The Raspberries: Unofficially released "Greatest Hits"
Written: Jun 05 '01 (Updated Jul 23 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: New version of a 1995 release with 20 tracks including four previously unreleased demos.
Cons: Never officially released by Capitol, though BMG Music Service sold some for a short while.
The Bottom Line: Great album, but die-hard fans will be disappointed that all the band members aren't given a fair representation among the tracks chosen.
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| Don_Krider's Full Review: Greatest Hits by The Raspberries |
###NOTE: Capitol has pulled this album from circulation. The demos have been pulled from it and it has been re-released in May of 2005 in the USA and Europe by Capitol/EMI's as a 24-bit digitally remastered CD called simply "Greatest". "Greatest" features all 7 of Raspberries Hot 100 singles, has 20 tracks and runs 78:53 minutes. You can read my review of it at: http://www.epinions.com/content_186044681860###
***Updated note (June 2005): The original Raspberries recording lineup (Eric Carmen, Wally Bryson, Dave Smalley and Jim Bonfanti) reunited in 2004. The band has played to sell-out crowds across the USA in 2004 and 2005.***
+++NOTE: Cover shot above is incorrectly from the 1995 release of the same title. This review is of the briefly released 2000 edition, now pulled from circulation.+++
The Raspberries "Greatest Hits" CD of 1995 was officially released by the label with a cover showing a single berry on a white field. It contained 14 songs, mostly by keyboardist Eric Carmen, and presented the band as Eric Carmen's backup group (though Wally Bryson's "Party's Over" on the CD proved the band had other talented writers other than Carmen).
The album sold only 22,000 copies, according to Soundscan in 1999, which also reported that Carmen's Arista "Definitive Collection" had sold only 12,000 copies and was deleted by Capitol a couple of years ago.
In 2000, with interest in the band growing again due to a reported reunion tour (which never happened) and following Celine Dion's cover of Carmen's "All By Myself" (written as Bee Gee-ish tune, at first, while Carmen was still in Raspberries, but never recorded by them), Capitol brought in the band's manager, David Spero (former manager of The Eagles and Joe Walsh) and band biographer Ken Sharp to rework the "Greatest Hits" album.
Several times since May 2000, the new "Greatest Hits" has been scheduled for release. Due to legal battles with band members over the accounting of royalties by the label, the album has never been officially released (it was reportedly already printed and ready to ship in 2000).
However, the label had licensed certain online outlets to release the album when the official release was scheduled in 2000. So, BMG Music Service and Critics Choice both began listing the album for sale. Being licensed allowed them to market copies manufactured for them.
I know BMG actually did sell the album because I bought it. It was only briefly marketed by them before lawyers for the band and Capitol put a stop to its sale (copies do turn up on Ebay.com auctions from time to time, though).
The new version of "Greatest Hits" is again listed as a summer 2001 release by ICE magazine, an industry publication, but I'll believe it when I see it. However, I'll let you know what the album is like anyway.
Spero, who decided to manage Carmen as a solo act by year end of 2000, helped compile the tracks for the album. 13 are from the original "Greatest Hits," but Wally Bryson's "Party's Over" has been removed (Carmen and Bryson have an on-going feud over the song "Go All The Way," originally credited to them both, but now credited to Carmen only; when a song sells 1.3 million copies, the issue of someone not getting royalties they feel they are entitled to is certain to be a sore spot).
Bryson created the intro to "Go All The Way" based on, he says, experimenting with various chords while in The Choir in the '60s; Carmen's argument is that he wrote the song and asked Wally to play some possible song intros for the start of the tune --- Carmen says you can't copyright an intro, so Bryson's name was removed from the song; the bottom line is that Carmen now owns the copyright and arguments beyond that would have to be settled in court.
The harshness of the situation aside, this new version of "Greatest Hits" leans heavily on Carmen's material (70 percent of the band's tunes were written or co-written by the band's other members: Bryson, David Smalley, Scott McCarl and Michael McBride, but you won't learn that here).
The million-selling "Go All The Way" is a true classic (recently featured in the movie "Almost Famous") that shook AM radio in 1972. Banned in some of the more conservative cities in the U. S. for its suggestive title (and banned by the BBC in England for a time), the opening intro can't fail to wake you up.
Bryson, like Pete Townshend, is a rhythm lead guitar player. While most guitarists will play rhythm guitar OR lead guitar, he can play both at the same time and does. It's a gutsy, British Mod-style of playing, very unique and awesome to hear. I saw him perform with the band in 1973, stomping his feet on the stage and chewing a wad of gum, he was just as cool to watch playing in a live setting as he is on record.
For "Go All The Way," Bryson provides the rocking underbelly to the tune, with additional rhythm guitar by David Smalley (who sang lead on The Choir's 1967 hit, "It's Cold Outside"), killer bass guitar by Carmen (he and Smalley traded instruments after their first album) and powerhouse drumming by Jim Bonfanti.
Carmen's sweet, gorgeous, pleading lead vocal is the song's identity: "I never knew how complete love could be / 'til she kissed me and said / please go all the way /
it feels so right / being with you here tonight / please go all the way / just hold me close / don't ever let me go / I couldn't say what I wanted to say / 'til she whispered I love you so / please go all the way / it feels so right being with you here tonight..."
There's also a killer line in the bridge of the tune: "Before her love I was cruel and mean / there was a hole in the place where my heart should have been / but now I've changed / I feel so strange / I come alive when she says / come on..."
All sung with sweet, innocent harmonies by the band. It's truly a wonderful tune to this day on the radio (the song has been played more than a million times on radio, according to BMI, the music licensing organization, which puts the band among the very few artists to achieve that much airplay). It peaked at # 5 in Billboard magazine.
A song which Carmen and Bryson agree they both wrote, "Don't Want To Say Goodbye," was their first single in 1972. It peaked at # 86 on the charts. It's a lovely piano-based tune, heavily orchestrated and sung Bee Gees-style with co-lead vocals by Carmen and Bryson. It has been covered by a number of acts over the years, ranging from The Lettermen (who also recorded The Raspberries' "Let's Pretend," as did The Bay City Rollers), Sha Na Na and Beau Coupe.
On the longest track the band ever recorded, the eight-minute Carmen-penned "I Can Remember," which is based on a Beethoven melody, the band is truly stunning (even more so live, which is amazing when you think about it). To this day I don't know how Bonfanti could play his drums so fast and furious for so long on one song. The tune begins slowly with Carmen at the piano, strings playing in the background, and a delightful piano solo. Mid-way, the band kicks in and joins Carmen, adding guitars and drums with increasing effect as the tune begins to speed up to a fast, rocking pace.
"I can remember / autumn skies and goodbyes / hurting so badly / that I thought I would die / but the more things seem to change / the more they stay the same / and the lonely ones get lonelier with every passing day..."
Carmen's lead vocal and piano work (he studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music beginning at age 2) here are truly stunning. Few bands have been as good and none have been better.
"I Wanna Be With You" (which peaked at # 16 in 1972-73) is another Carmen-penned classic. It offers what one critic described as "a monument to youthful exhuberance." With Bryson playing a dual-necked, 12-string Gibson guitar, the song is full of jangly guitar sounds and a non-stop drum beat by Bonfanti. This is the period when Smalley took over bass duties and Carmen switched to rhythm guitar. Smalley's bass playing is on target and stunning here.
"If we were older / we wouldn't have to be worried tonight / baby oh / I wanna be with you / ... / someday's a long time / and we've been waiting so long to be here / baby oh / I wanna be with you / so bad / oh baby / I wanna be with you / oh yeah / well tonight's the night / we know that soon it will feel so right / so come on baby / I just wanna be with you / hold me tight / our love could live forever after tonight / if you believe in what we're doing is right / close your eyes and be still..."
It probably won't win any awards from planned parenthood, but I was 15 going on 16 when this was a hit and I loved it. It remains a stunning rocker nearly 30 years later. The Raspberries music, in turn, exposed me to their influences, such as The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Who, The Small Faces and The Byrds, and to bands that have acknowledged the band as an influence, such as Smashing Pumpkins, Jellyfish, Enuff Z'Nuff, Shoes, Cheap Trick, Kiss and The Posies.
"Let's Pretend," what Don Imus, in a "Go!" show documentary on the band in 1973, called "a song on everybody's list of pretty songs," is classic, McCartney-style pop (Carmen admits to borrowing part of the melody for his first solo hit, "All By Myself"). It peaked at # 35 and spent 16 weeks on the pop charts.
"I can't sleep nights / wishing you were here beside me / can't help feeling / that's the way it ought to be / you know we could run away / but I couldn't bear to hear / the things they'd say / oh no / baby let's pretend / that tonight could live forever / if we close our eyes and believe / it might come true..."
The style reminds one of The Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice" in spirit and remains a great lost classic.
Carmen's "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)" is Top 40 radio, from insider comments about "bullets" and "not being in it for the money." Ironic, isn't it? Rolling Stone magazine named it one of the Top 100 Singles Of The Rock Era and the Best Single Of 1974. It peaked at # 18, the last of their Top 40 hits.
David Smalley sang lead on eight songs by the band on their first three albums (he and Bonfanti left before the final fourth album in 1974). He wrote or co-wrote 10 of the band's songs. None of his lead vocals appears here. He is represented only by the songs he wrote with Carmen which have Carmen on lead vocals: "Nobody Knows" (one of the most Beatle-ish tunes they ever recorded) and "Drivin' Around" (as good a Beach Boys' tribute as you'll ever hear).
Scott McCarl only played on one album with the band, writing or co-writing five tunes and singing lead vocals on four. None of those songs appear on this album. It's almost as if he didn't exist.
Drummer Michael McBride, who also played on only one album, co-wrote the Rolling Stones-meet-Rod Stewart "All Through The Night." It was the only tune he wrote. It also isn't on the album.
Wally Bryson wrote or co-wrote eight tunes as well that were recorded 1972-74, including the single "Party's Over." He sang lead on all eight songs (co-lead on "Don't Want To Say Goodbye" included). Only his lead vocals on "Don't Want To Say Goodbye," "Come Around And See Me" and "Last Dance" appear here.
I suspect this is why the band's members, other than Carmen, are upset at how this package makes them look like only backup musicians to Eric Carmen. They were a band. Like The Beatles, they shared a "band house" for a time. They were friends once upon a time. It's unfortunate that poltics creep into music and that music, sad to say, is a business with countless stabs in the back for anyone involved in it.
You wind up with 20 tracks on this album with Carmen singing solo lead on 17 of them, sharing lead on one tune and Bryson singing solo lead on two songs. No lead vocals by the equally talented Smalley and McCarl.
Some of the band members, like McCarl, are barely mentioned, if at all, in an otherwise great, well-illustrated, 12-page CD booklet written by Ken Sharp, featuring interviews with some of the band's members about each track.
The main feature:
The CD does include seven tracks not on the original release, most notably "I Don't Know What I Want," the band's classic Who tribute. The four bonus tracks are the demos that got the band signed to Capitol in 1971, all written or co-written by Bryson: "I Saw The Light" (co-written with Carmen), Come Around And See Me," "Oh Tonight" (not to be confused with their # 69 1973 hit "Tonight") and "Please Let Me Come Back Home" (great harmonica by Bryson with Carmen sounding like Elvis Presley).
The CD:
A total running time of 78:45 minutes. The 12-page CD booklet includes a cover shot assembled from four individual shots of Carmen, Smalley, Bonfanti and Bryson made to look like the cover of The Beatles' "Let It Be" album --- very nice effect. The 20 tracks have been 24-bit digitally remastered.
The songs:
"Don't Want To Say Goodbye," "Go All The Way," "I Can Remember," "I Wanna Be With You," "Let's Pretend," "Nobody Knows," "If You Change Your Mind," "Drivin' Around," "Tonight," "I'm A Rocker" (# 94 in 1973), "Ecstasy" (one of the greatest rock tunes ever), "Last Dance," "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)," "Cruisin' Music," "I Don't Know What I Want," "Starting Over," "I Saw The Light" (more Beatle-ish than the original version), "Please Let Me Come Back Home," "Oh Tonight" and "Come Around And See Me" (more Byrdsy than the original version).
Just released:
Live On Sunset Strip (Deluxe Edition of 2 CDs and a DVD recorded during the 2005 reunion tour) By Raspberries, a 2007 Rykodisc release with liner notes by Bruce Springsteen and a photo of John Lennon in a Raspberries sweatshirt in the CD booklet, produced by Mark Linett and Eric Carmen: http://www.epinions.com/content_393207123588
Of interest:
Capitol/EMI's 24-bit digitally remastered CD "Greatest" by Raspberries was released in May of 2005 in the U. S. and Europe. It features all 7 of Raspberries Hot 100 singles, has 20 tracks and runs 78:53 minutes: http://www.epinions.com/content_186044681860
Jim Bonfanti and his group Boxer released a new CD in 2004, "By The Seat Of Our Pants": http://www.epinions.com/content_180171804292
Wally Bryson and Jesse Bryson, with friends, deliver great sounds on The Bryson Group's CD "Dry": http://www.epinions.com/content_177981263492
Recommended:
Yes
Great Music to Play While: Exercising
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Epinions.com ID:
Don_Krider
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 in Music, Musical Instruments |
 - Top 200 |
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Member: Don Krider
Location: USA
Reviews written: 301
Trusted by: 972 members
About Me:
Fan of power pop (Raspberries, Badfinger, Cheap Trick, The Knack, Romantics, Slade,Sweet...) --- "Play On"!!!
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