Dave Smalley – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Raspberries – I Wanna Be With You

This song is for Song Lyric Sunday for Jim Adams’s blog. This week’s prompt is (drum roll please…) a forgotten band. I picked The Raspberries but also talked about Badfinger and Big Star.

I still remember the first time I heard this song on AM radio. I must have been around 7 or 8, walking into my sister’s wood-paneled room. It was playing on WMAK, a station I’ll never forget. The disc jockey, Coyote McCloud, was a legend in Nashville back in the early seventies—everyone tuned in to hear him. It’s funny how clearly I can recall that moment like it was just yesterday.

I wasn’t lucky enough to be a teenager in the 1970s, but whenever I listen to The Raspberries, it feels like I’m transported back in time. I can picture myself in 1973, driving my first car with their greatest hits blasting, feeling the freedom and excitement of the era. The music has a way of making it real.

I’ve always considered the top three power pop bands to be Big Star, Badfinger, and The Raspberries. Together, they captured everything that makes power pop great… soaring vocals, great melodies, and that perfect balance of guitar crunch and jangle. What an incredible time for the genre, with all three bands active at the same moment in history. They may not have found the level of commercial success they deserved, but their influence on music has been huge.

These bands didn’t just define power pop… they set the standard for what the genre could be. Badfinger and The Raspberries managed to crack the Top 20 a few times, but Big Star didn’t even get that far…which is nothing short of a crime. Bands like Cheap Trick, Tom Petty, KISS, REM, The Cars, and The Replacements owe them a lot. These three bands do pop up every once in a while. The Raspberries Go All The Way was in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, Badfinger’s Baby Blue was in the last episode of Breaking Bad, and Big Star’s In The Street was the theme song to That Seventies Show.

The Raspberries were more than just a band…they were a Cleveland supergroup, formed from the city’s best local acts. The lineup was indeed super… Eric Carmen as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist, Wally Bryson on lead guitar with his signature crunchy riffs, Jim Bonfanti on drums, and Dave Smalley on bass. Their sound was a seamless blend of their influences—The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, and The Beach Boys—woven together into power pop perfection.

The Raspberries did have 7 singles to chart and 4 top forty hits with I Wanna Be With You being one of them. This song peaked at #16 on the Billboard 100 and #17 in Canada in 1973. It was the first single from their second LP, Fresh.^[It became their second-greatest US hit. They broke up in 1975 after releasing their album Starting Over. Eric Carmen wrote this song.

Their best-known song was Go All The Way which peaked at #5 in 1972.

Alex Chilton (Big Star): “I remember when I first heard the Raspberries, Big Star was in a van traveling around doing some dates and we heard Go All the Way on the radio, and we said, ‘Wow, those guys are really doing it!’ I thought that was a great song.”

I Wanna Be With You

If we were older we wouldn’t have to be worried tonight
Baby oh I want to be with you so bad
Oh baby I want to be with you
Oh yeah?
Well tonight tonight we always knew it would feel so right
So come oh baby, I just want to be with you

Someday’s a long time and we’ve been waiting so long to be here
Baby oh I want to be with you so bad
Oh baby I want to be with you
Oh yeah?
Well tonight tonight we always knew it would feel so right
So come oh baby, I just want to be with you

Hold me tight our love could live forever after tonight
If you believe in what you’re doing is right
Close your eyes and be still

Baby, oh I want to be with you so bad
Oh baby I want to be with you
Oh yeah?
Well tonight tonight we always knew it would feel so right
So come oh baby, I just want to be with you

Oh I want to be with you so bad
Oh baby I want to be with you
Oh yeah?
Baby I want to be with you so bad

…

Raspberries – Should I Wait

The Raspberries formed in the early 1970s when Eric Carmen and Jim Bonfanti envisioned a band that would emulate bands such as The Beatles, The Who, and The Beach Boys.

This song came off of the Side 3 album released in 1973. This song…well the way I would describe it is country tinged power pop. It was an odd and cool album cover. It was a die-cut of a basket of Raspberries, with the group’s name placed on top of the LP sleeve.

Three members wrote and sang songs. It wasn’t just Eric Carmen…This song was written and sung by Dave Smalley the bass player. This was their third album and they would end up releasing four studio albums.

The band consisted of Eric Carmen (vocalist/guitarist/bassist/pianist), Wally Bryson (guitarist), Jim Bonfanti (drummer), and Dave Smalley (guitarist/bassist).

Their last appearance as the original lineup was on The Mike Douglas Show in 1974. Shortly after… Bonfanti and Smalley both quit the band to pursue individual music careers. Michael McBride and Scott McCarl replaced them and shortly after Raspberries went on to produce their fourth and final album Starting Over…which yielded what could be their masterpiece… Overnight Sensation.

In 2004, the original four members of the group performed at Cleveland’s House of Blues. This resulted in a 2005 mini-tour. The Raspberries performed at other venues around the United States, with their final concert performance in Cleveland, Ohio at KeyBank State Theatre on December 14th, 2007.

Should I Wait

Don’t you know you’re gonna lose
If you love somebody that don’t love you?
You’ll believe him when he’s untrue
But I can’t bear seein’ him break your heart in two
I’ve let it happen much too long

Should I wait, hopin’ you’ll find out on your own?
It’s me who’s loved you for so long

If he hurts you with his lies
Don’t let it take too long to open your eyes
You’re gonna see through his disguise
But I can’t bear seein’ him break your heart in two
I’m tired of tryin’ to play it cool

Should I wait, hopin’ you’ll find out on your own?
The one you love is just a fool

If I had the chance I’d make you see
When you fall in love how it should be
A love that makes you sad can only turn out bad
So I’ll be hangin’ ’round until you’re free

Should I wait, hopin’ you’ll find out on your own?
It’s me who’s loved you for so long

The Raspberries

A powerpop group from Cleveland Ohio in the early to mid-70s. They were influenced by the Beatles, Small Faces, The Who and The Beach Boys. They had some of the same problems as Badfinger, being too hard for pop and too soft for rock. Badfinger was overall more successful but the Raspberries had some top 40 hits.

“Go All The Way” (1972 #5), I Wanna Be With You (1972 #16), Lets Pretend (1973 #35), and Overnight Sensation (1975 #18). They were too clean cut for rock fans to embrace. Matching suits and a teenybopper image. Unhip or uncool is what was many critics of that time wrote about them but their songs are melodic and fun.

Most bands have one song that is above the rest of their catalog. Many would probably say the Raspberries best song was Go All The Way but to me, it was Overnight Sensation. That song is their masterpiece. The song tells of the frustrations of trying to have a hit song on the radio with a heavy Who, Beach Boys, and Beatle sound.

After their album “Starting Over” in 1975 they broke up. If they could have stayed around a few more years they may have fit nicely with Cheap Trick, The Cars, The Knack, and Blondie.

Many artists list them as an influence and are fans such as KISS, Courtney Love, and oddly enough Bruce Springsteen and Axl Rose have mentioned them.

John Lennon was a fan of them and was in the studio when they made “Starting Over.”

Eric Carmen had a very successful solo career after the breakup but he stuck with pure pop in his music. He finally got the elusive hits he sang about in Overnight Sensation with All By My Myself, Never Gonna Fall in Love Again, and some songs off of the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. I never thought they were as good as his Raspberries songs.

The Raspberries reunited in 2004 and did a tour. I have watched some video of one of the shows and they were really tight.

If you want to get a cd that covers their career get “The Raspberries Greatest”

The original members were

Eric Carmen (Volcalist, Guitar, Pianist, Bass)
Dave Smalley (Bass, Guitar)
Wally Bryon (Guitar)
Jim Bonfanti (Drummer)