Farewell, Donnie

This year has been pretty rough for local-ish musicians. In the case of Donnie Iris, I say "local-ish" because he was from the Pittsburgh area and most of his musical career he was centered in the Pittsburgh area along with Northeast Ohio and the northern part of West Virginia. I can't claim Donnie as a local musician, but there's always musicians just like him in all parts of the country: a local legend who, outside of a big hit or two, never really caught on beyond their local territory. Until Night Moves in 1976, Bob Seger would have definitely been in this category (in the Detroit Michigan area) with his lone hit prior to that Ramblin' Gamblin' Man back in 1968.

For Donnie, after being part of The Jaggerz and the last years of Wild Cherry, his big hit was in 1980 with "Ah Leah".

Donnie benefitted from the early days of MTV, because the (admittedly really bare bones) video for the song helped get him into heavy airplay on the Album Oriented Rock stations around the country. I know I heard it quite a bit back in the day here in Cincinnati on WEBN and Q102, and I still cringe when I see the video on YouTube.

The sad thing about the aftermath of that song's release is that Donnie and his co-writer Mark Avsec were sued for plagiarism. While they successfully fended off the lawsuit, it had an effect on Donnie and the rest of the band, The Cruisers. Here's Adam Reader, YouTube's Professor of Rock, with the story behind the song (along with his first encounter with the song at age 9):

Donnie continued to record and play in the Pittsburgh and NE Ohio area, and he was considered a local treasure. He suffered from bladder cancer and people thought he'd beaten it a year ago when he returned to playing on stage after a couple of years' worth of absence, but it was not to be.

Catch you on the flip side, Donnie.