R.I.P. Eric Carmen, "All By Myself" singer and Raspberries frontman

Eric Carmen—power pop balladeer best known for solo hits like “All By Myself” and “Love Is All That Matters,” as well as his work with rock and roll group the Raspberries—died in his sleep sometime this past weekend, as confirmed by his wife, Amy, in a post on the late singer’s website. “It brought him great joy to know, that for decades, his music touched so many and will be his lasting legacy,” Amy wrote, along with a lyric from “Love Is All That Matters”: “Love Is All That Matters…Faithful and Forever.” Carmen was 74.

Carmen first rose to prominence in the early 1970s as a founding member of Cleveland-based band, the Raspberries, who helped usher in a new era of pop music by combining familiar, ‘60s-style vocals and melodies (à la The Beatles) with new, harder guitar riffs of the present decade. Their 1972 self-titled debut (which came with a raspberry-scented scratch and sniff sticker, according to The New York Times) contained the song “Go All The Way,” which would go on to become the band’s biggest hit, breaking the top 5 on multiple U.S. charts and appearing in a number of films throughout the years, including Almost Famous, Guardians Of The Galaxy, and Dark Shadows (covered by The Killers).

While the Raspberries, who often wore matching white suits, were sometimes dismissed as being too soft or a bit retrograde, they went on to influence some other huge acts like Kurt Cobain, Kiss, and Motley Crue (via Variety). “It was not four little fuzzy red fruits, it was somebody poking progressive rock in the eye,” Carmen told The Observer of this reception in 2017. “Rock critics got it and 16-year-old girls got it, but you know, the 18-year-old guy who liked Megadeth was never going to like the same record his sister did.” In the same interview, he went on to say that it didn’t matter because over the years, people remembered them. Bruce Springsteen even told him that he listened to the Raspberries’ greatest hits the entire time he was working on The River.

After the Raspberries broke up in 1975 (they would later reunite in 2004), Carmen went solo and released his first self-titled record the same year. This album contained “All By Myself,” an iconic soft-rock ballad that reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and would later be covered by Celine Dion. He also wrote two of his biggest hits for film soundtracks in this period: “Almost Paradise” (recorded by Mike Reno and Ann Wilson) for Footloose in 1984 and “Hungry Eyes” for Dirty Dancing in 1987. In 2000, Carmen toured with Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band.