Donnie Iris, regarded as Pittsburgh’s biggest hometown rock hero, has died at 83 after a six-decade career that produced hit singles in the 1960s and 1980s. He had been fighting bladder cancer for three years, yet he remained a performer to the very end.
Donnie Iris (Credits: Variety)
Iris’s biggest chart success came as a member of the Jaggerz, who reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970 with “The Rapper” — a song about chatting up girls, written years before rap became a genre name. When that group faded, Iris found success again as the frontman of Donnie Iris and the Cruisers in the age of power pop and Midwest rock.
Donnie Iris hits: from The Rapper to Ah! Leah!
A decade after “The Rapper” broke through, Iris scored again with “Ah! Leah!”, which reached No. 29 on the Hot 100 in 1980. Two more mid-level chart hits followed in 1981 with “Love Is Like a Rock” and “My Girl”, cementing his place in the era’s rock landscape.
Yet his modest national chart record hardly captured how beloved he was at home. In Pennsylvania and across the Midwest, Iris was widely seen as Pittsburgh’s answer to Cleveland’s Michael Stanley — a local legend whose fame ran far deeper than the charts suggested.
Pittsburgh’s most beloved musician
“For my money, he was the most beloved Pittsburgh musician of all time,” Joe Grushecky told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Grushecky, leader of the Iron City Houserockers, was himself one of the few other contenders for that title, but he was unequivocal: “I don’t know anyone who was loved more than Donnie. He just had that warmth about him, and it came through in his performance.”
Iris began singing in a doo-wop group in high school in the early 1960s, then moved through rock ‘n’ roll and R&B cover bands before the Jaggerz formed in 1964. The band signed to Gamble Records, the label built by Philly soul greats Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, and released their first album, “Introducing the Jaggerz”, in 1969.
He was a trouper to the end, performing his final show less than a month ago, on September 28, at Citizens Live at the Wylie. Seated in a chair shortly after afternoon radiation treatment, he still delivered. “He sang like a bird that night,” his longtime keyboard player and best friend Mark Avsec told the Post-Gazette. “The poor guy, the cancer was spreading, and he was in pain, and he really wanted to do that show and be with the people.”
That final performance sums up the career: warmth, grit and a bond with his audience that outlasted every chart run.
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Source: Variety — read the full story there.
