{"id":315051,"date":"2026-10-27T04:56:40","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T04:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/315051\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T04:56:40","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T04:56:40","slug":"donnie-iris-dead-ah-leah-and-the-rapper-singer-was-83","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/315051\/","title":{"rendered":"Donnie Iris Dead: ‘Ah! Leah!’ and ‘The Rapper’ Singer Was 83"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDonnie Iris<\/a>, regarded as Pittsburgh\u2019s biggest hometown rock hero for a six-decade career that included hit singles in the 1960s and \u201980s, died Monday at 83. He had been fighting bladder cancer for three years.<\/p>\n

\n\tIris\u2019 biggest chart success came as a member of the Jaggerz, who reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970 with \u201cThe Rapper\u201d \u2014 a song that dealt with \u201crapping\u201d with girls, not the genre whose name had not yet been coined. <\/p>\n

\n\tThat group petered out, but he went on to have continued success, especially regionally, as the frontman of Donnie Iris and the Cruisers in the age of power pop and Midwest rock. A decade after \u201cThe Rapper\u201d broke through, Iris had a hit again with \u201cAh! Leah!,\u201d which reached No. 29 on the Hot 100 in 1980. They had two more mid-level chart hits in 1981 with \u201cLove Is Like a Rock\u201d and \u201cMy Girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHis modest success during that era on the Billboard charts was hardly indicative of just how beloved he was in his native Pennsylvania and the Midwest region, widely seen as being to Pittsburgh what Michael Stanley was to Cleveland.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor my money, he was the most beloved Pittsburgh musician of all time,\u201d Joe Grushecky told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/a>. Grushecky, as the leader of the Iron City Houserockers, would have been one of the few other viable candidates for that title. But, as he told the newspaper, \u201cI don\u2019t know anyone who was loved more than Donnie. He just had that warmth about him, and it came through in his performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIris was a trouper to the end, performing his final show less than a month ago, on Sept. 28, at Citizens Live at the Wylie, seated in a chair shortly after having radiation treatment in the afternoon.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe sang like a bird that night,\u201d his longtime keyboard player and best friend, Mark Avsec, told the Post-Gazette. \u201cIt was the first time on a chair, and he didn\u2019t like that. But 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIris began singing in a doo-wop group in high school in the early \u201960s, then moved on to rock \u2018n\u2019 roll and R&B cover bands before the Jaggerz were formed in 1964. They were eventually signed to Gamble Records, the brainchild of Philly soul greats Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, and released their first album, \u201cIntroducing the Jaggerz,\u201d in 1969.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the late \u201970s, he became a guitarist for Wild Cherry, after that group had already hit the big time with \u201cPlay That Funky Music.\u201d It was in the Wild Cherry days that he met Avsec, who continued on with him in Donnie Iris and the Cruisers and continued to perform with him all the way to last month.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey recruited Marty Lee Hoenes, Albritton McClain and Kevin Valentine to complete Donnie and the Cruisers and released their first album, \u201cBack on the Streets,\u201d in 1980, followed by \u201cKing Cool\u201d the following year, \u201cThe High and the Mighty\u201d in 1982 and \u201cFortune 410\u201d in 1983 before being dropped by MCA Records in 1984. Even set adrift from major labels, they continued to record into the 2010s.<\/p>\n

\n\tIris was championed in 2025 in a well-read blog post by industry pundit Bob Lefsetz<\/a>, who wrote, \u201cI didn\u2019t buy the solo debut, \u2018Back on the Streets,\u2019 but I did buy the follow-up, \u2018King Cool.\u2019 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 pass\u00e9, maybe because by time he made it he was in his late thirties, whereas his contemporaries had all made it in their twenties\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLefsetz continued, \u201cDonnie specializes in straight-ahead rock, and all his records are very listenable. So I did, listen that is. I know \u2018Stagedoor Johnny\u2019 and \u2018Never Did I\u2019 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. \u2018Ah! Leah!\u2019 survived, some people remember seeing him on MTV, but there was no press, no airplay, it\u2019s like he didn\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThen, as Lefsetz noted, \u201cTurns out he became a mortgage broker\u2026 Sure, Donnie continued to play music, but he needed to pay the rent, put food on the table. You\u2019d be stunned so many of your heroes end up working straight jobs.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, per the Post-Gazette, Iris went on to own SimCorp in Aliquippa. He admitted he got some business from customers who wanted to deal with the rock star they\u2019d identified with or grown up with, or whose annual birthday shows they were still going to see. \u201cIt got me some business I normally wouldn\u2019t have,\u201d he acknowledged.<\/p>\n

\n\tLefsetz was compelled to write about iris by seeing a video of him performing \u201cLove Is Like a Rock\u201d and, like many fans, being impressed he still had his chops, \u201csans plastic surgery, sans much hair. It\u2019s still him, the essence\u2026 What is truly stunning is when he starts picking that Fender. Like it\u2019s a high school in New Castle, Pennsylvania and it\u2019s another night in the sixties. And he\u2019s not only picking, HE\u2019S INTO IT!\u2026 Donnie isn\u2019t showing off, he\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn one of dozens of responses<\/a> to Lefsetz\u2019s column, his partner Avsec wrote, \u201cWe\u2019ve been together for almost 50 years\u2026 And one of the joys of my life is watching the crowd watch Donnie. I\u2019ve never seen such JOY on people\u2019s faces. It happens every time we play, and we\u2019re fortunate enough to be playing decent size venues, especially in Western Pa and Northeastern Ohio. Donnie is going through his third course of chemotherapy. If the treatments drag him down, he does not show it. He still sings his butt off. Screams and everything. I don\u2019t think he has ever had so much fun on stage. Donnie always tells me he\u2019s having the time of his life. Same goes for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn another response, former A&M promo executive Richard Pachter wrote, \u201c\u2018Ah! Leah!\u2019 may be the most rock and roll video ever made. That rug! Those teeth! That skinny guy with the hairy chest! But despite all that, it\u2019s beyond great. It\u2019s the personification of it all. I\u2019m not kidding! THAT is rock and roll!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donnie Iris, regarded as Pittsburgh\u2019s biggest hometown rock hero for a six-decade career that included hit singles in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[124677,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-315051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-donnie-iris","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}