Raspberries Are The Cream Of The Crop
Written: Dec 13 '99 (Updated Dec 29 '07)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Rock 'n' roll for the young at heart of any age.
Cons: None.
The Bottom Line: Contains the Hot 100 Singles "Tonight," "I'm A Rocker" and "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)."
|
|
|
| Don_Krider's Full Review: Vol. 2-Power Pop by The Raspberries |
This album combines The Raspberries' final albums (the third and fourth of four studio albums), "Side 3" and "Starting Over," as a 2-for-1 deal on this British release.
This band, from Cleveland, Ohio, withstood a change in personnel between the two albums. After "Side 3," bassist David Smalley and drummer Jim Bonfanti were replaced by Scott McCarl and Michael McBride respectively. Smalley and Bonfanti formed Dynamite, recording an unreleased album. McCarl came to the band after having recorded with Yellow Hair (and also having done a stint with an early version of Vixen as a roadie). McBride had recorded with Cyrus Erie and The Quick (and later played drums on Eric Carmen's million-seller, "All By Myself").
The key men in both of these albums are Eric Carmen (keyboards, guitar, vocals) and Wally Bryson (guitars, vocals).
On "Side 3," essentially the band's "White Album," the band was in hard-rocking form. No more songs of teen love (except for the Beach Boys' inspired "On The Beach"), but plenty of songs of lust for all ages!
The band was extremely tight by this point. During there first year on vinyl, the band had scored two albums in the Hot 200 on Billboard and four singles in a row in the Hot 100 (including three in the Top 40).
"Side 3" was released to critical acclaim in August 1973. The first single, "Tonight," was acclaimed by many critics as "single of the year." Borrowing the intro from The Move's "Do Ya" and making it their own, Raspberries' "Tonight" was a dynamite rocker from guitar slashing start to the ending drum solo exit.
The band headlined over Stories at Carnegie Hall a month later and embarked on their first headlining tour. I got to see them perform live in November 1973 and it was an incredible show.
Still, despite the critical acclaim, things went wrong on the sales end. "Tonight" may have been "too hard" for AM radio at the time as well as too much a change from their previous lightweight hits for the record-buying public; for some reason, "Tonight" peaked at # 69 (ironic, considering the subject matter).
The album then failed to crack the Hot 100, their first to do so (peaking at # 128). Finally, the second single, "I'm A Rocker," became their lowest charting single, peaking at # 94 in 1973.
It's a shame. "Side 3" has some wonderful tracks, from David Smalley's gorgeous Eagles-style country ballad "Should I Wait" (though Smalley wrote it, this release incorrectly credits the song to Eric Carmen as songwriter) to Wally Bryson's Byrds-style country stomp of "Last Dance," to the brilliant power pop, Who-leanings of Eric Carmen's "Ecstacy," perhaps the band's catchiest tune since "Go All The Way" a year earlier.
Something has to give in a band when you stop having hits. For various reasons, Smalley and Bonfanti decided they had had enough and left. They have nothing to be ashamed of: most artists would kill to have been part of a band that had, up to that point, six Hot 100 singles and three Top 200 albums, not to mention the gold single, "Go All The Way" (featured on "Power Pop - Volume 1").
Carmen and Bryson decided to stick it out as Raspberries, with newcomers McCarl and McBride.
McCarl came into the band with a voice that is effortlessly John Lennon-ish (in fact, John Lennon was a fan of Scott's), playing bass left-handed ala Paul McCartney and looking like Todd Rundgren (Scott's image was "perfect" for the band, according to Carmen).
On "Side 3," Carmen had stopped cowriting songs with other band members for the first time due to tension with his bandmates. When McCarl entered the group, both Carmen and Bryson cowrote songs with him for the "Starting Over" album.
Additionally, Carmen also cowrote ("All Through The Night") with McBride (in fact, with McCarl and McBride on board, they might have called themselves McRaspberries; okay, stop throwing stuff...).
Bryson and McCarl wrote "Hands On You," an acoustic ballad that is light-hearted and fun --- kind of a Beatles-style Xmas fan club recording that is loose and recorded live.
But it is Carmen and McCarl who stun you. Their cowrites show the direction the band might have gone in: "Play On" (with searing guitar from Bryson, and McCarl on lead vocals) captures the hectic nature of touring ("it's a hard life but you play it for laughs / it's a cold-hearted business, keep away from the draft / an' your fingers and your throat get sore / but they're out there callin' for more / so play on").
Additionally, Carmen/McCarl's "Cry" (as close to heavy metal as the band ever got, softened by the heartfelt crooning of McCarl's lead vocal) and their "I Can Hardly Believe You're Mine" (with Carmen on lead, the song is a musical sister to Badfinger's "Day After Day") show deep lyrical depth (Carmen, for instance, is as deeply influenced by F. Scott Fitzgerald as he is by Brian Wilson) and incredible musical sense.
The band, under producer Jimmy Ienner's guidance (with able help from engineers Shelly Yakus and Jimmy Iovine, among others), achieved yet another Top 20 hit with Carmen's "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)", which was named the best single of 1974 by Rolling Stone magazine. The song peaked at # 18, the band's seventh Hot 100 single.
"Overnight Sensation" opens with a Left Banke piano, then slowly, cooly, climbs its way through lead guitar and bass counterpoints into unexpected directions. Layer upon layer of sweet piano, mixed with windmilled guitar and glorious power drumming, the listener is exposed to the brilliance that was The Raspberries.
In the age before videos, Carmen wrote of his dreams of having a really big hit record ("I've been tryin' to fit the words to a good melody / amazing how success has been ignoring me so long / used my bread making demos all day / while in my head I hear the record play"). Ienner's version of Phil Spector "wall of sound" even includes having the song come out of a transistor radio during the song, thus fulfilling the songwriter's dreams.
"Overnight Sensation" was named one of the Top 100 Singles Of The Rock Era by Rolling Stone magazine in 1989.
The album contains many lost rock 'n' roll gems: Carmen's "I Don't Know What I Want" (which combines melodies from several Who songs with the ultimate teen angst lyrics sung with a beautiful voice over sweatty guitars and drums; think Cheap Trick's "Dream Police" as a musical cousin); McCarl's sweet ballad, "Rose Coloured Glasses"; the Rod Stewart singing from Keith Richards' lap swagger of "All Through The Night"; and the sweetest ballad Elton John didn't write, Carmen's "Starting Over" title track (as much an ode to lost love as it is a statement of what The Raspberries hoped their new lineup would achieve at the time).
Despite this, and making most critics' Top 10 lists (including Rolling Stone's album of the year), "Starting Over" peaked at # 143 on the album charts, their lowest charting ever. Then the double A-side (meaning both sides were actually released as the side to play at radio stations) single of Carmen's "Cruisin' Music" and Bryson's "Party's Over" failed to chart at all.
By April 1975, the band had split for good. Carmen (with McBride on drums) launched a successful solo career as a singer (eight Top 40 singles of his own, including the Top 10 hits "All By Myself," "Hungry Eyes" and "Make Me Lose Control") and songwriter (Celine Dion, Sheryl Crow, Jewel, Shaun Cassidy, Frankie Valli, Olivia Newton-John, Peter Cetera, Vanessa Williams and others).
Bryson later recorded with Tattoo (including members of The Choir and The Nazz, with "Starting Over" sideman Jeff Hutton on keyboards) and Fotomaker (with two members of The Rascals). He currently records with The Sittin' Ducks.
McBride, after leaving the Eric Carmen Band, later recorded with Don Kriss & The Vettes.
McCarl finally released a solo album in 1997, the acclaimed "Play On" CD on Titan/RPM, which sold nicely and made most critics' Top 10 lists that year.
If you like your pop with a bit of an edge, and if you are a teenager for the first time or just don't want to feel old, this the album for you.
Just released:
The original lineup (Eric Carmen, Wally Bryson, Dave Smalley and Jim Bonfanti) is back on 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
Related reviews:
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
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
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Don_Krider
|
 in Music, Electronics, Musical Instruments |
 - Top 200 |
|
Member: Don Krider
Location: USA
Reviews written: 301
Trusted by: 1005 members
About Me:
Fan of power pop (Raspberries, Badfinger, Cheap Trick, The Knack, Romantics, Slade,Sweet...) --- "Play On"!!!
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.