Donnie Iris (nee Ierace) perks up when our conversation turns to the recent
Super Bowl game. Al though more of a baseball fan than a football fan,
Iris' interest in football comes in a close second to the Great American Pastime.
"What a comeback story Jim Plunkett [Oakland Raiders quarterback and
Super Bowl Most Valuable Player -— ED.] is, man," he marvels. "What a story.
He was like an outcast. They didn’t even want him in San Francisco. All through
the season I couldn’t make up my mind as to whether he was good or just lucky. Maybe
it was a combination of the two, but the guy’s definitely gotta be good for what he did."
Rock ’n' roll has had it's share of Comeback stories, and Donnie Iris' resurrection
is one of them. While "Ah Leah!," Iris’ paean to his second wife, Leah, hangs in
there in Billboard’s Top 50 hit singles, Iris is currently preparing to go on
the road in support of the single and the album from which it was taken,
BACK ON THE STREETS. Rehearsals have been going well with the same recording band
that played on the album: Iris' producer / keyboardist / co-songwriter Mark Avsec,
drummer Kevin Valentine, bassist Albritton McLain and guitarist Marty Lee. Donnie
Iris doesn’t look or act like the typical rock ’n' roller. His black horn-rimmed
glasses look like they are being worn out of necessity, not out of some fashionable
attempt to make himself look like Buddy Holly. He admits that he has tried other
styles of glasses but has always returned to this particular style. "I remember
when I was in the Jaggerz it was ‘Don't wear your glasses on stage,"' Iris recalls.
"Because people who wore glasses back then weren't cool."
Originally, Iris began his rockin’ 'n' rollin" at Slippery Rock College in
Pennsylvania with a band called Donnie and the Donnells. There was another
group on the Slippery Rock campus, The Jeweltones. In 1962, Donnie
and the Donnells and The Jeweltones combined forces to form the Jaggerz.
"The name had nothing to do with the Rolling Stones," Iris says in clarifying
a common misconception about the band. "lt came from the burrs you pick up on
your socks and pant legs when you walk through the woods. Those things are
called ‘Jaggers' in western Pennsylvania.
"The first couple of years we did obscure R&B stuff and some popular R&B tunes,"
Iris continues. "Then when The Beatles and the Stones came in, we started
doing stuff like that. We went both ways: R&B and rock ’n’ roll, whatever
was popular was what we did. "Later on towards ’65, '66, ’67, we were mostly a
soul band. We did a lot of Temptations, Four Tops, stuff like that, then we recorded
for Gamble & Huff in 1969. We had a couple of singles with them. The Philadelphia
R&B Sound" After nothing happened on a national level with their association with the
prolific production team of Gamble & Huff, the Jaggerz decided that they'd try to record
some of their own material and peddle it to other record companies. "That's when we did
'The Rapper' and two other tunes," Iris explains. "We signed with Neil Bogart
and Buddah / Kama Sutra Records, and ‘The Rapper’ was a hit."
Indeed. "The Rapper" eventually reached the Number Two position on the charts in 1970. A
subsequent LP, WE WENT TO DIFFERENT SCHOOLS TOGETHER, failed to break the laggerz and in
retrospect, placed them in the dubious category of "one-hit wonders." The Jaggerz stayed
together, though, earning a living playing the bars in and around Pittsburgh, and in the
summers, they'd take up residence at one of the bars in Ceneva—on—the—Lake. One summer
they'd play The Cove; the next summer they’d move across the main drag to the Castaways
or The Sunken Bar. But by 1976, the Iaggerz were ready to call it quits.
Back home in Beaver Falls, Iris met B.E. Taylor who had been playing bars as a solo
musician. The two hit it off, and decided to form a duo. "We used electrics," Iris
recalls. "We were doing Beatles songs and some of our own stuff. We'd keep a beat by
banging on the stage with our feet. I did that part-time and worked at Ieree Studios
doing some engineering, and that’s where I met Wild Cherry and Mark Avsec."
Iris and the members of Wild Cherry hit it off so well that by 1978 [after the national hit
"Play That Funky Music"] Iris had joined Wild Cherry and toured with them. After the
group disbanded, he went back to Jeree Studios doing more engineering and singing background
vocals for some local commercials, but during the last days of Wild Cherry he and Avsec
had talked about doing something on their own, and even though Avsec jumped into Breathless
with all his energies, the Donnie Iris proiect remained a priority for the production
aspirations of the multi-talented Avsec.
"We finally got the ’Okay!' from Mike Belkin and Carl Maduri," [Iris' managers} Iris
explains. "Mark was still with Breathless, but he had outside interests in producing
La Flavour. He was just a busy guy, and most of his real effort was behind this album.
I could feel that this was like a baby to him." BACK ON THE STREETS was finished last
Spring, but the album and its first single, "Ah Leah!" weren't released until early
Fall. It has taken this much time [and the breakup of Breathless] to get a band together
to take Iris' message on the road. They've even be doing an updated version of “The Rapper"
in concert. "With Mark on the keyboards, it's got a New Wave sound," Iris enthuses. The
band is permanent, but as of now un-named.
"We’re still trying to think of a name," Iris admits, "but we haven't decided on one for sure. The next album will be Donnie Iris
and whatever the name of the band is. "We want the name to pretty much tell what the band
is. Somehow this whole thing is Cleveland and Pittsburgh." Knowing his love for the
Steelers, I jokingly suggest either the Pittsburgh Browns or the Cleveland Steelers.
"Hey, that's not a bad idea," lris admits. "I like that."