Eric Carmen – R I P

Sad news in this week. The creator of at least one of the 80’s biggest movie hits has left us.

Eric Carmen wrote and performed Hungry Eyes  and Make Me Lose Control for the smash 80’s movie Dirty Dancing. He also wrote hits for several other artists during the 80’s as well as doing a turn on one of Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band’s tours.

The multi instrumentalist was trained in piano but was also a self taught guitarist, learning from a Beatles chord book. Eric Carmen also played violin in his school orchestra.

Before becoming a solo star in the 80’s Eric Carmen lead a top power pop band The Raspberries. The band toiled away around the mid-west USA in the early 70’s before hitting the bigtime with hits like Go All The Way, Lets Pretend and I Want To Be With You to name a few. My fav’s of the time are Don’t Want To Say Goodbye and Cruisin’ Music.

The Raspberries were heavily influenced to top British bands of the 60’s and 70’s like The Who, The Hollies, The Small Faces and of course The Beatles.

Carmen’s background classical music came to the fore when he wrote nd performed All By Myself, based on Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Opus 18. Mariah Carey covered it and made it a hit. Many other performers have also covered it successfully.

That’s Eric Carmen in a nutshell, RIP Eric Carmen.

No cause of death has yet been given.