Dec 14

The Raspberries

THE RASPBERRIES
 
 
The Raspberries  were an American power pop/pop rock band from Cleveland, Ohio.  They had a run of success in the early 1970’s music scene with their pop sound, which Allmusic later described as featuring “exquisitely crafted melodies and achingly gorgeous harmonies”.  The group drew influence from the British Invasion era — especially The Beatles, The Who, The Hollies, and Small Faces — and its mod sensibility.  In both the U.S. and the UK, the Raspberries helped pioneer the power pop music style that took off after the group disbanded.  They also have a following among professional musicians such as Jack Bruce, Ringo Starr, and Courtney Love.   (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
Greg Shaw put his faith in what he called “power pop”:  teenage pop music in the standard 3-minute format but backed up with a hard-edged punk rock aesthetic.  Pete Townshend coined the term power pop in a 1967 interview to describe the music that his band the Who and Small Faces played; many of the Beatles’ mid-period singles are also in that style, such as “Paperback Writer” and “Day Tripper”.  Among American bands, “Time Won’t Let Me” by the Outsiders and “Go All the Way” by the Raspberries are early power-pop hit songs.
 
(April 2010)
 
*       *       *
 
This was the first post where I tried to talk about more than just the band itself.  Many people might have wondered why Cleveland of all places was chosen to be the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so I presented my own theory:  that it was (or at least should have been) due to the largely forgotten musical scene there in the 1960’s and 1970’s.  More to the point, rock bands like the Raspberries, the Outsiders and the James Gang are certainly well known enough; but most people don’t know that Cleveland was their hometown.  Another long-time fave of mine is the Cleveland punk band the Dead Boys and its frontman Stiv Bators, though they were only indirectly pertinent to this discussion. 
 
After writing the article, I began to wonder whether Cyrus Erie had actually made any records; I certainly didn’t have any of them (unlike everyone else that I have written about).  All I really knew about them was that they were one of the leading bands in Cleveland for a while; and that, when lead singer Eric Carmen left Cyrus Erie and essentially joined the Choir, the Raspberries were born.  The story is more complicated than that actually; several of the bandmembers in the Choir were also in Cyrus Erie at one time or another. 
 
(February 2012)
 
*       *       *
 
Cyrus Erie is an early band that Eric Carmen was in before he and several members of another Cleveland band the Choir put together the celebrated 1970’s power pop band the Raspberries.  They evidently only ever released one single; this is the A side: 

 
Here is a shot of the bandmembers in Cyrus Erie; Eric Carmen is second from the right.  The gentleman in the middle, Wally Bryson was in both the Choir and the Raspberries:

 

 
(February 2013)
 
*       *       *
 

After I got a copy of Choir Practice, the retrospective album by the Choir – which someone at a pre-blog bulletin board about the Raspberries told me about – I wrote up an article on that band.  They are basically a predecessor band to the Raspberries, before Eric Carmen joined as the lead singer – in fact, Carmen had failed his original audition to join the Choir.  Their song “It’s Cold Outside” is one of my favorite songs of that era; it was a big local hit but unaccountably never made much noise nationally.  Read about them in Wikipedia at:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Choir_(garage_band) . 

 

*       *       *

 

I had always intended to write up something in Wikipedia about Cyrus Erie; this was the band that Eric Carmen was in shortly before the Raspberries were formed.  Instead, Cyrus Erie became the third UARB that I wrote about in this series of posts.  I included in that article information about the Cleveland music scene in the 1960’s and 1970’s that I had learned from writing the Wikipedia articles – and from that point on, I have generally included information about better known bands and musicians in the Under-Appreciated Rock Band and Under-Appreciated Rock Artist posts. 

 

(September 2013)

 

*       *       *

 

In the early days, everything was in a 7-inch format; but it wasn’t all two-song singles, and it wasn’t all new music.  Apparently right after the first 45 by the Poppees was released, on Bomp 104-EP, Bomp! Records put together the first reissue of music by the Choir, a 1960’s Cleveland band that included several members of the Raspberries, which formed in 1970 and released several smart albums along with a million-selling hit single, “Go All the Way”. 
 
However, I had not gotten around to writing up a Wikipedia article on a Cleveland band called Cyrus Erie, a rival of the Choir whose lead singer was Eric Carmen.  Carmen was the future lead singer of the Raspberries and also had a successful solo career afterward as both a singer and a songwriter with hits that include “All by Myself”, “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again”, and “Hungry Eyes”.  As only my third Under Appreciated Rock Band post, my entry on Cyrus Erie also talked extensively about the 1960’s Cleveland music scene. 
 
(December 2017)
 
Last edited: March 22, 2021