Eric Carmen, a singer-songwriter best known for the classic song “All By Myself,” passed away at the age of 74, according to his wife. Amy Carmen, his wife, posted a notice of his passing on his website. She just mentioned that he passed away over the weekend while sleeping without explaining.
Eric Carmen’s Personal Life
Carmen was raised in Lyndhurst, Ohio, after being born in Cleveland, Ohio, on August 11, 1949, into a family of Russian-Jewish immigrants. He started playing music when he was quite young. At two years old, he was amusing his parents by performing impressions of Johnnie Ray and Jimmy Durante. He enrolled in the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Dalcroze Eurhythmics program at the age of three. He began taking violin lessons at age six from his aunt Muriel Carmen, a member of the Cleveland Orchestra. He began to play the piano at the age of eleven, dreaming of writing his tunes.
His dream was significantly altered when the Rolling Stones and Beatles arrived. Carmen had three marriages. His first marriage ended in divorce to Marcy Hill, with whom he was wed from October 31, 1978, to August 3, 1979. He wed Susan Brown for the second time on May 22, 1993, and remained wed till 2009. Before separating, the couple had two children: Clayton and Kathryn. In 2016, he wed Amy Murphy, a former newscaster, for the third time. In the 1990s, Carmen returned to Gates Mills in northeast Ohio from Los Angeles.
Eric Carmen’s Career
Before establishing himself as a solo performer, the American celebrity first gained notoriety with the power pop group the Raspberries. One of his greatest solo successes, Hungry Eyes, was included in the 1987 cult film Dirty Dancing. The singer, who was born in Ohio, joined Wally Bryson, Jim Bonfanti, and other band members in the early 1970s to form the Raspberries. Dave Smalley eventually joined the group after John Aleksic left. Their debut album Raspberries was released in 1972, and some of the songs went on to become chart toppers. One such song is Go All the Way, which was later banned from the UK by the BBC due to its sexually suggestive lyrics.
The song was later featured on the 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack. The band split up in 1975 after recording four albums together, and Carmen went on to pursue a solo career. His most famous solo song is All By Myself, which Canadian artist Celine Dion covered and went on to become one of her most memorable successes. The song was also included in Bridget Jones’s Diary’s opening sequence. Carmen was a successful songwriter, penning singles such as “Almost Paradise,” which appeared on the Footloose soundtrack, “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again,” and “Make Me Lose Control.”