief reunion with the Raspberries in 2004 for a few concerts.