This is who we are.
I'm not sure what the younger generations are gonna do in their old age. Are they going to sit around and rap? It's possible. But the amazing thing about the rock generation is...THEY'RE STILL ROCKING!
Sure, you can go see the classic rock acts on the road, assuming they're alive and in good health, but it's deeper than that. So many of the wannabes of the sixties decades later are picking up their instruments and playing again for the pure pleasure of it. There's an inner sensation when you pick that electric guitar, when you bang that drum, when you look in each other's eyes and play those songs you know by heart.
Donnie Iris was in the Jaggerz.
Let me remind you...
"RAP-A-RAP-A-RAP, THEY CALL HIM THE RAPPER"
That song was all over the airwaves in the winter and spring of 1970. But no one thought this was a career band, rather the Jaggerz was seen as a one hit wonder. This was a single for AM radio, FM was never going to play the Jaggerz. And who knew they'd put out an album before this, and after?
Not me.
So the seventies play on and in 1976 there's a band out of Ohio called Wild Cherry with a ubiquitous disco hit "Play That Funky Music." This was not the Ohio Players, there was more, but no one cared. But on the last Wild Cherry album, Donnie Iris was a member.
But we didn't learn this until the eighties, when Donnie Iris started to have hits. It was 1980, and you heard "Ah! Leah!" on the radio.
"Ah! Leah!
Here we go again"
The chorus was indelible. Sure, there were power chords hooking you from the outset and then a sing-songy verse, and I mean that in a good way, there was melody, and then that chorus singing "Ah! Leah!," it was pure magic. We expected sweet voices from Southern California, but not Ohio (oh, of course there was Eric Carmen, but it was about his pristine solo voice, where on "Ah! Leah!" it was about that chorus)...
And you still hear "Ah! Leah!" sometimes today, and it always feels good, it's a track you can never burn out on.
And with this success we learned that Donnie was the writer of "The Rapper," that he was in the Jaggerz and Wild Cherry.
I didn't buy the solo debut, "Back on the Streets," but I did buy the follow-up, "King Cool."
The joke, of course, was that Donnie Iris was anything but cool. He was a man whose music was au courant, but whose look was passé, maybe because by time he made it he was in his late thirties, whereas his contemporaries had all made it in their twenties.
Now I wasn't looking for "King Cool," but I found it in the promo bin and purchased it, because it had SWEET MERILEE!"
"MERILEE PLEASE DON'T GO"
The track has the same choir of voices as "Ah! Leah!," but it doesn't seem like a remake, doesn't seem like a trick, it just makes you feel good, gets you high, you can't listen to the chorus of "Sweet Merilee" without feeling it's fantastic to be alive.
I think I own the follow-up as a promo too, "The High and the Mighty," I'd have to check my vinyl, but I definitely purchased a promo of the album thereafter, "Fortune 410," turned out that was the style of glasses that Donnie wore.
And Donnie specializes in straight-ahead rock, and all his records are very listenable. So I did, listen that is. I know "Stagedoor Johnny" and "Never Did I" by heart, not that you can hear them on streaming services, MCA has only deigned to release the greatest hits.
And then Donnie Iris lost his deal with MCA and disappeared. "Ah! Leah!" survived, some people remember seeing him on MTV, but there was no press, no airplay, it's like he didn't exist.
Turns out he became a mortgage broker.
That's one of the great features of the internet, the ability to find anybody and everybody and learn what they've been up to.
Sure, Donnie continued to play music, but he needed to pay the rent, put food on the table. You'd be stunned so many of your heroes end up working straight jobs. They were ripped-off, or blew the money, or never made that much to begin with. Who owns "The Rapper" today? Does Donnie get paid?
Oh, that's another thing the internet revealed, his real name is Dominic Ierace. And he's been at it forever. Surviving.
And that's what Donnie Iris just did, survive, he beat bladder cancer, he thought he was on his way out, but he's still here, and in the clip above he's playing live.
Donnie Iris is 82. He just had his birthday in February. Did your grandpa rock? I don't think so.
"You guys ready to rock?"
That's what Donnie says at the beginning of this TikTok clip, as he smiles...sans plastic surgery, sans much hair. It's still him, the essence.
But what is truly stunning is when he starts picking that Fender... Like it's a high school in New Castle, Pennsylvania and it's another night in the sixties.
And he's not only picking, HE'S INTO IT!
His jeans have holes in the knees. He's wearing a Penguins jersey. You see back in the day it was anathema to dress up, you wanted the music to shine, you wore the same clothing on stage as you wore off it.
Now the audio of this clip is not the best, it doesn't come from the soundboard, but a phone in the audience. But still...YOU GET THE ESSENCE!
Donnie isn't showing off, he's just doing what he does, AT 82!
It put a smile on my face, made me feel good not only about Donnie Iris, but rock and roll.
It's here to stay!
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