ERIC CARMEN All By Himself Among Musicians By June Scharf Musical genius is scarce among today's crop of pop stars, but it's possibly one of several qualities that set Clevelander Eric Carmen in a class by himself. In addition to performing, he writes music and lyrics, and does studio arranging. As the lead singer for the 1970s band the Raspberries, and later as a solo artist, Carmen, who is Jewish, sold more than 50 million records. Now, for the first time since the group broke up nearly 30 years ago, the Cleveland-area resident has reunited with his band mates for two concerts at the House of Blues.

As the lead singer for the 1970s band the Raspberries, and later as a solo artist, Carmen, who is Jewish, sold more than 50 million records. Now, for the first time since the group broke up nearly 30 years ago, the Cleveland-area resident has reunited with his band mates for two concerts at the House of Blues, downtown Cleveland's newest entertainment club. One sold-out show (tickets were gone in 15 minutes) was staged during the venue's opening week in November, and the next will be performed on New Year's Eve.

For the first concert, fans came from as far west as Oregon and as far east as England and Holland.

Entertainment Weekly magazine took note of the reunion recently and in its coverage declared The Raspberries "arguably the most influential power-pop group ever to emerge from west of the Atlantic."

The evidence is not only in the gold records adorning the walls of Carmen's home, where his black-lacquered Yamaha conservatory grand piano is ensconced, but in the following he has amassed among those within the recording industry and outside of it. In 2000, Ringo Starr tapped Carmen to play keyboard in his "All-Starr Band" which toured the nation for two months.

It was a surreal experience, Carmen admits ("I was talking to Ringo—RINGO!—the guy I watched on 'The Ed Sullivan Show'"). In fact, he idolized all of the Beatles while growing up, and they exerted a huge influence on his musical sensibilities.

But touring at that point in his life, with a wife and son at home and a baby on the way, quickly lost some of its appeal. So, despite the legends sitting next to him on the tour bus, he says he would have preferred being with his family.

That is Eric Carmen today, the complete family man. And he revels in it. He is actively involved in the lives of his son Clayton, 7, and daughter Kathryn, 4.

Carmen admits that although he's proud of his past, he doesn't dwell on it, except that his car sports a license plate that reads "HT RCRD."

The performer's parents, Elmer and Ruth Carmen, like to remind their son how, when he was 2, he already was singing "The Little White Cloud that Cried" made famous by Johnnie Ray. At that time, he also began violin lessons at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

"I disliked it (the violin) immensely because it's not an instant-gratification instrument," he says. When he was 11, he studied classical piano locally with Bill Kurzban and "breezed through seven-and-a-half years of classical training in four." He also began composing his own songs.

By the time Carmen was 16, however, raw talent was not enough to carry him. He needed to be practicing four to five hours per day. But this also was the same year the Beatles took the world by storm, and Carmen was completely swept up in the vortex.

He also had a crush on a girl at Brush High School who loved the Beatles. He decided he needed to know how to play the group's music, so he taught himself to play the guitar. Except, he never got the girl. Soon afterward, some guys at school started a band—"they knew three chords, and I knew five, so I was the wonderchild, and they asked me to join."

Aside from the Beatles, he cites as his greatest influences composers Henry Mancini, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Leonard Bernstein. When Carmen created his ballads "All by Myself" and "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again," he drew inspiration from another favorite composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff.

The writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald, he adds, influenced his lyrics and sometimes served "as a jumping-off place." The chorus of "Boats against the Current" was taken from the second to the last paragraph of The Great Gatsby, he points out, and "Nowhere to Hide" was inspired by a Fitzgerald short story, "Winter Dreams."

The "power pop" style that the Raspberries adopted had its origins with the British bands emerging during the Mod Era. They had distinctive harmony singing, strong melodic lines, unforgettable guitar riffs, and lyrics typically about boys and girls in love. As performers, they dressed up, not down.

Reflecting on the last 30 years, Carmen describes it as a roller-coaster ride. "My career has had peaks and valleys, but there were some great high moments," he says.

He quit touring in 1978 because "living in suitcases, hotels and airports got old and very tiring—it wasn't much fun."

Eric Carmen, the man behind such hits as "Hungry Eyes" and "Make Me Lose Control," gave up touring to spend more time with his family.

So he returned to strictly writing and recording. In the 1980s, he made his mark with the #4 hit "Hungry Eyes" from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack and composed the Top Ten song "Almost Paradise" for the film Footloose. In addition, he wrote the song and lyrics and sang the vocals for the #3 hit "Make Me Lose Control."

His songs have been performed by such diverse talents as Celine Dion, Jewel, Tom Jones, Shaun Cassidy, John Travolta, Babes in Toyland and Motley Crüe.

In 1997, Carmen released his last solo album, Winter Dreams, which he recorded at Beachwood Studios. It sold particularly well in Japan because "it's a whole country full of smart people," he jokes.

While the music "comes very quickly and easily" to him, he says it's a mysterious thing. Sometimes, he wakes up in the middle of the night with lyrics or music filling his head. He can create on command, too.

At age 55, his silver hair carefully coifed and framing an expressive face, Carmen says he no longer visits that creative place in his mind. "I have no desire to sit in a room by myself for six hours a day. There's too much life around me."

How will he feel if either of his children wants to become an entertainer?

"I probably won't encourage my kids," he admits, "but I'd give them the benefit of my knowledge so they wouldn't need to make the same mistakes I did."

He believes that the music industry is not so nice. "In any business where you can make big money in a short amount of time, it attracts the lowest life forms who attach themselves to the talent," he says. "The industry has been set up by businessmen, and it's not stacked in your favor."

Carmen calls himself a melodist first and foremost. "The things that knock my socks off are great melodies, like Rachmaninoff's 'Second Symphony,'" he says.

With lyrics, he emphasizes the need to be a good storyteller. But it also involves finding universal topics and feeling things on a deeper level. "Exposing yourself (emotionally), that's the most important thing you can do as a songwriter."

One emotionally laden subject that he never got near in his music is the anti-Semitism he experienced as a child living in Euclid and later Lyndhurst.

"I can remember every kid who made a crack about me being Jewish."

He mentions kids on his street who were friends with him one day, then not the next after learning he was Jewish.

Many people have no idea he is Jewish. His surname was changed when his grandfather had a boss who couldn't pronounce the family's long Russian name, so the employer shortened it to Carmen. And "Carmen" has always suited him, since it has musical connections, overlapping as it does with a famous opera.

To Carmen's fans, the sound of his music is what matters most. He was thrilled that his band mates—Wally Bryson on guitar, Dave Smalley on bass, and drummer Jim Bonfanti—could get together to make the current concerts happen. It also helped that the House of Blues provided the right time and place.

Today's music scene, says Carmen, is "pretty grim. It's disposable and identityless. Back in the '60s, you needed to be able to write and sing. Now, you need to be cute and know how to dance." He thinks the best new music is coming out of Nashville.

Although he continues to receive offers for various projects in the entertainment industry, he turns down most of them, including the most recent one. It came from the producers of the film "Oh in Ohio" who wanted Carmen to play an aging hippie marriage counselor. "I was never a hippie even when it was popular to be one," he insists.

For the foreseeable future, Carmen says he's quite content with life beyond the industry. Still, he plans to do a newly scheduled show at the House of Blues in Chicago on Jan. 15, and he's heard rumors that the FOX network might set up a broadcast of the New Year's Eve performance here.

So maybe he's having a "Change of Heart," but hey, "That's Rock 'n Roll!"

Cleveland Jewish News / December 31, 2004