Song of the Day 3/12: Raspberries, “Go All the Way”

Eric Carmen, the frontman of seminal early ’70s power pop band the Raspberries, died over the weekend at age 74. He gained greater fame in the ’80s after he left for a solo career, and in recent years some infamy for outspoken right-wing political stances, but his concept of a band that combined Beatles melodies, Beach Boys harmonies and Who power chords – seen as derivative at the time – help found a rock genre that lives on.

The members of the Raspberries were seasoned veterans of an active late-’60s Cleveland rock scene that also spawned the James Gang. After Carmen failed to secure a role with the Choir, the top band at the time, he founded his own group, Cyrus Erie. When guitarist Wally Bryson got the boot from the Choir he joined Carmen, as did ex-Choir members Jim Bonfanti on drums and Dave Smalley on bass. They called themselves Raspberries, no “the,” named not for the fruit but the Bronx cheer, which Carmen later said was their response to the pretensions of then-popular prog rock.

The band’s first single, “Go All the Way” made a quick impact, reaching No. 5 on the Hot 100 in 1972. Bryson’s crunching guitar, Carmen’s soaring vocals and a series of great hooks, culminating in the Beatlesque “come on” bridge before the last chorus, made the song jump out of car speakers. It’s routinely cited as an avatar of the power pop genre, and if it sounds less exciting today it might be because so much music that came after it drew on it for inspiration.

Carmen said, “I wanted to write an explicitly sexual lyric that the kids would instantly get but the powers that be couldn’t pin me down for.” To avoid being blacklisted by conservative stations, he said, “I turned it around so that the girl is encouraging the guy to go all the way, rather than the stereotypical thing of the guy trying to make the girl have sex with him. I figured that made me seem a little more innocent.”

The band’s second LP, released later that year, reached No. 36 on the album chart, but its biggest single, “I Wanna Be With You,” a near-rewrite of “Go All the Way,” only made it to No. 16. The returns kept diminishing for two further albums before the feuding between Carmen and Bryson broke up the band. They reunited 20 years ago for a series of concerts, but old resentments put a quick kibosh on a permanent reunion. This was the first song of the first concert, 30 years after their last gig. The whole concert was eventually released on CD.

Carmen’s solo career also got off to a hot start, but having a quick hit with “All By Myself” got him typecast as a piano crooner, Barry Manilow with a better voice, and he kept at it for more than a decade. This song, released on his Greatest Hits LP, became his last U.S. hit when it reached No. 3 in 1988. He took a gig with Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band in 1989, and released only one new album after that.