Eric Carmen

Eric Howard Carmen (August 11, 1949 – March 10, 2024) was an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He was the lead vocalist of the Raspberries, with whom he recorded the hit "Go All the Way" and four albums. He embarked on a solo career in 1975 and had global success with "All by Myself," "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again," "She Did It," "Hungry Eyes," and "Make Me Lose Control." Carmen was born on August 11, 1949, in Cleveland, Ohio and grew up in Lyndhurst. He was involved with music from early childhood. By the age of two, he was entertaining his parents with his impressions of Jimmy Durante and Johnnie Ray. At three, he was in the Dalcroze eurhythmics program at the Cleveland Institute of Music. When he was six, he took violin lessons from his aunt Muriel Carmen, who was a violinist in the Cleveland Orchestra.

Work with the Raspberries Carmen became serious about being a musician while attending John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio. He joined a band named Cyrus Erie, which recorded several commercially 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 disbanded at the end of the 1960s, Carmen, Bryson, Bonfanti, and Smalley teamed to form the Raspberries, a rock and roll band which was among the chief exponents of the early-1970s power pop style. 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.

Solo career Carmen's first two solo singles were chart hits in 1976. Both were built around themes by Sergei Rachmaninoff. The first single, "All by Myself"—based on Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 —was No. 2 in the United States and No. 12 in the United Kingdom, where it was his only song to chart. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA in April 1976. The follow-up single, "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again"

Carmen's second album, Boats Against the Current, was released in the summer of 1977 to mixed reviews. It featured backup players including Burton Cummings, Andrew Gold, Bruce Johnston, and Nigel Olsson. The album spent 13 weeks on 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 find 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 with two more albums. Despite declining chart fortunes, the single "Change of Heart" broke into the top 20, In 1980, he released the album Tonight You're Mine with its lead single "It Hurts Too Much" (number 75 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."

In 1987, Carmen's contribution to the hit film Dirty Dancing, "Hungry Eyes," reached number two on the Adult Contemporary chart and also returned him to the Pop top 10.

The album I Was Born to Love You was recorded in 1997 at Beachwood Studios (the same very studio he recorded "Hungry Eyes") by the production team of Lee Mars and Howard Perl. The album was released in 1998 in Japan as Winter Dreams. 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 and December 2013 in Ohio and Los Angeles, was issued as a free 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 was married three times: to Marcy Hill from 1978 to 1979; to Susan Brown, with whom he had two children, from 1993 to 2009; and to former newscaster Amy Murphy from 2016 until his death in 2024. Carmen moved from Los Angeles to Gates Mills, Ohio in the 1990s. He was a supporter of President Donald Trump.

After Carmen's death, his children Clayton and Kathryn filed a lawsuit against their stepmother, Amy Carmen, in Cuyahoga County Probate Court, accusing her of wrongly disinheriting them from a trust their father had established in 2007. After Amy Carmen's attorneys filed to have the case moved to federal court, they filed responses to the claims.

On April 2, 2026, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit brought by Eric Carmen's adult children against their stepmother, Amy Carmen. The court found that a 2020 settlement—under which each adult child (and their mother) received a lump-sum payment and signed a broad general release of claims against both their father and stepmother—bars them from inheriting from or asserting any claims against their father's estate.

Death and legacy On March 10, 2024, Carmen's wife Amy announced that he had died in his sleep over the previous weekend at the age of 74. No cause or location of death was given at the time. Legal documents filed later that month showed Carmen died on March 10 in Paradise Valley, Arizona. His widow Amy filed further lawsuits against all public authorities to block the release of autopsy results.

The city of Cleveland, in collaboration with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, declared August 11, Carmen's birthday, "Eric Carmen Day" in his honor, also posthumously awarding him with the "Music Keynote to the City."

Discography

With the Raspberries

Solo

Studio albums Title Album details Peak chart positionsCertifications US AUS SWE UK Eric CarmenReleased: November 1975 Label: Arista Records21154158 RIAA: Gold Boats Against the Current Released: August 1977 Label: Arista45 3739– Change of Heart Released: September 1978 Label: Arista137 93–– Tonight You're Mine Released: January 1, 1980 Label: Arista160 80–– Eric CarmenReleased: January 7, 1985 Label: Geffen Records128 ––– I Was Born to Love You Released: 1998 Label: Pioneer– –––

Compilation albums Title Album details Peak chart positionsCertifications US NZ The Best of Eric Carmen Released: June 1988 Label: Arista 59 1726 The Definitive Collection Released: June 17, 1997 Label: Arista – –– All by Myself – The Best of Eric Carmen Released: October 21, 1999 Label: Collectables– –– The Essential Eric Carmen Released: March 25, 2014 Label: Arista– ––

Charted singles Title Year Peak chart positionsCertificationsAlbum US US AC AUS GER NL NZ Music Goldmine: Platinum BVMI: Gold Dirty Dancing: Original Soundtrack"As Long as We Got Each Other" 1988–––––––––Best of Louise Mandrell"Make Me Lose Control"3182––29–93The Best of Eric Carmen"Reason to Try"87–133––––––1988 Summer Olympics Album: One Moment in Time