I recently heard from a few old friends about singer-songwriter Donnie Iris passing away. My friends Bob, Dom, and I had seen Iris perform in the 1980s. On Cleveland radio back in the day, you could not miss hearing some of Iris’s songs like “Oh, Leah” and “Been Injured in the Game of Love.”
I’ve written before how in those pre-Internet days especially, cities often had artists they claimed pridefully as their own. The artists who may have found limited national success but great local success were often an important part of the community and created some great music that much of the world missed.
Many of the stories about the passing of Donnie Iris lead with descriptions like “Pittsburgh rock icon,” connecting him to Pittsburgh more than to any other place. And on the one hand that makes sense. Much of his regular touring as a solo artist was in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio. But Iris, who was born with the name Dominic Ierace on February 28, 1943 , had national hits. With the Jaggerz, he cowrote and sang on the 1970 hit, “The Rapper.” After spending some time with Wild Cherry (after their hit “Play that Funky Music”), he had a solo career as Donnie Iris and The Cruisers.
I recall those solo years especially with “Ah! Leah!” (top 30 song in 1980), “Love is Like a Rock” (top 40 in 1981), and “Injured in the Game of Love” (1985).
I saw Iris open for The Kinks in March 1985 outside Cleveland at Richfield Coliseum. While Pittsburgh and Cleveland have had many sports rivalries through the years, they also are connected in more ways than they differ. They are similar cities who grew with similar industries and suffered similar economic ups and downs. And so, not surprisingly, the Pittsburgh boy Donnie Iris found a large part of his regional success around Cleveland too.
“Eyes of the Children” Charity Single
Thus, in 1985, following the lead of group charity singles like “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and “We Are the World,” members of the legendary Cleveland rock station WMMS helped put together a group of Cleveland artists to work on the city’s own charity single. WMMS’s John Gorman and Denny Sanders began working their network to put together the project, which would raise money for people in Ethiopia as well as in Cleveland.
The project came to be known as “C.A.R.E,” or Cleveland Artists Recording for Ethiopia. The project would include artists with Cleveland connections, including Benjamin Orr of the Cars and Michael Stanley and the Michael Stanley Band
When the Cleveland artists gathered to record a song to help others, the Pittsburgh star Donnie Iris apparently hopped on I-76 and joined them at the studio, apparently about one month after I saw him open for the Kinks.
The artists would eventually release the single “Eyes of the Children.” The song was a joint writing project, created by Michael Stanley with Mark Avsec, Kevin Raleigh, Bob Pelander, and Danny Powers. And the artists came together to record the song the week of April 15 to April 26, 1985, at Beachwood Studios in Beachwood, Ohio.
“Eyes of the Children” from The C.A.R.E Session was released on a long-player LP with different edited versions. In the song, Stanley was apparently inspired by the famous line U2’s Bono reluctantly sang in “Do They Know It’s Christmas.” Stanley punctuated the Cleveland song with “There but for the grace of God go you and I,” echoing Bono belting out, “Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you.”
I bought the record, which featured Donnie Iris as one of the artists on the cover. WMMS had the song on repeat play for a long time. It’s a good song along the lines of the other group charity efforts at the time.
Delays in printing and releasing the record after its release likely impacted its fundraising. There does not seem to be any clear account on the Internet for how much money the song made for children in Ethiopia or in Cleveland. But hopefully the fruits of the noble effort paid off.
And that is the story behind the song. You may read more of the history behind “Eyes of the Children” and more on the many participants from Denny and at this website. Below is the song, when Cleveland artists were helped by Pittsburgh native Donnie Iris to make music while giving a little.
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