Eric Carmen: Marathon Man

One of the Top Ten Books of the Year!

—Record Collector magazine

An oasis of pleasure in a desert of printed sand: well-written, well-documented and fascinating to read.

—Don Krider, epinions.com

Grandiose in scope and achievement, Simon and Schuster couldn’t (and wouldn’t) have done better.

—Larry Lange, Discoveries magazine

The lifelong struggles and triumphs of a musical wunderkind covered in exquisite detail.

—Rick Schadelbauer, Amplifier Magazine

Expertly and exhaustively researched...the definitive look at Eric Carmen and his music.

—John Borack, Goldmine magazine

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ERIC CARMEN:

MARATHON MAN

Bernie Hogya

&

Ken Sharp

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright 2012 by Bernie Hogya & Ken Sharp

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 – Lyndhurst

Chapter 2 – The Cyrus Erie

Chapter 3 – Get The Message

Chapter 4 – Raspberries

Chapter 5 – Studio B

Chapter 6 – Go All The Way

Chapter 7 – Fresh

Chapter 8 – Side 3

Chapter 9 – Starting Over

Chapter 10 – No Hard Feelings

Chapter 11 – All By Myself

Chapter 12 – The Great Gatsby

Chapter 13 – Change of Heart

Chapter 14 – Land of the Rising Sun

Chapter 15 – The Bubble Bursts

Chapter 16 – Ricky and the Tooth

Chapter 17 – Winter Dreams

Chapter 18 – Raspberries Reunion

Chapter 19 – Cleveland Rocks

Chapter 20 – Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Chapter 21 – I Wanna Be With You

Chapter 22 – Play On

Chapter 23 – Party’s Over

Chapter 24 – Heroes And Hope

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to: Eric Carmen, Waring Abbott, Chris Adams, Heather Adams, Tim Adamsky, Samantha Adamsky, Jeff Albertson, John Aleksic, Tommy Allen, Denny Anderson, Carmine Appice, Pat Baird, Mike Barich, George Barris, Walt Barry, Patrick Beckers, Barb Bonfanti, Jim Bonfanti, Melissa Bonfanti, Rob Bonfiglio, Dave Booth, Gary Boress, Darlene Brandt, Derek Goose Braunschweiger, Allison Bryson, Jesse Bryson, Kay Bryson, Wally Bryson, Jim The Bull Bullotta, Maureen Mo Callahan, Nick Caris, Clayton Carmen, Fred Carmen, Ruth and Elmer Carmen, Kathryn Carmen, Susan Carmen, Chris Carter, Shaun Cassidy, Century 21, Al Chan, Mark Comai, Jennifer Corkery, Cameron Crowe, Cherie Currie, Kevin Darago, Clive Davis, Kent Demshar, Nancy Demshar, Richard DiLello, Yukiko Doi, Judy Dombrowski, Kevin Dugan, Dennis Elsas, Jeff Engle, Eric Carmen Fan Club of Japan, Dennis Ferrante, Bob Ferrell, Jay Gilbert, Neil Gilpin, Andrew Gold, Cherise Goodrich, Chris Goodrich, Bob Gruen, Billy Hanna, Geoff Hanson, Lani Hanson, Koh Hasebe, Masaki Hata, Kim Havrilla, Herman, Susan Herskovits, Louis Hirshorn, Cheryl Hogya, Jim Hogya, Lisa Hogya, Tillie and Rex Hogya, Jim Horan, Dan Hrdlicka, Jeff Hutton, Jimmy Ienner, Hisashi Itoh, Jay Jacobs, Joan Jett, Teresa LaPera, Steve Kalnasy, John Kalodner, Ernie Kassoff, Al Kaston, Denise Kaston, Sue Katila, Carol Kaye, Elliot Kendall, Pete Keppler, Kunihiko Kikuchi, Randy Klawon, Steve Knill, Jerry Krasovec, Don Krider, Don Krueger, Masashi Kuwamoto, Don Ladanyi, Kenny Laguna, Teresa LaPera, David Leaf, Jennifer Lee, Adrienne Lewis, Ian Lloyd, Henry LoConti, Janet Macoska, Ian Marshall, Ajay Mastrobuono, Dan Matovina, Joe Merante Jr., Bob McBride, Michael McBride, Scott McCarl, Michael Miller, Bill Mumy, Martin Murphy, Anthony Nicolaidis, Pam Nowak, John Oates, Anastasia Pantsios, Rusty Pitrone, Dean Pitchford, Jack Plucinsky, Joe Polo, Steve Popovich, Julie Rader, Rich Reising, Tommy Rich, Jim Rinaldi, Dee Rose, Al Ross, Shoko Sakata, Metal Mike Saunders, Bob Schepens, Ron Scott, Frank Secich, Norman Seeff, Lynne Sestak, Carol Sharp, Margie Sharp, Terri Sharp, George Shuba, Paul Sidoti, George Sipl, Dave Smalley, David Spero, Rick Springfield, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Stanley, Ringo Starr, Jeff Stevens, David P. Sturtevant, Bob Stroud, Billy Sullivan, Debbie Sullivan, Ron Sutton, Seth Swirsky, Gene Taylor, Rita Trevarthen, Eddie Trunk, Jaan Uhelszki, Steve Vaccariello, Little Steven Van Zandt, Laura Voyner Tim Wargo, Brent Warren, Margie West, David Wild, Joanne Hakola Williams, Brad Wilson, Shelly Yakus, Richie Zito and Marty Zucker.

COVER PHOTO: Norman Seeff / ©1976 Norman Seeff.

Song lyrics ©Eric Carmen Music, Inc. All rights for Eric Carmen Music, Inc. controlled and administered by Universal - Songs of Polygram International, Inc. All rights reserved.

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FOREWORD

By Cameron Crowe

I FIRST started writing record reviews for the San Diego Door in 1972. My sister Cindy worked in the upcoming events department, and she slipped me into a staff meeting. I was given some promotional records to review—couldn’t believe there was such a thing as FREE records sent by the record company—and quickly came back for more.

Lester Bangs had worked for the very same publication, and still sent reviews in from his post as editor of Creem. (I still remember stacks of unpublished reviews sitting on the desk of the music editor—wish I’d copied ‘em.)

Very early on, there was one record that had a huge buzz in rock writer circles. The record was punchy, filled with pop emotion, but the one aspect that had everybody talking—everybody in the rock journalism world—was that it smelled.

The record company had sent promotional copies out that were literally scented like raspberries. It was unheard of, and ridiculous, and incredible…and it smelled good, too. Fruity and minty, not like cologne, but…well…it smelled like the band sounded.

When I first met Lester Bangs, almost a year after the album’s release, even he mentioned the Raspberries record—That thing still smells, have you smelled it lately?

In my mind, from that day, Lester and Raspberries were linked.

Bangs reviewed Fresh Raspberries for Rolling Stone, and ripped it pretty much to pieces.

But I was more of a fan.

I loved Side One, and the way it ended with that pure Eric Carmen touch—the unashamed emotional burst—I Reach For The Light. I loved the entire first album, of course, and later fell hard for the masterpiecemanship—which is, you’re right, not a word—of Overnight Sensation. Hell, I’ve always been an Eric Carmen watcher. I’d be interested in bonus tracks and demos for Boats Against The Current. But that’s me.

Doing Almost Famous, I knew I had to have the Raspberries in there somewhere, and I wanted them in the scene in Bangs’ apartment. I tried several songs, but the one I always came back to was the first one, Go All The Way.

You can’t argue with the beginning, it’s a jolt of adrenalin, every time, and it felt very much like something that Bangs might have blasted while winging his way through his record collection and talking to that kid on that phone.

Plus, it was time appropriate.

I was tempted to try Overnight Sensation in the scene, thinking that it would be something Lester might slip on when no one was watching, a guilty pop pleasure…but alas, the song was released in 1974. The movie took place in 1973. (Though the time-rules do get bent once in the movie anyway with Burn by Deep Purple.)

Go All The Way felt right, and when I was recently told it was the only time a Raspberries song had ever been used in a movie, I was a) surprised Michael Mann or Scorsese hadn’t made it there first (tip to Scorsese—I Reach For The Light), and b) humbled by the ways of the world that can create this irony: the guy who somehow made it all happen was the very same rock critic legend who decimated them in Rolling Stone.

There is a God, and he’s probably a Raspberries fan, too. And for the record, my vinyl copy of the first album STILL smells like raspberries.

Cameron Crowe

Los Angeles

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ERIC CARMEN:

MARATHON MAN

This is a story of Olympian endurance,

a story of going all the way,

a story of great expectations,

a story of winter dreams and orange sunrises.

This is the story of a marathon man.

This is the story of Eric Carmen.

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CHAPTER 1

LYNDHURST

Well, I was sixteen and sick of school.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

I bought a guitar. I got the fever.

That’s rock and roll.

THE YEAR was 1949. Harry Truman was President, stamps cost a mere three cents, the New York Yankees defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series, and the Hit Parade resounded with the inoffensive, safe-as-milk sounds of Some Enchanted Evening, Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Kiss Me Kate soundtrack. The meteoric inaugural blast of rock and roll was still a few years away.

That very same year, on August 11th, Eric Howard Carmen was born in Cleveland, Ohio.

He spent most of his youth in Lyndhurst, a small town populated by 5,000 people located in Cuyahoga County, fifteen miles east of Cleveland.

I was born in Cleveland, Ohio at Mount Sinai Hospital, Eric explains, which is located within the city limits of Cleveland. My parents lived in an apartment on Euclid Heights Boulevard in Cleveland Heights. We moved to a house in Euclid later, and then to Lyndhurst when I was in third grade. I spent most of my life there.

According to his parents Elmer and Ruth Carmen, Eric showed early signs of being a musical prodigy. Those who knew him as a child confirm that it was more likely that he was singing before he could talk. Elmer and Ruth had an early indication that Eric might have special talents when he shocked them by correctly identifying the tone of the Carmen home doorbell. He’d yell, ‘B-Flat!’ recalled his mother.

At an early age, he enjoyed performing for his friends and relatives while standing on tabletops holding a hat and cane. His favorite songs to sing were popular favorites of the day like Johnny Ray’s The Little White Cloud That Cried and Tony Bennett’s Because Of You. His talents were so well known around Lyndhurst that whenever his parents took Eric to local restaurants, the owners would ask him to sing for the customers. In 1952, at age two and a half, he was enrolled in the Dalcroze Eurythmics program at Cleveland’s prestigious Institute of Music, an elementary musical theory course for preschool children.

The only thing Eric remembers about the program was that he didn’t like it too much, nor did he like being the youngest boy in a class full of mostly older girls. He was the youngest student ever to be enrolled at the school and the record still stands today.

When Eric was nearly five years old he expressed an interest in learning how to play the piano. Instead, his parents enlisted the services of his aunt, Muriel Carmen, who played viola with the Cleveland Symphonic Orchestra, to give him violin lessons. It continued for about two years. He hated it more than the preschool classes, and was a dropout at seven. His aunt tried to teach him the violin when he was about six, Ruth explained to a reporter doing a story on Eric’s early years, but…he really wanted to play the piano.

My dad’s older sister, my Aunt Muriel, was a child prodigy on the violin, says Eric. "I exhibited some musical talent early on and since she taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music and was a member of the Cleveland Orchestra, I got into the Cleveland Institute of Music.

"From a very early age I was listening to a lot of classical music, which really moved me. I went to a lot of concerts with my grandmother to see my aunt play. We had a table right down front because my aunt was a celebrity on stage. At that particular time, the Cleveland Symphonic Orchestra was conducted by George Szell and was internationally renowned. So it was quite an experience at the early age of five or six to sit and watch arguably the greatest symphony orchestra in the world on a weekly basis play every wonderful classical piece from a front-row seat. There were a lot of days when I would sleep over at my grandmother’s house and my aunt would take me down to Severance Hall, which was Cleveland’s Carnegie Hall. It was gorgeous. Built in the 1920s, it was a spectacular, acoustically perfect and visually beautiful hall. My aunt would take me to rehearsals and I would sit on stage with her. If you don’t become a musician after that kind of exposure, then it’s just not in you.

I always had a natural bent towards the Russian romantic composers like Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. That was where I really got started. Additionally, my parents had the radio on and listened to all of the good music that was on the pop charts at the time, like Ferrante and Teicher’s ‘Theme from Exodus.’ Ferrante and Teicher were two classically trained Juilliard pianists who, at a certain point, got together and started to do odd experiments with pianos. They put all sorts of gadgets and household items, like combs, in the strings to come up with all kinds of different sounds. They then recorded albums featuring some of those sounds. They were two keyboard virtuosos playing popular music. They were the first, and perhaps only, autographs that I ever got. When I was ten years old, my aunt took me to a concert at Severance Hall in Cleveland. It was magnificent. We went backstage and I had them autograph the program for me. They were heroes to me.

Eric’s grandfather bought him his first piano around that time, and when Eric turned eleven, he convinced his parents to let him return to the Cleveland Institute of Music to study classical piano. He spent hours at the keyboard developing his technique, while gaining an understanding of musical theory and harmony.

His instructor was so impressed with his abilities that he encouraged Eric’s parents to consider classical piano as a career for the young boy. Even Eric felt it might be his calling. While a student at Ridgebury Elementary School in Lyndhurst, Eric became so prolific at writing his own compositions that he kept a small spiral note pad next to his bed to write down any melodies that he might hear in his head while he slept.

He loved classical music, said Ruth. "He wasn’t much into practicing—he would rather play baseball—but he was making plans for a classical career. Then the Beatles happened, and the Byrds.

He was never the same again.

"The first album I ever bought was Needles and Pins by the Searchers," says Eric.

"The first single I ever bought—and this is very telling—was a song called ‘Got A Girl’ by the Four Preps. The Four Preps were like the Four Freshmen, a group of guys who sang with three- and four-part harmonies. The song was all about a guy who was very frustrated because his girlfriend was in love with all of the teen idols of the day. In the song it mentions Fabian, Frankie Avalon and Ricky Nelson. He determines that the only way that he was going to get her attention was to go out and be one. I think that was probably a deep influence in my psyche at the age of eleven.

"Couple the lyric of this tune with the plotline of the Archie comics I was reading, and the influence of my favorite TV show at the time, Dobie Gillis, and you’ll begin to see a common thread.

"The Four Preps couldn’t get the girl, Archie couldn’t get Veronica, and Dobie couldn’t get Thalia Menninger—Tuesday Weld, my first crush. The Preps thought they had to be popstars, and Archie and Dobie were just average middle-class guys who aspired to get girls who wanted rich guys.

"This was stuff that undoubtedly registered in a big way on my eleven year old brain.

"Later on, it was The Great Gatsby, and Fitzgerald’s short stories. Meanwhile, I was a shy, skinny kid who was just about to discover that the girl in my ninth grade art class, who I was secretly in love with, thought Paul McCartney was ‘really cute.’

"My only question was: What if Dobie was in the Beatles? Would Thalia fall in love with him then?

"I think I became a performer to conquer my shyness. Once you walk onstage you either sink or swim.

"Strangely, there’s a certain anonymity performing before thousands of people that makes it very easy for me. It’s almost impossible for me to sing in front of a small group of friends. Go figure.

"When I was in eighth grade, the YMCA in Lyndhurst, Ohio used to hold ‘canteens’ (dances) for the kids that went to my school. There was always a disc jockey who would play all the hot records of the week. The playlist was heavy on up-tempo and mid-tempo songs, and they would only play three songs for slow dancing all evening.

"The first, perhaps an hour into the dance (no one would go out on the dance floor); the second, about two hours in (two or three couples that were going steady would dance); and finally, the last song of the night (the dance floor would fill up and shy guys like me would take a chance and ask the girl of their dreams to slow dance).

That last song was always Gene Pitney’s ‘Town Without Pity.’ Talk about teen angst! I’ve always loved Gene’s vocal style and over the top delivery. I’m a big fan!

In 1964, Eric entered Charles F. Brush High School in Lyndhurst.

He continued to study classical piano until his life’s course was forever altered after seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and The Who on Hullabaloo. When Eric saw The Who perform I Can’t Explain—Keith Moon pounding away on his massive drum kit and Pete Townshend violently strumming power chords on his guitar—it changed him forever. Feeling that the piano was not an appropriate instrument to gain entry into a rock and roll band, Eric took up the drums. It was a quick and impulsive decision.

He spent hours practicing on a little drum pad at home, but his parents were not entertained by the constant banging.

If the drum pad was too loud, I can’t imagine my parents ever letting me have a full drum set in the house, he thought. He was right.

That was the end of drum lessons.

There were basically three types of students at Brush High School—guys who played sports, girls who liked the guys who played sports, and everyone else. Until the arrival of the Beatles, that is. Eric didn’t play any sport particularly well, so he felt that the best way to attract girls would be through music. He came to this realization one day in art class when that girl he had a liking for was gushing over Paul McCartney.

I was so incredibly shy and was so completely unable to compete on the level of a jock—a football or baseball guy, says Eric. Small, skinny and shy was not a good combination. When you’re in junior high and high school, the guys that are the most popular were the guys who were playing sports. I found it incredibly frustrating. All of a sudden, the Beatles happened. And for the first time, girls seemed to be interested in something beyond jocks. This girl that I was in love with in my ninth-grade art class loved Paul McCartney. I found that very interesting, and the more that I looked at the Beatles, the more I thought, ‘I think I could do this.’ Everybody around my age at that time who wasn’t a six-foot-tall football player had a chance. There was suddenly another way to get girls.

Around this time, Eric heard Mr. Tambourine Man by the Byrds. Instantly transported by the song, he was determined to find out what instrument made its distinctive jangly sound. He discovered that it was a Rickenbacker twelve-string guitar, which prompted him to start taking lessons at a local music shop. For his sixteenth birthday his parents gave him his first guitar along with a small Ampeg amplifier.

Somewhere around the age of fourteen or fifteen, I got my first guitar. It was a sunburst Guild Freshman. It was the same shape as a Gibson Les Paul—about three-quarter size—with a single-pickup. Keith Richards used to play one. One day I was performing onstage and heard this rattling sound coming out of the guitar, so I shook it upside down and a capacitor fell out of the f-hole. After that happened, I got great sounds out of that guitar.

A quick study after many years of classical music training, Eric became restless with the formal regimen of guitar lessons. Frustrated by having to play Red River Valley from his Mel Bay guitar instruction book on the low E-string over and over again, he told his teacher that what he really wanted to do was play Ticket To Ride like John Lennon. The instructor told him, No, no. That’s not the way it works. First you have to practice the melodies in this book and then we can move on to learning some chords. So Eric quit. He bought a Beatles songbook and started teaching himself how to play the guitar.

I spent half of my life between the ages of 15 and 25 dissecting every record I loved, recalls Eric. "I wanted to take each track apart and see what made them tick. I wanted to learn every trick, every sound, every reverb and delay, every EQ.

"When you go back and listen to Phil Spector’s records, they sound totally different from Quincy Jones’ records and those sounded different from George Martin’s records and on and on. Some records sounded good only in mono. Some sounded better in stereo. I wanted to know why?

"Why you ask? The devil is in the details.

I can’t even begin to tell you just how important I think Sir George Martin was in the grand scheme of things. I am blown away by his lack of ego and humility. His brilliance as a producer was equal to the Beatles brilliance as writers and artists. Truly a gentleman in every sense of the word.

In the fall of ‘66, Eric formed a folk duo with a schoolmate playing songs by Simon and Garfunkel and the Byrds. It was here that Eric first began to blend his classical music training with rock and roll, crafting two-part harmonies for the duo—a rare talent for a high school kid performing at parties in Lyndhurst, Ohio. Most bands were stuck figuring out the right chords in songs let alone being able to understand the complex musical theory necessary to build upon them.

Early on, the sophistication level of musicianship in most bands was so innocent—people could barely play, recalls Eric. If you could play, you were a superstar. Almost every band would play a song like ‘Louie Louie’ and not know that the third chord was a Minor chord.

It was at Brush High School that Eric met Marty Murphy. A year older than Eric, Murphy told him that he had a band—a real band with a drummer. Murphy was a dead-ringer for Paul McCartney, and it’s not too hard to understand how far that would take a young guy in a local rock band in 1966. All of the girls loved Marty, and Eric had a new best friend. Inspired by the revolutionary sounds of the British Invasion, this new outfit called themselves McManus, Murphy and Montague.

McManus, Murphy and Montague existed in name only, says classmate Bob Schepens. Lee McManus played drums, Marty Murphy played rhythm guitar but only knew a few chords, and Bob Montague played bass but couldn’t sing. I joined the band on lead guitar and we renamed ourselves the Triumphs. That name lasted about a week and in response to a competitive band at Brush High called the Cellmates, we renamed ourselves the Fugitives.

I was sitting in my fourth grade classroom at Ridgebury Elementary School one day, says Eric, "when they introduced the class to a new student. His name was Tom Consolo and he looked a little nervous, coming in just after Christmas, in the middle of the school year. We were seated alphabetically, so Tom ended up right behind me—Carmen, Consolo. I turned around, said hi, and welcomed him to our school, and before long, Tom and I became good friends.

"He had just moved up to Lyndhurst from Little Italy—or ‘the Hill’ as it’s sometimes called—and he has since told me he had no idea what to expect. Murray Hill was a pretty tough neighborhood back then, and Tom came to school figuring he would get beaten up every day just because he was the ‘new’ kid. Fortunately, nobody had any interest in beating Tom up, and he settled into life at Ridgebury Elementary in no time at all.

"Sometimes, after school, Tom would come over and we would play with toy cars in my driveway. Tom remembers me playing classical piano, and my mother painting a mural on our dining room wall…things that seemed quite different from life on ‘the Hill.’

"Tom and I went all through junior high and high school together, although we eventually drifted into different groups. Tom became very handsome and popular and played on a few sports teams. I remained skinny, artistic and terminally shy.

"Eventually Tom became the lead singer of Brush High’s Motown band, the Cellmates, while I became the lead singer of Brush’s ‘Mod’ band, the Fugitives.

After high school, I went of to college and Tom headed for the West Coast. He became the tour manager for REO Speedwagon and worked with Survivor and a number of other acts, and from time to time we would run into each other.

Marty Murphy and I were next-door neighbors, continues Bob Schepens. "Lee McManus, Marty and Bob Montague were one year ahead of me at Brush. We were all fairly talented, but not truly talented. But we did want to perform. We decided that we needed another member—someone who could play keyboards, guitar and sing. We agreed to look within the school and have a formal tryout for any prospects at Lee’s house. Since Lee was the drummer, he had more gear to lug around than the rest of us so we usually practiced at his house.

Finding a new member quickly was critical as we had a paying job ($200) at Chanel High School in about a week.

We arranged for Eric to come to rehearsal, recalls Marty Murphy. After playing our first song together I thought, ‘Hey, he knows what he’s doing.’ I was a self-taught musician and it was clear to me that Eric understood chord structures and was a real musician.

Eric wasn’t very proficient on the guitar at the time, knowing about five chords. But he soon found out that the other guys knew only three.

Eric came to the tryout reluctantly, but with an open mind, continues Bob. "He had wanted to join a band, but wasn’t sure about the four of us. At the tryout, we ran through some of our basic songs and discovered Rick—nobody called him Eric back then—could sing, play great keyboard and knew any song that we wanted to play. He had almost no guitar skills, but knew the basics. I showed him a few chords and a few other tricks and we agreed to get back together in a couple of days for another practice, leading up to playing at Chanel.

When Rick returned to the next practice, his guitar skills exceeded everyone else’s in the band. He was truly amazing. He also prodded us on harmony, which quickly brought the singing skills of the band together. Being a true musician, Rick corrected how we were playing certain tunes. He figured out the right notes and became an instant member of the band.

Our band at the time was very basic, explains Marty Murphy. It wasn’t real organized. We did songs with 1-4-5 progressions—lots of Chuck Berry. What Eric immediately brought to the band was organization as well as song arrangements. Once we had Eric in the band we began learning and rehearsing more complex and sophisticated material and started dropping basic tunes like ‘Long Tall Texan.’

Eric bought a microphone at Olsen’s, the local music store, and plugged it into his guitar amp to sing. They played their first show at Chanel High the very next day.

"The Chanel High job went spectacularly well—our first big job—a true high school dance, says Bob Schepens. We were a hit. We played songs by the Beatles, the Beach Boys (‘Sloop John B’ was an exact match—harmonies and all), ‘Maybellene’ and old beach rock music—basically any easy-to-play, four-chord dance song with a small smattering of Motown and underground mixed in."

We played all of the vintage, early ‘60s pop songs, adds Eric, "including almost everything from the first Byrds album including ‘Mr. Tambourine Man,’ ‘I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better’ and ‘The Bells of Rhymney.’ I flipped when I first heard the Byrds. I absolutely loved them. Nobody in our band actually had a twelve-string at the time, but we had lots of jangly guitars, so we did the best that we could.

We also did darned good Left Banke covers like ‘Pretty Ballerina,’ ‘Walk Away Renee’ and ‘She May Call You Up Tonight.’ We tended to favor all of the good British rock. We also played some songs by the Lovin’ Spoonful and the Beatles.

As Eric’s new group improved musically, they rounded out their sets playing harder songs by The Who and the Rolling Stones. Eric’s flair for music and his knowledge of harmony and theory made him a natural leader, and he was soon calling all the shots.

At first, our band’s leaders were Marty and me, not Rick, says Bob Schepens. "We made the decisions and got the bookings. Eventually, Rick rose to the top. He even got his name on our business cards. I can still see the original card for the Fugitives with ‘Rick’ and his phone and ‘Bob’ with mine. Rick lived in an apartment building at Richmond and Mayfield Road, but we never practiced there.

I remember meeting his mother one afternoon at his apartment. She was amused by rock and roll and said that she wished Rick would concentrate more on the classical music he was recognized for.

Not the tallest kid in class, weighing in at about 90 pounds, Eric was hoping for acceptance from the in crowd at Brush High. But it wasn’t easy.

Initially, Eric seemed to spend a lot of time with Bob Montague, says Marty Murphy. "But after about two months, he and I really started to connect. The longer we knew each other, the stronger our friendship grew.

We were very similar in a lot of ways. In high school, we were both dead shy and learned quickly that being in a band was an easy way to meet girls. The popular guys at the time were those who played sports and the greasers. Neither one of us played sports and we certainly weren’t greasers nor did we know anything about cars. In a way, music helped make both of us a little less introverted.

"Rick was not a member of the school’s in crowd, nor an athlete, nor a recognized scholar, recalls Bob Schepens. He wasn’t Italian either, so he was one of the in-betweens. Marty Murphy, Lee McManus and Bob Montague were somewhat part of the in crowd. I was a three-sport star athlete, so I was definitely in the in crowd. Rick was a little nerdy, a little shy and not a joiner. We were concerned about his stage presence and had privately agreed to keep him in the background. Rick, however, did display an overall brilliance in music."

I first met Eric back in 1964, says former classmate Ajay Mastrobuono. I lived in South Euclid and was going with this girl from his neighborhood. I remember listening to him practicing at the piano in his living room. He would play for hours at a time. He was a very private person—extremely shy. I don’t know of anyone who ever said a bad word about him. I had numerous classes with Eric in good old Brush High. We went to all the mixers that Eric played at.

Through the rest of the year, the Fugitives underwent a number of name changes, first to the Harlequins.

My father suggested the name, says Bob Schepens. "We bought look-alike outfits (vests, pants, boots and ties) and became a serious band. We then decided to enter the high school talent contest. Rather than play popular songs, Rick suggested we do our own songs as he had already written several. Rick and I worked on two for the show. He wrote the music and both of us wrote the lyrics.

The songs were good, and one (Waiting") was a prelude to a later song recorded by Raspberries. We played awful, by our own evaluation, but won the contest. With Rick’s influence, we started to play songs that were more musically complex, which helped show off our talent. Rick’s singing ability was uncanny—way beyond his guitar playing. Smooth, on key, and with body, he could imitate almost anyone.

The band had many paying jobs: after-athletics dances, bars (yes, we were underage) along with a few ‘Battle of the Bands’ against the likes of the James Gang and the Tree Tops. But we always finished behind them—except once. We beat the best bands in town and won our first ‘Battle of the Bands’ at the Chagrin Falls Armory in 1966.

Eric was so musically astute, adds Marty Murphy, "that when we picked new songs to rehearse, we didn’t just play the songs. Eric would figure out each of the parts of the song—the instruments and what they were playing—and instruct each of us to play that part.

"Eric would listen to a Rolling Stones record, for instance, and come to rehearsal and show us which part Keith Richards was playing and which part Brian Jones was playing. After we put it together, it sounded just like the record.

"That deconstructing and reconstructing songs was a revelation for the local music scene in Cleveland. Nobody else was doing it. People who heard us play were amazed because we sounded a lot like the records. Eric was a big part of that. Everything we were playing was carefully arranged. We weren’t a bunch of guys on stage banging away on guitars. Even though there were better musicians in other bands, we could play the songs better. That was Eric’s contribution. It was a great concept. Eric could do it because he had perfect pitch. We were driving in the car together one time and the song ‘Love Is Blue’ by Paul Mauriat came on the radio. Eric immediately grabbed a pad and pen and started jotting down chords. Later that day, he sat down at the piano with his pad and started playing the song. I was amazed.

When we were learning songs it became clear that it was faster for him to tell us what to play than for us to figure it out.

Brush High was a predominantly Italian school. The so-called greasers, who wore stiletto-heeled shoes and leather jackets, comprised most of the school’s population and were heavily into soul music, namely the Four Tops, the Temptations, the Supremes and James Brown. The Fugitives were interviewed by the high school newspaper and asked to list all of their pet hates and loves. Heading their dislikes was James Brown.

Always fiercely individualistic, Eric refused to conform to the majority. He was a mod. Mods were mostly into British rock and roll acts like The Who and the Small Faces and were definitely in the minority at Brush High. Eric was so into the genre that he subscribed to the British magazine Rave.

Every month, he’d be one of the first to see what trends, music and fashions were burning up the British scene. Music had always been an important part of his life, but it wasn’t his only interest. Eric also enjoyed classes in psychiatry, commercial art and English literature.

No doubt, our band was tight, says Bob Schepens. "Our harmonies were excellent and we were then considered one of the top bands in Cleveland. But we were no match for the Choir, the tightest band in Cleveland. To a person, they were the best at their instruments, and their vocals were truly professional. They did Beatles songs better than the Beatles. We went to see them anytime we could."

The Choir consisted of Dann Klawon, Wally Bryson, Dave Burke (a.k.a. ‘the Squire’), Dave Smalley and Jim Bonfanti, who quit the Caverns to become a member. They were Cleveland’s original mods and originally called themselves the Mods, but changed their name when another local group, the Modernaires, shortened their moniker and claimed it first.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer described the group on April 9, 1968, saying: The Mods are an eighteen-month-old Lake County group that really rock. They’ve got the British hair, the British clothes and the British beat. Three of them—Dave Smalley, Wally Bryson and Dave Burke are seventeen-year-old Mentor High School juniors. The only college man is Dann Klawon, 18, of Wyckliffe who started the group. The only Cuyahoga County cohort is Jim Bonfanti, 17, a Euclid High senior.

Around the middle of 1966, the Choir recorded two songs, both written by Dann Klawon: It’s Cold Outside and I’m Comin’ Home. Released locally (Canadian American 203) as well as nationally (Roulette 4738), It’s Cold Outside, was a perfect emulation of an early Beatles tune. It reached #55 in Cashbox while rocketing to #1 in Cleveland. Even with fierce competition from the admittedly more successful Choir, Eric’s Harlequins was raking in the dough on the local scene. The Choir was a union band that was required to pay union fees and expenses while the Harlequins were strictly non-union. Simply put, Eric and company usually wound up with more money in their pockets at the end of the night. Summer gigs paid an average of $250 and the Harlequins were apt to be booked for a couple of shows a week including various private engagements, ‘Sweet 16’ parties and debutante balls. They played songs by the Byrds and The Who as well as party favorites like This Precious Time by Terry Knight and the Pack, and Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth. Eric’s band was starting to garner heavy local media attention and he was the main reason why.

Rick had charisma, charm and knew how to flirt with the females in the audience, says Bob Schepens. "I don’t think Rick had a steady girlfriend, but he did have his own groupies. He was extremely fussy and he pushed the group to get better constantly. The more gigs we played, the better he got. Rick became a showman. Within three months of being in the band, he was the band. The rest of us backed him up. He was serious—the rest of us were kids by comparison.

He signed autographs after every performance. We became his groupies, too. Rick knew how every part of a song should sound. He led the practices. Nothing was ever good enough for him. With Rick now as talented as he was, I became redundant as a lead guitarist and was asked to leave the band. This was shortly before the guys were scheduled to open up for Simon and Garfunkel.

I started attending John Carroll University in Cleveland in the fall of 1966 and Eric enrolled in the fall of 1967, says Marty Murphy. "Simon and Garfunkel were on a college campus tour and were set to play at John Carroll. We had been told that we were going to open for them. We thought that it was pretty cool, but it turned out not to be the case. The band subsequently did do some Simon and Garfunkel songs, which bordered on the schizophrenic as we were also playing ‘My Generation’ and ‘The Kids Are Alright’ by The Who.

Inspired by almost sharing the stage with Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, the band rechristened themselves Sounds Of Silence.

Eric initially only played guitar in the band, says Marty Murphy, "There weren’t a lot of electronic keyboards available at the time, so when we decided to add one to our band, Eric bought a Farfisa organ. Eric also switched off with the drummer and played drums.

"The Sounds Of Silence was a really cool band. We were only sixteen years old and were too young to play bars, so we tapped into the college circuit and were a party band for a bunch of fraternities at Case Western Reserve University. We did killer versions of ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’ and ‘Hang On Sloopy.’

I remember the Sounds Of Silence opening for the Left Banke at the Chagrin Armory, recalls Eric.

"I also remember being kind of shocked because they sounded pretty awful and only two band members were singing.

"I’ve got a little notebook from high school with the chords and lyrics of ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ and ‘You Really Got Me’ carefully written out. We’re talking 1966-67 here. All perfectly preserved.

A lot of stuff was written on yellow legal pads and the paper is faded as you would expect it to be over 35 years. This stuff is pretty cool.

In the summer of ‘67, the Sounds Of Silence broke up when the bass player quit to become a lifeguard. What was left of the band quickly dissolved leaving Eric without a band and with plenty of free time. He spent that free time checking out other groups at the local clubs.

The group that Eric enjoyed seeing most was the Choir.

* * * *

CHAPTER 2

THE CYRUS ERIE

My old man says, ‘success is the measure.’

Maybe so but I don’t need the pressure.

Not right now, ‘cause I got enough.

THE CHOIR performed many of the songs that Eric loved to play, including lots of Beatles, Stones, Who, Small Faces and Hollies. Lead guitarist Wally Bryson immediately impressed him. When Eric saw the Choir for the first time, he couldn’t believe Wally’s guitar wizardry. Wally wasn’t just playing the songs—he was playing them exactly like they were played on the records. His stage presence was amazing as he rocked through each number with a fury that was unmatched by anyone else on the local scene. One song in particular, Substitute by The Who, took Eric’s breath away. There was Wally, hammering the strings on his guitar and nailing every chord exactly like Pete Townshend. What Eric didn’t know is that Pete himself taught Wally how to play the song when the Choir opened for The Who at a local gig.

It was at Music Hall during their sound check, remembers Wally. My manager introduced us and I had my picture taken with him. I asked Townshend if he’d show me how he played ‘Substitute.’ For a while, I was the only guy around who knew the right way to play it. Nobody could figure it out. Listening to The Who play that night blew my mind. Pete was playing a black Gibson double-neck like I’ve got now. I ordered one right after that show. My sister signed the loan for me and I waited a year and a half to get it.

If Eric were to compile a list of his favorite guitar players, Pete Townshend’s name would be near the top. But Eric’s favorite guitar player of all time was Rolling Stones lead guitarist Keith Richards.

Lowell George from Little Feat laughed in my face one time making a sarcastic joke, recalls Eric. "We were in the studio at the same time and I asked him who his favorite guitar player was. He said, ‘Keith Richards,’ and then fell on the floor laughing. I said, ‘Hey! Keith is my favorite guitar player.’ I was totally offended by that. I said, ‘You’re making fun of Keith Richards? Don’t even talk to me about Keith Richards!’ As far as I’m concerned, there has never been a more talented guitar player and guitar genius—coming up with more classic guitar licks and riffs time after time after time. If I had to pick one guy to be in a band with, Keith would be my man in a heartbeat, followed closely by Pete Townshend. They’d be in my dream band. In many people’s opinions, Keith is one of the lamest lead guitar players. He’s been playing the same solo for 25 years. But it works for me every time. Keith is a totally organic guitar player. He does something that I think only the real ‘greats’ can do.

"For example, when you hear Little Richard sing ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’—there’s that extra couple of beats:

From the early early mornin’

To the early early night.

When I caught Miss Molly rockin’

At the house of blue light.

Good golly Miss Molly.

There’s just that extra couple of beats before the ‘Good golly Miss Molly’ part. It’s the kind of thing that only somebody that is purely feeling the music could get away with and make sound right, because it’s just wrong. There are just too many beats in there, but Little Richard made it right. Keith will play a solo for nine bars. Who ever heard of a nine-bar solo? With anybody else, you’d be looking for the end of the solo at the end of bar eight. It’s a certain soulfulness that allows people to break rules like that and get away with it. Keith Richards would play lead guitar in my dream band. He’s sloppy and wonderful and I love that. It would be either John Lennon or Pete Townshend on rhythm guitar and I’d have Jeff Porcaro on drums. I love Charlie Watts, Keith Moon, Ringo and Kenney Jones from the Small Faces, but the best drummer I have ever worked with, bar none, is Jeff Porcaro. He’s incredible. Ian McLagan would be on keyboards and Bill Wyman on bass. That wouldn’t be a bad band.

According to Rock Marketplace [December 1973], Eric knew Wally Bryson was the premier guitarist in Cleveland—he could play anything by Townshend or Richards and then some.

The first night I saw the Mods, continues Eric, "my ultimate aim was born—which was to be a member of that band, so that I could be on stage with Wally Bryson and play ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’—both of us with our 12-string Rickenbackers. I went to many Mods and Choir gigs following that first night, watching them while all the time imagining I was in the group. Their repertoire was great—and they passed one of the real tests among us fanatics, they played ‘Substitute’ by The Who the right way! If you play the first chord, the ‘D,’ up on the basic bar chord position, it doesn’t sound right. You have to play it on the 5th fret, just like the record—and they did!

At that time it was Wally, Jim, Dave, Dann Klawon, and Dave Burke. Dave was a really incredible bass player. He’d play a four-hour gig and then go home and practice. He was so amazing—he should be a millionaire—he was bowing his bass before Jimmy Page was even born! I didn’t like it when Dann played drums, because he played the cymbals too much, but Jim was really good because he used a lot of tom toms. The first time I saw them I felt they had an amazing charisma. It was the first time I heard a guitar player that played all the stuff I liked really well—you know, Byrds, Beatles and Yardbirds. I remember ‘Heart Full Of Soul’ and ‘Look Through Any Window.’

Eric freaked out when he heard them, and decided that he wanted to get in on their whole scene.

I’ve always been a very visual kind of guy, explains Eric. "Not in the sense of seeing with my eyes, which aren’t that great, but in the sense of seeing things in my mind’s eye.

"When I looked at the stage that night in 1967, I saw me standing between Wally and Dave and I felt a little surge of energy that told me the Choir could be a really exciting band.

"I didn’t know them at the time and I had no way of meeting them, but I filed that image away somewhere.

"I went back to Lyndhurst that night thinking about what I had just seen and heard. I saw the possibilities. That’s what it was. I could see me in their band and I could see us making it.

There were other bands in town, even some pretty cool ones—a group called Kicks Inc. comes to mind—but I never really visually could see me in them. The Choir was different. I knew it could work. I’m a big believer in the power of positive thinking. And visualization.

With his mind swirling with thoughts of the Choir, Eric started making plans for his next band. He and his old buddy Marty Murphy formed Scarlet Fever with female singer Karen Shane along with two former Rebel Kind members: drummer Angelo Lamarco and keyboard player Kenny Margolis.

In the summer of 1967, Eric and I were looking for another band, says Marty Murphy. "We considered the Rebel Kind an equivalent band to the Sounds Of Silence. After the Rebel Kind broke up, Kenny Margolis put a band together with their former drummer and a singer named Karen Shane. I switched to bass and Eric and I decided to join. We had never been in a band with a female singer and Eric saw some potential in that. The music scene was changing with the advent of FM radio and the ‘60s drug culture coming into play. I remember when Eric and I heard Jimi Hendrix for the first time. We said, ‘Holy shit! This changes everything!’

The Rebel Kind was a well-known local band from the eastern suburbs of Cleveland, says Karen Shane. "They were looking to add a female singer and they asked me to join. However, the group broke up before that ever happened. Scarlet Fever was created when Kenny Margolis, Angelo Lamarco and I joined forces with Eric Carmen and Marty Murphy. We rehearsed at Angelo’s father’s beauty shop after school and on weekends. My earliest memory of our first rehearsal was wondering what was with Eric’s hair. I later learned that his mother wouldn’t let him grow his hair long, so he kept it short and wore a wig. I was really impressed with the fact that he wrote his own music, but the hair was a distraction! Eric naturally sang lead on his own original songs, of which we did a few. It was quite unique for the time to be doing original work instead of just covers. I sang lead on any Jefferson Airplane songs as well as some Beatles songs. We did ‘White Rabbit,’ ‘Somebody to Love’ and ‘Here, There, Everywhere’ among others. My favorite song that we rehearsed was a Gene Clark composition called ‘Here Without You.’ I sang harmony and played my trusty tambourine. We also did ‘Today’ by Jefferson Airplane.

"Being the only girl in a rock and roll band in Cleveland in 1967 was very cool. We were the first group that I can remember who had a female singer. The way I got my audition was singing along with the radio in Angelo’s car, a little MG Midget. We cut school together and spent a lot of time together in that car. When I was asked to join the Rebel Kind, I was thrilled, not only because I loved to sing, but because I also had a big crush on Ange. When Scarlet Fever was born, Eric assumed a leadership role. One day Eric announced at the beginning of rehearsal, ‘I think it would be a good idea for Karen not to get involved with anyone in the band.’ I sank into the floor. I was speechless and thought, ‘Who the hell does he think he is?’ But I didn’t let on and just kept it to myself. Looking back on it now, I laugh and say, ‘Oh well, I guess I just wasn’t Eric’s type!’

During this period, Eric sold his beloved Guild Freshman guitar and bought a Rickenbacker 12-string for a more Byrdsy-sound, adds Marty. "After joining and playing with Scarlet Fever for a while, Eric sold his Rickenbacker and bought a Wurlitzer piano. Eric always hated the Farfisa organ. The Wurlitzer electric piano was a really cool instrument and once Eric had it, Scarlet Fever started doing more piano-oriented songs with Eric singing lead, like ‘Walk Away Renee.’

Kenny Margolis knew the guys in the Choir and told Eric that they were all jerks and that he’d never want to join them. So, after many long weeks of rehearsals it came as a complete shock to Eric when Kenny came in and announced, I’m joining the Choir.

The Choir was always knocking at Kenny’s door, trying to lure him away, says Karen Shane. "Kenny