1
It was released fifty years ago Sunday.
The Raspberries were an AM band in an FM world. FM started on the coasts, San Francisco and New York, and by time "Go All the Way" was released every metropolis had an FM outlet. And that meant if you listened to FM you never listened to AM, unless your car only had an AM radio. But by '72 8-tracks were invading cars, you didn't have to listen to the dreck on AM anymore. But some still did.
I never ever heard the Raspberries on FM radio. Sure, somewhere sometime they may have gotten airplay, but the Raspberries were decidedly uncool. Not only were they an AM band, THEY WERE TOO GOOD!
Punk rock did not emerge for a few years, the first Ramones album came out in '76, but that was a reaction to prog, to overbaked records by trained players, not against power pop, which actually had its own renaissance at the end of the decade, and ultimately became part of new wave.
But I knew the Raspberries. You couldn't escape "Go All the Way" and the follow-ups. But I never ever bought one of their records. Why? It seemed formulaic, of the moment, disposable, when in truth it was anything but.
There was coverage in the rock press, mostly about the scratch and sniff sticker on one of their albums, but if you were cool you didn't own Raspberries records. They were never on the bill of the show you wanted to see. And then, all of a sudden...
2
"Well I know it sounds funny
But I'm not in it for the money"
The Raspberries were getting fantastic reviews. Everywhere. From credible writers. About their 1974 album "Starting Over."
Huh? Just as the band's star was fading, they never had another hit long player, "Starting Over" peaked at #143, the cognoscenti were into them. It's like they grudgingly agreed they liked all their hits and now that AM was no longer interested, they could laud the band from Ohio.
So I bought it.
Oh, to be an active record buyer in the seventies. It meant you hung out at the store, you knew every outlet in town, at one you were a regular known by name, they saved records for you. You read all the rags, had a mental shopping list and went to the store and bought four, five or six records. You needed them, they were as vital as air and water. And they were always a surprise, even the biggest albums only had a few radio tracks, you dropped the needle and went on an adventure.
Which wasn't always satisfying. But that was part of the magic, what you thought would be great wasn't, and what you bought on a whim became your favorite record you testified to everybody about.
And most records went unheard. To get someone to buy an album was a huge feat, to get over that threshold. And the best ways were radio and live, but it was hard to get on the radio and even harder to be seen, especially when no one wanted to pay to come.
"Well if the program director don't pull it
Then it's time to get back the bullet
So bring the group down to the station
You're gonna be an overnight sensation"
"Bullet." This was insider language. Which the hoi polloi didn't know, never mind having no idea there was a program director, never mind what he did.
"I've been tryin' to write the lyric
Non-offensive but satiric too"
Wait a second, weren't the Raspberries mindless AM pap, non-thinking fly-by-nights? No, the band was thinking all about it, which too many acts today do not. It's like the formula's been lost. I mean all you need is verse, chorus, bridge, but that's too much for them, whereas the Raspberries had learned at the feet of the Beatles, that was the starting point for so many of the baby boomer acts.
"I fit those words to a good melody
Amazing how success has been ignoring me
So long I use my bread making demos all day
Writing in the night while in my head I hear
The record play, hear it play"
The game hasn't changed whatsoever, everybody's laboring in obscurity, looking for a hit. I mean you can post it on Spotify, but that doesn't mean anybody will listen to it.
Now I'd never heard "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)" before, I just dropped the needle on the Dual turntable and this sound came out of the speakers, this mini-symphony, an analogue to "Good Vibrations," really, "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)" should be in the pantheon, but it's not. Times had changed. In 1966 AM played everything, in 1974 the playlist was much more constricted, most of the big classic rock tracks never even got played on AM radio, and the Raspberries fell between the cracks.
3
But I was a fan, I immediately bought Eric Carmen's first solo album, I needed more. And now the public agreed, "All By Myself" was a number one record, however Eric was still relegated to the AM world. But there was more, "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again" and a song that Shaun Cassidy ultimately turned into a monster hit, "That's Rock 'n Roll."
"I played at parties
Played in bars
I spent my money buyin' new guitars
I screamed my heart out
But how I loved it
That's rock 'n roll"
AND IT MOST DEFINITELY WAS! Scratch a boomer in the music business, they all had an electric guitar and an amp, they all dreamed of making it big, they had bands, they were inspired by the Beatles.
"Well come on everybody
Get down and get with it
Come on everybody
Get down and get with it
Come on everybody
Get down, that's rock 'n roll"
A mash-up of Freddy Cannon and Jan & Dean/the Beach Boys, this is the sound of the early sixties, when rock 'n roll infected the youth, smoothing the cleaving away from the old fogeys, the establishment.
And having proved he could do it, that he possessed the magic, knew what he was doing, Eric proceeded to produce and record his unjustly ignored masterpiece, "Boats Against the Current," which wasn't even available online for eons, you see it was a legendary stiff, I bought my copy as cutout, where all the disappointments came to live, if they weren't buried, literally.
"She Did It" was a very mild hit, with its "Sail On Sailor" intro, but it was too sophisticated for most mindless listeners, this was the analogue to the Beach Boys' "Marcella," but Carmen could populate entire albums with this stuff, which the boys from the beach no longer could.
But the heart of the album literally comes in the heart of the album, track 5 of 8, "Love Is All That Matters." This is late night music, majestic, in an era where corporate rock was dominating, it was akin to a late sixties production, soft and meaningful, heartfelt, almost a male Laura Nyro.
But the piece-de-resistance is the closer, "Run Away," an eight minute opus that will pick you up and fly you away from this mortal coil, will overwhelm you with its richness. Today everything is hard, or pulling directly at your heart, whereas "Run Away" has no concessions, it's just banking on being so damn good that it's irresistible, and it is!
Not that anybody today will admit liking this kind of music. The black jeans and leather jacket crowd hate strings, if something can be perceived as wimpy it is buried, but "Run Away" is part of why classic rock is classic. Brings tears to my eyes listening to it. Never heard it on the radio, never heard anybody talk about it, I just played it turned up loud enough on the JBLs to take up all the space in the room.
There was one victory lap, after the subsequent albums missed the target, I'm speaking, of course, of "Hungry Eyes" from the "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack, a B movie that became a classic, unheralded at first, but a big hit in both the theatre and home video.
"I've been meaning to tell you
I've got this feeling
That won't subside"
You might put on a tough image for the guys, but when you're lying in bed alone at night, what goes through your mind? When you've got more than a crush, you've actually connected, all you can think is about them.
And then...
4
Nothing.
Hip-hop and the Seattle sound took over the airwaves. AM bands were relegated to the oldies stations, which now existed on FM, but didn't play anything that wasn't known by every member of the audience.
But I found out I wasn't the only one who knew the magic of Eric Carmen and the Raspberries.
And then they re-formed.
That's what you've got to know, so many of the acts of yore that you want to see don't get back together and go on the road because of the economics, the venues won't guarantee enough to meet the costs, and will oldsters show up, on a weeknight, even on a weekend?
But the Raspberries did. For a little bit more than fifteen years ago, and I was there, at the House of Blues.
You know how it is going to see these old heroes, whose records you know by heart, you're rooting for them, urging the little engine that could to gain speed and chug along. But they rarely do. The singer's voice is shot. The sound is a facsimile of what once was. If you know the songs you can fill in the parts, overlook the clams, but it's just nostalgia, you leave the building feeling slightly queasy, you were there, you saw them, but you never need to see them again.
That was not the Raspberries at the House of Blues back in 2005.
And they played "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)," along with "I Wanna Be With You," Tonight" and Let's Pretend," but the finale, the final encore, was...
"Go All the Way." Which we couldn't believe you could say on the radio, then again, Bread had "Make It With You" a couple of years before.
But the stunning thing was the sound, that slap of Wally Bryson's guitar, it was just like the magic coming out of that small speaker in the dash of your car. You thought that was a studio sound, you didn't think it could be replicated live, but Bryson did.
And Eric Carmen still sounded like the guy on the record and...
This was a band.
There aren't many bands anymore. I mean bands with big hits. They're afraid of looking bad, they go out with supporting musicians, hard drives, it's all a little bit fake, and you can tell. But when there are slight imperfections the sound imparts humanity, and absent that element music is just sheen, it bounces off you, it doesn't stick.
It's a lost art. No one practices, hones the sound to get it just right. It's just too much work. But if you wanted a hit record in the old days, when so many people were paying attention, this is what you had to do.
I didn't go all the way with the Raspberries in the beginning. It took a while for me to commit. Which is how so many long-lasting relationships are.
But those are the ones that stick.
"Go All the Way" live: bit.ly/3PIu5Co
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