Eric Carmen, the frontman for power pop group The Raspberries, and later a stack of solo hits including ‘All By Myself’ and ‘Dirty Dancing’s ‘Hungry Eyes’, has died at the age of 74.
Eric’s family announced:
It is with tremendous sadness that we share the heartbreaking news of the passing of Eric Carmen.
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.
“Love Is All That Matters…Faithful and Forever”
—Amy Carmen
With The Raspberries, Eric became an international rock star with their first single ‘Go All The Way’.
That was followed up with ‘I Wanna Be With You’. Both were Top 20 hits in Australia, Canada and the USA.
The Raspberries had four albums between 1972 and 1974. Eric went solo in 1975 and had a string of sol hits starting with ‘All By Myself’ (no 2 USA, no 7 Australia and no 12 UK).
Next came ‘Never Gonna Fall In Love Again’ (no 11 in the USA), a hit for Mark Holden in Australia.
‘She Did It’ was no 23 USA and no 30 Australia in 1977.
A decade later, Eric’s ‘Hungry Eyes’ was a global hit reaching no 4 in the USA and Australia with thanks to the movie ‘Dirty Dancing’.
Eric released his fifth solo album ‘Eric Carmen’ in 1984 and then his sixth and final record ‘I Was Born To Love You’ 16 years later in 2000.
A cause of death has not been revealed.
