Few artists have the kind of career that singer/songwriter Eric Carmen has. Or the longevity. In fact, Carmen is one of a handful to have three distinct phases of his career.
He first took on the world as the main talent of the power pop group The Raspberries, which scored melodic-but-edgy Top 40 hits in the early '70s like "Go All the Way," "Let's Pretend," "I Wanna Be With You" and "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)."
He then decided to go solo, change record labels, and venture into the world of classy, piano-based pop/adult contemporary ballads, scoring with "All By Myself," "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again" and several other pure pop delights.
His third wave of success as an artist came in the late '80s when he was asked to perform a song for the blockbuster film, "Dirty Dancing." That song, "Hungry Eyes," and its follow-up, "Make Me Lose Control" peaked at #4 and #3, respectively, in Billboard Magazine. (As a songwriter he also had a 1984 hit, Mike Reno & Ann Wilson's Top 10 smash "Almost Paradise," the love theme from "Footloose," which became a Grammy nominee for Best Song. The soundtrack album went six-times platinum in the U.S.)
But, where has Carmen been for the last ten years? After the runaway success of "Hungry Eyes," Arista Records (which had released his first four solo albums in the mid to late seventies) re-signed him and put out a "Best Of" album, adding a new song, the aforementioned "Make Me Lose Control."
He then began recording new songs for what would have been his next Arista album. However, the label's president Clive Davis now wanted Carmen to record primarily other songwriters' tunes, most notably those of hitsmith Diane Warren.
In 1992, Arista released a single, the Warren-penned "My Heart Stops," but it didn't receive the promotion or attention which Eric was hoping for. He then decided he'd be better off at a label that would allow him to record his own compositions and left Arista before the album was finished.
Prior to getting a new label deal, Carmen found much success as a songwriter -- Peter Cetera recorded "I Wanna Take Forever Tonight" (the 20th biggest Adult Contemporary hit of 1995), Vanessa Williams recorded "Long Way Home," and "All By Myself" was covered by a wide range of artists, including Jewel, Sheryl Crow, Babes in Toyland, and Celine Dion, who took the song to #4 in the U.S. and to the top of the charts all around the world. The single went gold, and Dion's album reached sales of 24 million worldwide. (Eric's original version also appeared in the 1995 film "To Die For.")
Eventually, Carmen found a new home at Pioneer Records in Japan -- where he had total freedom to produce the album exactly as he heard it in his head -- and he even got to choose the songs, nine of which he co-wrote.
He had just moved back to his hometown, Cleveland (from Los Angeles), and he spent nearly three years recording "Winter Dreams," his first album of all new material since 1985's eponymous album on Geffen Records (which was recently reissued on CD in the U.S.)
Carmen produced and arranged the entire album and also plays almost all the instruments. Among the collection's self-penned songs is Eric's first studio-recorded version of his hit "Almost Paradise." (He previously recorded a version on the "Dirty Dancing Live In Concert" album.) For the first time in over twenty years, Carmen reunited with former Raspberries guitarist Wally Bryson, who contributed to two of the tracks.
"Winter Dreams" also marks the first Eric Carmen or Raspberries album which does not contain a song written solely by Eric, although he collaborated on nine tracks with a respectable team of songwriters, including Dean Pitchford and Diane Warren.
