Eddie Money, a hitmaker of the 1980s pop rock scene with songs like "Take Me Home Tonight" and "Two Tickets to Paradise," has died at the age of 70. The cause was complications from esophageal cancer.

Eddie Money was born Edward Joseph Mahoney in New York City, and as KPIX recounts, he began a career as an NYPD officer before moving across the country to Berkeley in the late 1960s and launching his career as a singer and saxophonist, partly with the help of famed manager and promoter Bill Graham. He signed with Columbia Records in 1977, and his debut album included "Two Tickets to Paradise" and the song "Baby Hold On." Early in his career he toured with the Rolling Stones and he would go on to hav 24 songs in the Billboard Top 100.

Money's family issued a statement Friday saying, "The Money Family regrets to announce that Eddie passed away peacefully early this morning. It is with heavy hearts that we say goodbye to our loving husband and father. We cannot imagine our world without him. We are grateful that he will live on forever through his music."

As Rolling Stone explains, Money had experienced a "a series of health problems in recent years," culminating with a diagnosis of stage 4 esophageal cancer in August. He revealed the diagnosis in a promo for the reality TV show he has been filming with his family called Real Money. In recent years, he lived with his wife, five kids, and seven dogs at a home in Los Angeles.

"I'm Eddie Money. Your mother's a big fan of mine," he rasped in an early promo for the show, seen below.

In the more recent episode, Money said, "What I don’t want to do is I don’t want to keep the fact that I have cancer from everybody. It’s not honest. I want to be honest with everybody. I want people to know that cancer [treatment] has come a long way and not everybody dies from cancer like they did in the Fifties and Sixties. Am I going to live a long time? Who knows? It’s in God’s hands."

He had also had surgery on a heart valve, and had canceled a summer tour after developing pneumonia connected to that surgery, as Rolling Stone reports.

The magazine also notes the detail that Money holds the distinction of being the first rock star to overdose on fentanyl, following an incident in the early 1980s.

Money scored his biggest hit, "Take Me Home Tonight," in 1986, after a continuous battle with addiction. He then spent the 90s and 2000s as a "workhorse" touring performer, trotting out his hits for fans. He brought his son into his band, playing drums, and as he told Rolling Stone in a 2018 interview, "I don’t want to retire, because I get the chance to dress up, I can shave and shower and get a haircut and go out there and do ‘Two Tickets to Paradise’ and ‘Baby Hold On’ and the fans love it."

Money is survived by his wife Laurie and five children — daughter Jesse Money, and sons Zachary, Joseph, Desmond and Julian.

Photo: Kevin Foley Photography / Wikimedia