Eric Carmen biography
Eric Howard Carmen (born August 11, 1949, in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.) is a singer, songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist.
His greatest success came in the 1970s, first as a member of The Raspberries (who scored a major hit with their song "Go All the Way," then with his solo career, including hits like "All By Myself" and "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again".
Carmen liked music since early childhood, and by age two, he was entertaining his parents, Ruth and Elmer Carmen, with impressions of Tony Bennett and Johnnie Ray. By age three, he was in the Dalcroze Eurythmics program at the Cleveland Institute of Music. At six years old, he took violin lessons from Muriel Carmen (his aunt), then a violinist with the Cleveland Orchestra.
Carmen grew up in Lyndhurst, Ohio. By age 11, he was playing piano and dreaming about writing his own songs. The arrival of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones altered his dream slightly. By the time he was a sophomore at Charles F. Brush High School, Eric Carmen was playing piano and singing in rock 'n' roll bands.
Though classically trained in piano, Carmen became a self-taught guitarist. At 15, he started guitar lessons, but since the teacher's approach did not fit with what he wanted, he decided to teach himself. He bought a Beatles chord book and taught himself to play guitar for the next four months.
Tenure with The Raspberries
Carmen became serious about being a musician while attending John Carroll University. He joined a band named Cyrus Erie, which recorded several unsuccessful singles for Epic records. Cyrus Erie guitarist Wally Bryson had been playing with friends Jim Bonfanti and Dave Smalley in one of Cleveland's most popular bands, the Choir, which scored a minor national hit in 1967 with the single "It's Cold Outside".
When Cyrus Erie and the Choir collapsed at the end of the 1960s, Carmen, Bryson, Bonfanti and Smalley teamed up to form The Raspberries, a rock and roll band who were amongst the chief exponents of the power pop style. Carmen was the lead singer of the group, and wrote or co-wrote all their hit songs. In 1975, after the breakup of The Raspberries, he started his solo career, de-emphasizing harder rock elements in favor of soft rock and power ballads, which were already the hallmark of Carmen tracks on Raspberries albums.
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