Cons: Only eight tunes. CD booklet liner notes in Japanese. Expensive import.
The Bottom Line: A truly great rock album. Great players like Davey Johnstone, Steve Lukather, Carmine Appice and Kenny Passarelli join former Raspberries' leader Eric Carmen. Includes the hit "It Hurts Too Much."
Don_Krider's Full Review: Tonight You're Mine by Eric Carmen
In the summer of 1980, Eric Carmen's solo career in the U. S. was stalled. His increasingly ballad-heavy albums simply weren't selling, he no longer toured stateside and his last album, 1978's "Change Of Heart," didn't crack the Billboard Top 100 Albums list (peaking at # 137).
For an artist who had enjoyed great success in the 1970's, including nine Top 40 hits in 1972-78 (including four Top 40 singles with The Raspberries (among them, the million-seller "Go All The Way") and five as a solo act after leaving Raspberries in 1975, including the million-seller "All By Myself"), Carmen's sudden coldness on the Hot 100 charts must have been a shock to him.
Critics were calling him a "second-hand Barry Manilow" and his albums were collecting dust in the bargain bins at stores (his "Boats Against The Current" LP from 1977 was visible in massive quantities for as little as 25-cents by 1980 in stores). Eric stopped touring the U. S. because his tours were losing money (he said his 1977-78 tour cost him $100,000 in an interview and proved to him, at least, that touring didn't sell albums).
In Japan, however, Carmen had become a mega-star by 1979. A Japan-only "Best Of" collection earned a Gold Record Award, he toured before sell-out crowds in Japan and his "Foolin' Myself" became a finalist in Japan's Yamaha Music Festival, with Eric performing the tune to a Japanese television audience of 30 million people (according to Billboard).
Eric even returned to the charts, in Japan at least, with a Top 40 Japanese hit, "It Hurts Too Much," a song that proved he could still rock after years of singing an increasing number of ballads.
Carmen had told Rolling Stone magazine back in May of 1976, "I saw 'A Hard Day's Night' and I wanted to be The Beatles. I wanted to be on that train and do those things."
I suspect those rock 'n' roll memories, which had inspired Carmen to form the Beatles-influenced Raspberries in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1970, came back to Carmen as he tried to figure out what was wrong with his career in the U. S. and what direction to take his music in.
The players and the producer:
In Eric Carmen, you have a multi-talented instrumentalist (here playing piano and rhythm guitar), songwriter and a multi-range lead singer (like Paul McCartney, Eric can be smooth-voiced one minute and a screaming rocker the next).
To capture that talent, Eric gave up producing himself and hired Harry Maslin to produce "Tonight You're Mine." Maslin has also produced David Bowie (the albums "Station To Station" and "Young Americans"), Melissa Manchester ("Don't Cry Out Loud"), James Taylor, Carly Simon and The Bay City Rollers (the "It's A Game" album), among others.
To his credit, Eric decided that his "Tonight You're Mine" would be more rock 'n' roll, this time surrounded by some stellar musicians.
The cast of conspirators assembled by Eric as backup musicians is indeed impressive.
Among them, Davey Johnstone (Elton John's long-time guitarist), Kenny Passarelli (the bassist for Stories, Elton John, Derringer and others), Carmine Appice (the colorful drummer for The Vanilla Fudge and Rod Stewart, among others), Billy Peek (the brilliant guitarist for such Rod Stewart hits as "Hot Legs"), Steve Lukather (of the band Toto, whose guitar-work was a key ingedient of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album, among others) and Rich Schlosser (a talented drummer who has played on albums by Rod Stewart, Boz Scaggs and Van Morrison).
Also aboard for the project were Fred Tackett (from the band Little Feat, on piano and guitar), keyboardist Duane Hitchings (an amazing musician who has played on albums and/or toured with Rod Stewart, Janis Joplin, Jeff Beck, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Alice Cooper, Rick Nelson and Del Shannon), bassist Bob Glaub (whose bass work has appeared albums by dozens of artists, including Journey, John Fogerty (who once said "Bob Glaub is rock 'n' roll"), Rick Nelson, CSN&Y and Ringo Starr) and percussionist Paulinho da Costa (among his many credits are Neil Diamond, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross).
For the title track, Eric also employed several bagpipe players, but more on that later.
The CD:
This is a 1992 Japanese-only CD release (Arista in Japan has released all of Eric's studio albums on CD at least twice (1992 and 1998), but has yet to release any of them in the U. S.; the only U. S. studio album released stateside was by Rhino Records, the Gold Record Award-winning 1975 "Eric Carmen" album with two bonus tracks).
"Tonight You're Mine" features a CD booklet with new liner notes (unfortunately, they are printed in Japanese without an English translation).
The CD booklet has a controversial cover shot (Eric, in purple pants and a leather jacket, and a blonde-haired woman in a slit skirt who is bent over while Eric holds the back of her neck; suggestive in nature, but not explicit as a photo, but some feminist groups were upset with the shot according to press reports at the time). The back cover shot, with Eric in a plaid shirt ala John Fogerty, would have been a better cover shot, complete with its computer-style graphics ala the film "Tron."
The booklet is 14 pages long and includes Eric's song lyrics in English.
The single CD features eight songs, including the minor U. S. hit, "It Hurts Too Much," which peaked at # 75 in Billboard for two weeks in 1980 (it had debuted as the highest charting new single in the U. S. its first week, stalled in its second week and was gone from the Hot 100 in its third week of release).
The album peaked at # 160, but lasted only five weeks on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Carmen's label, Arista, removed the June release from circulation after only two months and by August of 1980 it was obtainable for as little as 88-cents in the cut-out bins of one record store I visited at the time.
In Japan, the album was a huge hit, but Arista soon dropped Carmen from their roster all together (though they briefly re-signed him in 1987 (Carmen had scored an RCA single hit with the Top 5 smash "Hungry Eyes," prompting a bidding war for Carmen that Arista won; Arista released Carmen's 1988 single, "Make Me Lose Control," for another Top 5 hit, but had again dropped him from the label by the early 1990's).
The tracks:
"It Hurts Too Much," "Lost In The Shuffle," "All For Love," "Tonight You're Mine," "Sleep With Me," "Inside Story," "Foolin' Myself" and "You Need Some Lovin'" (Eric goes a bit ape on this less-than-stellar Billy Joel-meets-Led Zeppelin-sounding tune, but the heavy metal guitar-work by Steve Lukather of Toto is amazing).
Recommendation:
The album, praised by Rolling Stone magazine at the time as a return to Carmen's Raspberries' rock roots (the magazine compared Carmen to Greg Kihn's then hit-making power pop), deserved a better fate.
As a Japanese release, the CD is an expensive item ($30 to $40 range), but the album should be a treasure to fans of power pop music and it contains some of the best performances of Carmen's career --- the ballads are exquisite and the rockers sizzle with youthful energy (Eric was, after all, still 30-years-old at the time of the album's release).
If you've got the spare change, "Tonight You're Mine" is worth getting. Fans of The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Elton John will love it.
Carmen wrote all eight songs on the album.
The best songs:
"It Hurts Too Much":
Eric's tribute to the Phil Spector/Ronettes' sound (think "Be My Baby" here, a song Carmen performed live with The Raspberries when I saw them perform in Louisville in 1973), "It Hurts Too Much" starts slowly with piano and finger-snapping as Carmen sings:
"A lot of empty words that I've already heard / ain't gonna work tonight / don't wanna talk about it anymore / 'cause that ain't gonna make things right / so now you're back again, you say it's not too late / to give it one more try..."
Then Eric steams things up with guitars/bass/drums, strings and a gorgeous sax solo by David Woodford, as Carmen's voice tells the story of one too many "second chances" he's given this lover:
"...well, I don't want to hear your lies / no, I don't want to hear your lies no more / I've got to find a way, I know, to let you go / you say you'll never leave / and then, you're gone again / oh, it hurts too much..."
Carmen is convincing as a rocker here, but this is the weakest of the rock tracks on "Tonight You're Mine" (even though it's a great song).
"Lost In The Shuffle":
Most Carmen fans don't seem to like the tune, but I do. With Davey Johnstone and Billy Peek trading Chuck Berry (think "Back In The USA" here) guitar lightning bolts, Carmen looks at the bad news that filled TV news programs during President Carter's last year in office --- for once in his career, Eric got a bit political in his lyrics and I was impressed with that at the time (still am, I'll add). I love his line about "Big Brother":
"You know you pay your taxes and you work all day / but you better watch out for the CIA / 'cause they're putting together a dossier on you..."
Carmen's tale (backed by Harry "Dee Dee" Maslin and The Shufflettes) is one of a guy who is tired of all the "bad news" in the media, a timeless story when you think about it:
"Don't wanna hear no more about the PLO / or the AFL or the CIO / not the FBI or the ASPCA / you know I've had my fill of Capitol Hill / and the OPEC prices and the oil spills / I've had enough bad news to last me a year today / ... / well I've got no time for the rise in crime / and plutonium leaks and mile-long lines / of cars backed up just tryin' to buy some gasoline / well I'm up to here with the cancerous rats / and the test tube babies and bureaucrats / ... / and I feel like I'm lost in the shuffle / and I'm not gonna take it..."
The lyrics could be from today's headlines, 24 years later, don't you think?
"All For Love":
This song, a solid rocker, has enough soul to break your heart in its lyrics about a guy who has made mistakes in a relationship and wishes he could change things. Anybody who has worked too many hours for the good of a family and then found out it was love, not financial gain, the family needed more of will identify with the lyrics.
Opening with some gently strummed acoustic guitar, slowly joined by the usual rock instruments, gradually increases in tempo before Eric rocks out on the chorus:
"Love was in her heart / but I had dreams to to find before I could see / I asked her if she'd wait for me / but I was gone too long / tears were in her eyes / she said I took our love and threw it away / and nothin' I could do or say / could bring it back again / I was tryin' to be something more / than the man I had come to be / I never meant to leave her sad and lonely / if only she could see / I did it all for love / all for love / 'cause nothin' really matters if it's strong enough..."
"Tonight You're Mine":
Ah, bagpipes used as a rock instrument, a rarity that works very well on the album's title track. Carmen's "Tonight You're Mine" is the rocking tale of (besides the bagpipes, Carmen employs guitars, keyboards and drums in the mix) a guy who, shall we say, gets "lucky":
"...was it somethin' we forgot to say / that took romance away / can it be that now the feeling's gone / ... / because, tonight you're mine / I've been waiting such a long, long time / for tonight, I know there's no one else..."
"Sleep With Me":
John Schneider of "The Dukes Of Hazard" TV series apparently thought the title too "risque" when he recorded it as "Stay With Me" in 1981, but Carmen's "Sleep With Me" is a gorgeous, string-laden rocker about a jaded lover hoping this time love is for real:
"Last night when I took you home / I felt like dyin' / 'cause it's been so long since a woman made me feel like tryin' / and I need you beside me / to love and to guide me / so, sleep with me and be mine tonight / I only wanna hold you in the mornin' light / and show you just how good it all can be..."
"Inside Story":
As truly "cool" songs go, "Inside Story" is in the Top 10 of my all-time "cool song" list (currently maintained in a filing cabinet inside my mind's cluttered work place).
I was working for Scripps-Howard Newspapers at the time after studying journalism in college when out comes Eric Carmen with a song that opens with the sound of typewriter keys called "Inside Story."
Tying a love story to a news reporter theme was brilliant, I think, and the song (sounding, perhaps because Davey Johnstone of Elton John's band plays guitar here, a bit like Elton's "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting") sizzles as a rock tune.
The lyrics are inspired:
"I heard my friends / talkin' 'bout your reputation / all the things you used to do / they called you cheap / said a lot of guys had had you / girl, I don't believe it's true, no / but it's alright / I'm not in it for the glory / yes, it's alright / got to know the inside story / all about your love / ... / listen, I don't care what's in your past / all I want is for our love to last / and I don't mind if you're a bit too fast / with me..."
"Foolin' Myself":
Next to "Boats Against The Current," this may be Carmen's best ballad. Eric's voice shows previously unheard vocal range and depth.
Carmen sings from the heart, backed by a suppressed rhythm section and strings as he plays piano. A musical cousin to his "All By Myself," this 1979 Yamaha Music Festival song finalist is a gorgeous tear-jerker with some astonishing keyboard work by Carmen, and a personal favorite of mine:
"...well I've been hurt before / so now I must be sure / are you feelin' it too / maybe this time it's true / or am I foolin' myself / once again..."
Carmen today:
Married, with a son and daughter, Carmen lives in Cleveland once again after several years in Los Angeles in the 1970's and 1980's. His last studio album, "Winter Dreams," was released in Japan on Pioneer LDC in 1998 (a shorter version, "I Was Born To Love You," was released in the U. S. in 2000 on Pyramid Records as part of a one-album deal). Eric's last U. S. tour was with Ringo Starr in 2000 (which was his first U. S. tour since 1988's "Dirty Dancing Live" was on the road).
Scheduled for release June 26, 2007, on Rykodisc is the cd/dvd album from the reunited Raspberries, "Live On Sunset Strip." The album was recorded at the Raspberries performance in Los Angeles in 2005 by producer Mark Linett (Grammy-nominated engineer of Brian Wilson's "Smile" CD).
Eric's music can be heard as a songwriter in the film "Footloose" (the tune "Almost Paradise," a Top 10 hit for Mike Reno and Ann Wilson; the soundtrack album won Eric a Grammy nomination) and as a performer in the film "Dirty Dancing" (the soundtrack of which has sold 10 million copies).
The Raspberries' "Go All The Way" can be heard in the film "Almost Famous," but wasn't included in the film's soundtrack album.
Artists to cover Eric's tunes include Celine Dion, Sheryl Crow, Jewel, The Bay City Rollers, Shaun Cassidy, Frank Sinatra, Frankie Valli, The Lettermen, John Davidson, Olivia Newton-John, Peter Cetera, John Travolta and Motley Crue.
For trivia buffs: when The Raspberries played Carnegie Hall in 1973, fans who attended the show included Gene Cornish of The Rascals, Paul Stanley of Kiss and Todd Rundgren.
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 byBruce 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
On the web:
The Sittin' Ducks featuring Wally Bryson of Raspberries with Dan Klawon and Kenny Margolis, Wally's bandmates in The Choir (see their "Choir Practice" CD): http://www.epinions.com/content_239152434820
Looking for an outdated Eric Carmen biography? Perhaps my 1998 article for the official Raspberries' website will suffice: http://www.raspberries.net/ericbio.html
Curious about the musicians Eric has performed with over the years? Maybe my list (written with Bernie Hogya) of personnel he's worked with at Eric Carmen's official site will be of interest: http://www.ericcarmen.com/biography/personnel.html
Complete lyrics to the songs on "Tonight You're Mine" are at Eric's official website, which is run by Bernie Hogya, the man behind the "Got Milk?" advertising campaign. Hogya and writer Ken Sharp (author of the recent official Kiss book biography) have a new book due out in 2004, "Eric Carmen: Marathon Man," and details are at Eric's website: http://www.ericcarmen.com
Wally Bryson, Raspberries' lead guitarist (who also recorded with Tattoo, Fotomaker, The Choir and The Sittin' Ducks, among others), has just released an album, "Dry," with his son, Jesse, in an effort from The Bryson Group (originally "The Bryson Project") for January 2004 (receiving praise from Raspberries' producer Jimmy Ienner for The Brysons' incredible vocals) and details/song clips are at: http://www.thebrysongroup.com
Jim Bonfanti, Raspberries/Choir drummer, and his group Boxer have an album due soon, "By The Seat Of Our Pants," and details will be found at: http://www.boxerrocks.com (which is under construction at this time)
My reviews of related albums:
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
Eric is one of the many artists on Ringo Starr's "Anthology," a collection of live performances from Ringo's "All-Star Band" tours: http://www.epinions.com/content_34313899652
Carmen's Raspberries bandmate, Dave Smalley, also has a terrific CD out, "Internal Monologue," which reminds me of Carmen's album in its introspective nature: http://www.epinions.com/content_112634596996
Carmen's Raspberries' bandmates Wally Bryson, Dave Smalley and Scott McCarl reunited in 2000 to record as "The Raspberries" with the album "Refreshed," reviewed by me at: http://www.epinions.com/content_20892847748
And, believe it or not, I used to write short reviews, as in the case of the Rhino Records re-issue of 1975's Arista "Eric Carmen" album (which featured Carmen's "That's Rock 'n' Roll," a tune covered by Shaun Cassidy for a million-selling single) that I reviewed in 1999: http://www.epinions.com/musc-review-2A40-33C7F7A-385486BE-prod4
To Epinions.Com Music Category Lead Shelly, aka Lambchops (http://www.epinions.com/user-lambchops), for adding Eric Carmen's "Tonight You're Mine" to the Epinions' musical database.
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