Raspberries: "Starting Over" was named Rolling Stone magazine's Best Album of 1974
Written: Aug 21 '04 (Updated Nov 08 '07)
Product Rating:
Pros: This was one of 7 albums named "Best Album of 1974" by Rolling Stone magazine.
Cons: Expensive Japanese import.
The Bottom Line: Great album. A better purchase would be the RPM Records "Power Pop, Volume 2," which contains Raspberries' "Side 3" and "Starting Over" LPs on a single CD.
Don_Krider's Full Review: Starting Over by The Raspberries
The Raspberries played Carnegie Hall in September 1973 on the heels of scoring three Top 40 singles in less than one year ("Go All The Way," "I Wanna Be With You" and "Let's Pretend").
The band seemed poised for superstardom, but then their third album, "Side 3," stiffed on the pop charts (their previous, 1972-released LPs, "Raspberries" (# 51) and "Fresh" (# 36), had been major hits, but "Side 3" failed to break the Top 100 Album chart in Billboard despite glowing reviews, peaking at # 128).
Rhythm guitarist/keyboardist Eric Carmen decided that changes needed to be made, leading to the firing of bassist David Smalley. Drummer Jim Bonfanti quit the band in support of Smalley, who was his best friend.
Smalley, Bonfanti and lead guitarist Wally Bryson had been been together in The Choir in the mid-'60s (scoring a # 68 hit in 1967 with "It's Cold Outside," when they were all of 17-years-old), but Bryson made the decision, a tough one for him, to stay in the band with Carmen.
Carmen and Bryson had a long love-hate relationship: Carmen, the pianist trained at The Cleveland Institute of Music beginning at age 2, and Bryson, kicked out of high school for long hair, were from different sides of the street.
Carmen had considered The Choir to be Cleveland's best band. He tried to join The Choir, wearing a wig over his short hair to meet the mop-topped hair band, only to be laughed from the audition (when he proclaimed himself to have the best vocal range in Cleveland, something he later proved, the perceived ego was too much for The Choir's members).
The Carmen-Bryson marriage always seemed at the time to be in the mold of Jagger-Richards, Lennon-McCartney and Daltrey-Townshend, the animosity giving the band a musical edge that cut like a knife through the stagnant rock popular at the time.
They had written songs together on the first album, but never did write together on the next three releases (Eric claimed sole authorship of their million-seller "Go All The Way," while Wally claimed he was entitled to cowriter's credit since he created the opening intro to the song, something Eric said you can't copyright; the issue has yet to be fully settled to both of their satisfaction).
With Wally's buddies, Dave and Jim, gone, the void created was filled by drummer Michael McBride and bassist Scott McCarl. McBride, Bryson's brother-in-law for a time, had been a lead singer previously (a huge Rolling Stones' fan, he looked like the late Brian Connolly of The Sweet and sang like Mick Jagger). He had also been in Cyrus Erie, an Epic Records act that also included Eric and Wally.
McBride was also a veteran of The Quick, another Epic Records act, with Eric (and post-Raspberries, recorded and toured as part of Eric's first solo album band, which earned a Gold Record for the single "All By Myself" and also for the Arista Records "Eric Carmen" LP).
McCarl, who can sing effortlessly like John Lennon or Paul McCartney, had been a roadie for Vixen (a female rock band) and had recorded as a member of Yellow Hair in 1969 for Bell Records.
McCarl had sent demos to both Todd Rundgren (whom he looked like) and to Eric Carmen hoping to find someone to produce his records. It was Carmen who called him with interest.
Carmen, a huge McCartney fan, was impressed by McCarl's "perfect 1965 John Lennon" singing and no doubt McCarl's left-handed bass playing ala Paul McCartney added to the effect. He had talked to McCarl for months on the phone before offering him the chance to join The Raspberries.
The full lineup now in place, the band kept producer Jimmy Ienner on for a fourth album. Ienner was one of the best producers at the time (brother of current Sony Records' exec Donnie Ienner, he produced albums by Grand Funk, Blood Sweat & Tears, The Bay City Rollers, Sha Na Na, Candy, Eric's first solo album and the "Dirty Dancing" soundtracks).
Ienner's production staff at The Record Plant in New York for what became The Raspberries' final album in 1974 included Shelly Yakus as engineer (later to produce acts such as Tom Petty and Cutting Crew) and assistant engineer Jimmy Iovine (later a producer of acts such as Stevie Nicks).
Dennis Ferrante, assistant engineer on the first three albums, was at work on Linda Ronstadt's "Heart Like A Wheel" LP at the time and was apparently unavailable. He was replaced as assistant engineer by Iovine, Kevin Herron, Corky Stasiak, Rod O'Brien and Dave Thoener.
Charles Calello arranged the strings and horns on the album. Jeff "Elbows" Hutton, all of 18, was brought in to add "additional keyboards" on the album (later touring with the band for a time; in 1976, he recorded as a member of Bryson's band Tattoo, which included Thom Mooney of The Nazz and Dan Klawon of The Choir).
The band had been touring (having objects thrown at them as opening act for Blue Oyster Cult; standing backstage as new act Kiss breathed fire onto their audience --- learning that Paul Stanley had seen them at Carnegie Hall and was a fan) to show off the new lineup.
At a club called The Whiskey in Los Angeles, Keith Moon of The Who came out of the audience during one of their shows and took over the drum kit to join the band as they played a cover of Free's "All Right Now" in April 1974.
The new songs had a hard rock edge. The songs on the first three albums had been in the Beach Boys/Beatles/Byrds pop mold, but the new album, to be called "Starting Over," was heavily into the rock of The Who and Free, though Eric's pop leanings still crept into the new tunes.
Carmen wrote with both McBride and McCarl. Bryson wrote with McCarl. The animosity between Carmen and Bryson was evident when they didn't write with each other (at a future gig, this anger exploded in a Chicago parking lot as Wally dragged Eric around the parking lot by Eric's Jane Fonda, shag-styled, shoulder-length hair after a gig).
It was this obvious tension, though, that made "Starting Over" a fine album. You had two rock veterans growing from the energetic new blood of McCarl and McBride.
If the album had a problem, it was that it didn't sound like a Raspberries' album. The matching suits and pop were replaced by blue jeans and hard rock. They might have done better recording under a different name, but Capitol had a four-album deal and they still owed one album, so The Raspberries brand remained.
Carmen wrote a song called "Hit Record" which raised eyebrows at Capitol Records, the band's label. They couldn't imagine hearing deejays promote "here's that new hit record, 'Hit Record' by The Raspberries"; Eric thought it would be a great rock moment if deejays did just that.
Capitol won --- the original title was reduced to parenthesis when the song was released on the album and single as "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)" (the tune was later covered by Cherrie and Marie Currie). Carmen was in shock over not being told of the change.
As a single for The Raspberries, the tune rose to # 18 in Billboard, their fourth Top 40 single. Two versions of the tune were released on the promo single for the tune that went to radio stations: one version was under four minutes and the original from the "Starting Over" album was more than five minutes long; both versions were too long for the three-minutes of fame of AM radio.
Eric sings of the frustations of being a musician:
"Well I know it sounds funny / but I'm not in it for the money, no / I don't need no reputation / and I'm not in it for the show / I just want a hit record / wanna hear it on the radio / wanna big hit record / one that everybody's got to know..."
"I fit the words / to a good melody / amazing how success has been ignoring me so long / I've used my bread / making demos all day / and writing in the night / while in my head I hear / the record play..."
Built over a Left Banke-ish slow piano, the song builds as layers of vocal harmony and instruments are added on. Eric admits to modeling the song on The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" as a production, he even wrote the song as if he was seeing the events of the song portrayed in a video.
An often copied effect developed by Ienner was to have the song, mid-way through, come blasting out of a transistor radio during the song, the realization of the star's dream.
When Rolling Stone magazine evaluated all the singles released in 1974, this tune was chosen as its # 1 tune.
The "Starting Over" album was picked as one of the year's seven best by Rolling Stone, also (with albums by Steely Dan, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and others). Other publications that picked the LP as one of the year's best included Phonograph Record Magazine, Circus, Creem, Billboard, Record World, Cash Box and Zoo World (a newspaper-style rock zine).
The album was almost a concept album. Most of the tunes dealt with the rock star life, a fact obvious in some of the 11 song titles: "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)," "Play On," "Party's Over," "I Don't Know What I Want," "Rose Coloured Glasses," "All Through The Night," "Cruisin' Music," "I Can Hardly Believe You're Mine," "Cry," "Hands On You" and "Starting Over."
At over 40 minutes in length, it was one of the longest running times of any album released up until 1974.
On "Play On," written by Carmen with McCarl, with McCarl doing a perfect Lennon-sounding vocal over a climbing bass pattern and Bryson's rapid-fire guitar, with a pounding backbeat by McBride, the group sings:
"Critics comin' cause you're number one / play all your hits and all the girls will come / play on..."
Sounding like Paul Stanley of Kiss, Bryson offers up some blues-based guitar, honky tonk piano and sings with cynicism on his "Party's Over":
"When we started it was a lot of fun / and the times we had I'll never forget / but now I'm older and wiser / and a bit of a miser / and it's crazy but I don't wanna quit..."
The ultimate Who tribute song, "I Don't Know What I Want," has Carmen grabbing bits of various Who songs and molding them into one tune (it is most influenced by The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again"). It's a gloriously sweet vocal singing outstanding lyrics over some stunning rock 'n' roll.
I was 17 when this came out, living the usual teen frustration of parents, dating and school, and this song won my heart:
"My old man says success is the measure / may be so but I don't need the pressure / not right now cause I got enough / teachers tell me I don't lack the brains / ask if I'm under some kind of strain / well that's too much and I really can't take it / they all say that I'm not getting younger and I'd better make up my mind / man, you'd think I was committin' some kinda crime / 'cause I don't know what I want..."
McCarl's "Rose Coloured Glasses" is very Todd Rundgren-ish, a pretty, slow ballad about a guy who sees "it all through rose coloured glasses, and I only see what matters to me." It's almost out of place among the rock tunes here, but it's a wonderful tune.
"All Through The Night," written by Carmen with drummer McBride, sounds like what one critic described as "Rod Stewart singing in the lap of Keith Richards". Eric writes some of his dirtiest lyrics here:
"Hey now, sugar / let me buy you a drink / don't you tell me your last name / I won't recognize you after tonight / 'cause you just won't look the same / well I could look for an hour or two / trying to find someone just like you / why don't you sit right down / have a double, let me get to know ya'..."
There are dirtier lyrics, but you get the idea, and Eric sings of the aftermath of a one night stand when he tells the girl she can "hitchhike home in the morning."
That's unusual for Eric, the romantic balladeer of "All By Myself" and "Hungry Eyes" as a solo artist, but in The Raspberries he was a "rock star personified" with all the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll trappings. These days he's happily married with two beautiful children. You change with the times.
The song that comes closest to sounding like the original recording lineup is Eric's Beach Boys' tribute "Cruisin' Music." Full of Beach Boys-style harmonies with a sound like the Beach Boys' "Do It Again," Eric sings:
"Well I'm drivin' down the highway / losin' all my patience / pushin' all the buttons / tryin' to find a station / with a screamin' jock / turnin' out my daily ration of cruisin' music, sure good music / to put the fun back in summertime / I need some cruisin' music to make everything alright..."
Carmen's lead vocal on "I Can Hardly Believe You're Mine" is akin to Pete Ham's on Badfinger's "Day After Day," sung over a gentle piano and moving into a Small Faces-sounding rocker with a heavy metal edge. Written by Carmen and McCarl, Eric sings:
"...you greet me without words it seems / and still the feeling grows / I was nowhere, 'til your love touched my soul / baby, I can hardly believe you're mine..."
Carmen and McCarl again approach heavy metal, this time with McCarl singing lead and again sounding like Lennon, on "Cry", which is a tour-de-force for Wally Bryson's lead guitar (I could listen to his solos for hours without tiring of them):
"Cry, if you feel lonely / and you know you can't make the grade / now that you realize, you should've stayed / and if you feel the way I do / I want you to cry your eyes out / I'm cryin' too..."
On the one cowrite by Bryson and McCarl, you get a recording made live in the studio that sounds like the nutty banter of The Beatles' Fan Club recordings. Both guys play beautiful acoustic guitar here, with horns appearing from nowhere and sounds of laughter. It's a cute tune I used to play with a buddy in college, kind of fun and very tongue-in-cheek:
"How I wish I had my hands on you / always want to have my hands on you / just can't wait to have my hands on you / bring your friend, she's welcome too / here we go, I got my hands on you / take it slow, I got my hands on you / down below, I got my hands on you / where's your friend, I want her too..."
A foreshadowing of Eric's solo career closed the album. The title tune, "Starting Over," would have been a big hit if released as a single, I believe, because it's a gorgeous piano ballad in the style of Elton John. Great lyrics, too, it's about a romance but also sounds as if it was also about the breakup of the original recording lineup:
"I remember all the good times / and the bad times spent together / why remember all the old times / when the new times look much better."
But it's a love song to a girlfriend, and a lost pop music gem waiting to be rerecorded by someone:
"Though I am starting over under cloudy skies / I say hello to love / I'm seeing through different eyes / and if I had the chance to make one wish / and know it would come true / I'd start all over with you."
"Every evening I would watch the sunset / end another day / let the nighttime wash my blues away / buried my romantic inclination / deep inside of me / 'til I fell for you immoderately / though I am starting over under cloudy skies / I say hello to love / I'm seeing through different eyes / and if I had the chance to make one wish / and know it would come true / I'd start all over with you..."
Despite a Top 20 single, the band's album didn't take off. The second single, "Party's Over," received a poor rating of "60" on "American Bandstand's" rate-a-record (the "it's got a good beat, I can dance to it" segment) and was re-released with the flipside, "Cruisin' Music," being the featured track; both sides failed to chart.
The band finally split in April 1975. Carmen kept McBride for his solo band (reaching # 2 with "All By Myself" in 1976). McCarl recorded with Glider on United Artists and later solo.
Bryson recorded with Tattoo in 1976 (taking keyboardist Jeff Hutton from the "Starting Over" album along and writing a song critical of Carmen called "Yer Stale") and then hooked up with two of The Rascals to form Fotomaker (whose debut album hit # 88 in 1978). McBride recorded with Don Kriss & The Vettes, then left music.
Meanwhile, Smalley and Bonfanti formed Dynamite with Kevin Raleigh (who later sang lead on The Michael Stanley Band hit "He Can't Love You") in 1973. They recorded a still unreleased album.
Dynamite evolved into Windfall when Smalley decided to work on his songwriting and eventually pursue a solo career (he released a solo album in 2003, "Internal Monologue").
Bonfanti currently performs with Boxer, who released a CD in 2004, "By The Seat Of Our Pants."
Bryson and Smalley were later in The Secret. Carmen joined them onstage in 1983 for a couple of tunes. Bonfanti often sat in on drums. Bryson also performed with Peter Panic, among several Cleveland acts he formed in the '80s.
Bryson was band leader for the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame's Topping Off Ceremony in 1995 in Cleveland (when rain dampened the festivities, he led the band into a rendition of The Beatles' "Rain"). He later toured as one of The New Rascals with Fotomaker bandmates Dino Danelli and Gene Cornish.
Bryson has in recent years recorded with The Sittin' Ducks (featuring Choir bandmate Dan Klawon) and has produced his son, Jesse's, band Qwasi Qwa (winner of the 1997 Mountain Dew Rock-Offs, finalists in a recent Hard Rock Cafe band competition and named Best Americana Band by The Cleveland Free Times in 2001). In 2004, Bryson teamed with son Jesse to record as The Bryson Group the CD "Dry."
McCarl celebrated his 1997 solo album, "Play On," backed by Bryson, Bonfanti and Smalley at the Odeon in Cleveland in July 1998. They then were headliners, as The Raspberries, for the opening of the Hard Rock Cafe in Cleveland a week later (a gold record for "Go All The Way" and a guitar signed by them hangs on the walls inside the Cafe).
Carmen released his sixth U. S. solo album (Raspberries put out four albums in two years; Eric has taken 27 years to put out six solo albums) in 2000 as "I Was Born To Love You" (released two years earlier in Japan as "Winter Dreams" with an extra track). The album didn't chart despite Eric touring as part of the Ringo Starr band that summer.
The Raspberries' "Starting Over" album, minus its original LP-sized (twice as big unfolded) poster of the band (taken by Beatles/Badfinger photographer Richard Dilello) has been reissued twice on CD by Capitol Records in Japan (part of their Japanese "Past Masters" series) in the 1990s (in 1980, Eric was the only U. S. artist with a fan club in Japan), but never in the U. S. It is a hard-to-find import even now.
However, again with no U. S. release, RPM Records in England (manufactured in France) put the albums "Starting Over" and "Side 3" (featuring the Hot 100 hits "Tonight" (since covered by Motley Crue) and "I'm A Rocker") together on one CD entitled "Power Pop, Volume Two" in 1996 that is available from various sources including CDNOw.Com and Amazon.Com. You can read my review of that album at http://www.epinions.com/musc-review-6ED3-383263A-38553A17-prod5 .
It's well-worth seeking out if you're a power pop fan.
The Japanese lyric translations:
For fun, the original Japanese release includes Japanese translations of the band's lyrics that are sometimes hilarious:
On "Crusin' Music," for instance, the lyric "got my tank-top and tennies now" becomes "got my big top finished now" when translated.
Also, on "Overnight Sensation," the lyric "but I'm not in it for the money" is translated as "but I'm not leavin' for the morning show."
On "I Don't Know What I Want," Eric's lyric "but I can't make a move with them on my back" becomes "but I can't make a boo when they wound my pride."
Also, his line in the same song of "and it's like I'm just talking through a cell door, someone give me a clue" is translated as "and I wanna guitar get it in a circle, some one give me a broom" --- huh?
All the original Japanese Raspberries' CDs include lyrics translated just as badly, but it makes the albums kind of fun too.
Just released:
With the original lineup back in place (Eric Carmen, Wally Bryson, Dave Smalley and Jim Bonfanti), 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
Special thanks:
To Epinions.Com Music Category Lead Shelly, aka Lambchops (http://www.epinions.com/user-lambchops), for adding Raspberries' "Starting Over" to the Epinions.Com musical database.
Note: This review first appeared in February of 2002 in the "Suggest Products" category (meaning it could not be found with the Epinions' search engine). Now that the album has a proper home, I've deleted that original review, updated the information and moved the review to this new location.
In July of 2004, EricCarmen.Com released an official book biography entitled "Eric Carmen: Marathon Man" by Bernie Hogya (who created the "Got Milk?" advertising campaign) and Ken Sharp (the official biographer of Kiss), which is being sold through the EricCarmen.Com site (the book contains a foreward by Cameron "Almost Famous" Crowe, a Raspberries' fan and is reviewed at http://www.epinions.com/content_153762500228). If you look at the "acknowledgements" page in the book, somewhere between Clive Davis, Joan Jett, Rick Springfield and Ringo Starr, you might see a familiar name from Epinions.Com (hint, hint) in the list...
On the web:
"Reflections: Side 3 - Songs From The Raspberries Fan Community" by various artists is a tribute album that benefits the VH-1 Save The Music Foundation: http://www.epinions.com/content_271718911620
Capitol/EMI's 24-bit digitally remastered CD released in May of 2005 in the U. S. and Europe, "Greatest," features all 7 of Raspberries Hot 100 singles, has 20 tracks and runs 78:53 minutes: http://www.epinions.com/content_186044681860
On tour to rave reviews as a sideman on Raspberries' 2004-2005 tour is guitarist Billy Sullivan (personally chosen by Eric Carmen for the tour). My review of Billy's solo album, "All-American Popster," appears at: http://www.epinions.com/content_170531917444
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