{"id":30104,"date":"2025-12-24T05:30:55","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T10:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=30104"},"modified":"2025-12-25T08:44:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T13:44:35","slug":"remembering-the-raspberries-part-3-of-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/24\/remembering-the-raspberries-part-3-of-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering the Raspberries, Part 3 of 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"The new lineup of Raspberries made what would be the band\u2019s final album of original material. Though Starting Over<\/i> is fondly remembered today, on its September 1974 release, the Raspberries\u2019 fourth LP lingered in the lower reaches of the Billboard<\/i> 200, peaking at No. 143. The album did feature a signature tune, the power pop-meets-progressive mini-epic \u201cOvernight Sensation (Hit Record).\u201d<\/p>\n

Released as a single, that tune made it to No. 18 on Billboard<\/i>\u2019s chart. The disappointing commercial performance of the Raspberries\u2019 fourth album demoralized the group. \u201cAs Wally likes to say, \u2018We were starting to be over,\u2019\u201d McCarl quips. He points to some of the same strong-personality issues that Bonfanti mentions, while noting that from his perspective, founding members Carmen and Bryson were the band\u2019s co-leaders. \u201cI don\u2019t know if we were \u2013 or could ever have been \u2013 a democratic and equitable foursome.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group broke up in April 1975. just seven months after the release of Starting Over<\/i>. \u201cI guess it couldn\u2019t last,\u201d McCarl says. \u201cToo young, too high-strung.\u201d<\/p>\n

Post-Raspberries, Carmen embarked on a solo career dotted with successes. The lush, soft rock of \u201cAll By Myself\u201d and \u201cNever Gonna Fall in Love Again\u201d were a far cry from the rocking character of the Raspberries\u2019 biggest hits, but both went Top 40. Carmen\u2019s next major success was \u201cHungry Eyes,\u201d a pop hit featured on the soundtrack of 1987\u2019s Dirty Dancing<\/i>. Released as a single, the track reached No. 4 on Billboard<\/i>\u2019s Hot 100.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Raspberries\u2019 legacy continued to grow. Capitol compiled the band\u2019s biggest hits and best-loved album tracks on a succession of releases throughout the 1980s and into the \u201890s. In 1996, RPM Records repackaged the band\u2019s four-album catalog into a pair of CD releases; their titles \u2013 Power Pop Volume One<\/i> and Volume Two<\/i> \u2013 underscored the group\u2019s status as leading lights in that genre.<\/p>\n

Bonfanti says that for a long time after he left \u2013 and after the band broke up \u2013 neither he nor his old band mates were aware of just how influential the Raspberries were. \u201cIn the days before the Internet, those kinds of things took longer to get around,\u201d he says with a laugh. Eventually he learned that Bruce Springsteen and Paul Stanley counted themselves as Raspberries fans. \u201cAnd we kept learning of more and more,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"\"Raspberries Redux<\/b>
\nBy the end of the \u201890s, the founding quartet of Bonfanti, Carmen, Bryson and Smalley reunited for a one-off gig; not long thereafter Bryson and Smalley reunited with McCarl and released an EP. And in 2004, the seeds for a proper reunion were sown. Bonfanti recalls how the unexpected came about: \u201cA talent buyer called me up on an August night, introduced himself and told me, \u2018We\u2019re building this club, and we\u2019d really like the Raspberries to open it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonfanti says he explained that a reunion wasn\u2019t likely, but promised to bring the offer to his former bandmates. \u201cI went to Eric first,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause without him, there\u2019s no Raspberries.\u201d Carmen was cautiously open to the idea. \u201cI went to Wally next, because without [me] and Eric, there\u2019s no Wally, and there\u2019s no band.\u201d Ultimately everyone agreed, and in November the Raspberries played Cleveland’s new House of Blues. That successful reunion led to a tour, a VH-1 Classic special and eventually two live albums, Live on Sunset Strip<\/i> in 2007 and Pop Art Live<\/i> (2017).<\/p>\n

Most fans who would have seen the band live during its original 1970-75 run in that era are now approaching 70. Ken Sharp \u2013 author of the exhaustive, 800-plus page biography of the group, Overnight Sensation: The Story of the Raspberries<\/i> \u2013 was too young to have seen the band in those days. But he would lose count of just how many times he witnessed the band live onstage in the 21st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

He even got the opportunity to play with the band.<\/p>\n

Sharp first discovered the Raspberries\u2019 music during his college years in the \u201880s, nearly a decade after the band\u2019s first run had ended. \u201cI was working at a radio station in Philly, and the production director Bob Stroud was turning me on to different records,\u201d he recalls. One of those records was Starting Over<\/i>. \u201cThe first song he played was \u2018I Don\u2019t Know What I Want,\u2019 and I was like, \u2018Oh my god!\u2019\u201d He says that the Raspberries\u2019 catalog hit every sweet spot for him.<\/p>\n

In time, that interest became a consuming passion, and Sharp wrote the first edition of his Raspberries biography in 1993. Multiple revisions would follow; the latest, greatly expanded edition appeared in 2025. \u201cIt\u2019s like a giant phone book,\u201d Sharp laughs.<\/p>\n

Ken Sharp would be in the audience for both of the shows subsequently documented on live releases. Because of his deep knowledge of the band, he was tapped to handle advance publicity for the concerts. As a way of expressing thanks, Eric Carmen asked Sharp what the band could do to pay him back. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t accept any money,\u201d Sharp says, \u201cbut when they wouldn\u2019t accept \u2018no\u2019 for an answer, I said, \u2018I\u2019d love to play my favorite song with you at rehearsal.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Carmen and his band mates agreed, so Ken Sharp joined them at SIR the day before the Sunset Boulevard gig, playing \u201cTonight\u201d from Side 3<\/i>. \u201cI was the fifth Raspberry for about three and half minutes,\u201d he says with a broad grin. \u201cAnd let me tell you: it was joyous.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group continued with live dates into 2007, after which the member returned to their lives as before. Carmen\u2019s death in 2024 closed the book on the possibility of any future Raspberries reunions. But the story wasn\u2019t quite over.<\/p>\n

Jim Bonfanti recalls hearing a song in 2024 by the Lemon Twigs and being impressed. \u201cI gotta go see these guys,\u201d he thought. When the band scheduled a Cleveland date, he made sure to attend. \u201cWally was there, too,\u201d he says. \u201cThey did a Raspberries song, and they even did a song by the Choir. I went over to Wally, and said, \u2018This is what we started.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two\u2026 The new lineup of Raspberries made what would be the band\u2019s final album of original material. Though Starting Over is fondly remembered today, on its September […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30114,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,55,62],"tags":[3177],"class_list":["post-30104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-powerpop","category-rawk","tag-raspberries","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-55-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30104"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30583,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30104\/revisions\/30583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}