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Friday, 21 March 2025
Thursday, 20 March 2025
Re-Donnie Iris
Dear Bob:
Thanks for the nice article about Donnie Iris (which I woke up to). I am his longtime partner, musical director, songwriter/producer, and keyboardist. My inbox is piling up. (After Donnie and I went through some litigation together, I went to law school to be an IP lawyer.)
The thing I am most proud of after all these years is that Donnie and I (and our longtime guitarist, Marty Lee, and other guys in the original group) are still best friends. We've been through a lot together. And we've been together for almost 50 years.
I still play keys with the band. And one of the joys of my life is watching the crowd watch Donnie. I've never seen such JOY on people's faces. It happens every time we play, and we're 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't think he has ever had so much fun on stage. Donnie always tells me he's having the time of his life. Same goes for me.
Thanks for honoring Donnie with your post.
Best,
Mark Avsec
Mark E. Avsec
Partner and Vice Chair, Intellectual Property Group
Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP
127 Public Square, Suite 4900 | Cleveland, Ohio 44114
_______________________________________
That sure looks like the great Joe Vitale Sr. on drums.
I say Sr. because there is a Joe Vitale Jr. who has been known to play with Dad.
Marc Avsec, the main and/or co-writer of the Donnie Iris catalogue, still plays with the band.
Bob, you may want to consider a podcast with Marc.
He and Donnie basically lost money on "Ah Leah."
That resulted in Marc becoming an intellectual property attorney.
He also teaches law classes about the music industry.
It is great to see Donnie Iris lining up yet another tour this year.
45 years ago, I was on the air in Cleveland.
I was handed a white-label, test pressing of an album and told to play side two, cut one.
It was the first of many, many radio plays for "Ah Leah."
Marty Bender
_______________________________________
hey Bob......King Cool is easily in my top 100 best rock albums of all time. my band opened for him in 1999 in Cleveland and it was quite an honor for me personally.....he's a great dude and so is Mark Avsec, who was very involved in the local Cleveland music scene back then. I'm not surprised whatsoever that Donnie is still rocking at 82!
Mike Farley
_______________________________________
It was 1980 and I was in sixth grade listening to 96 Rock WHNN in Detroit patiently waiting for this song to come on so I could record it on my Aiwa boom box as the first song on my mix tape.
Thanks for the memories.
Jeff Cramer
_______________________________________
I've loved music as long as I can remember, but when I first heard "Love Is Like A Rock" on The Loop FM98 in 1981 everything changed. A switch flipped. That 11-year-old went out and bought "King Cool" and played it about a thousand times without ever getting sick of it. Still haven't. One of the catchiest riffs ever with a huge sound that was both rock hard and doo-wop.
Puts a smile on my face too. Rock on Donnie, let 'em "never stop you!"
Matt Burnham
_______________________________________
The best song on the King Cool album is the title track, about a guy choosing between his girl and his guitar. "Between her and his guitar, it was push and shove" - it's one of the saddest and happiest songs ever at the same time!
Mike Blakesley
_______________________________________
Thanks for this. You nailed it by saying Ah Leah is a song you don't get tired of hearing. It still plays on local rock radio and I first heard it on Q107 in Toronto when it came out.
And The Rapper?
Back then Q had a homegrown contest with the winners getting their songs on a compilation album.
In '81 or '82…one of those tunes was a cover of The Rapper by Santers, aka the Rick Santers Band. They didn't make it big like many of us thought though Eddie Trunk knows them.
Rock on, Donnie!
John O'Mara,
Wasaga Beach, Ontario
_______________________________________
Bob, There were 2 great bands on MCA at that time from the Pittsburgh area, Donnie Iris and the Cruisers and the Iron City Houserockers, led by Joe Grushecky. Both came from the working class, beer joint world of steel mill land. The music was straight ahead Rock, so it translated. Donnie had a big hit while the Houserocker, backed by the legendary Steve Popovitch, ground it out in the streets more akin to being Pittsburgh's answer to Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger. Joey still plays and is close to the Boss, kindred spirits.
Donnie is a survivor and it was a great time to be the local MCA rep during their heydays.
Thanks for writing about Donnie.
Stephen Knill
_______________________________________
Bob, I was a college kid in Pittsburgh when I first heard Donnie Iris and I was hooked. It was one of those albums that I knew the timing of all of the song transitions by heart. You know what I mean, I know you do.
I also had the several follow ups on vinyl and still love to hear Ah Leah when it shows up in CVS or supermarket.
What a treasure of an artist. So glad to hear that he's still rocking.
Mark Fisher
_______________________________________
Donnie lives! He's been in my playlist for at least 55 years (Pittsburgh boy) - love that power pop. Lets' not forget a couple more old timers from da Burgh that are still going strong - Billy Price and Joe Grushecky. Rock on
Jim Egler
_______________________________________
Hello Bob,
In conjunction with your Donnie Iris post, here's a 1987 cover of "Love Is Like a Rock" by Slade from their
'You Boyz Make Big Noize' album https://youtu.be/dOUrqwLkzis
Stephen Marsh
_______________________________________
About 20 years ago, a friend of mine and I went on a cocktail cruise on the Allegheny (or the Monongahela or the Ohio-one of the three) River that featured Donnie as the entertainment. At first, I thought it was something of a joke ... Then he turned out to be amazing! The band was great ... If I'm not mistaken with te OG keyboardist & guitarist from the Cruisers.
That same buddy turned me onto the YouTube footage of his 80th birthday party from a couple of years ago and still ... Its f*cking Donnie Iris! and now you turn us all on to this clip! I found the "Ah Leah" clip from this show and he still wails on the outro! Man, I can only hope that in 15+ years, I can still rock like Donnie!
Thanks for this piece, man! The memories are rich!
Bob Reeves
Nashville, TN
_______________________________________
Terrific…The boy can still rock, and his band ain't so bad either… The audience loved him, and so did I!
Michael Abramson
_______________________________________
Love that song. Thank you for the clip. And thank you for the insight because one of my favorite songs growing up was "rap a rap a rap they call him the rapper. Rap rap rap you know what he's after..."
Plus I needed the smile after today's news
TY
julie coulter
_______________________________________
Donnie Iris is a Pittsburgh INSTITUTION!!! So many great tracks:) A YINZER tried and true:)
Ilan Fong
_______________________________________
Great to see you cover Beaver County's own Donnie Iris. He still plays a few shows a year in western Pennsylvania. He and Joe Grushecky are the rock royalty in the Pittsburgh area.
The funny thing is the Jaggerz are also still around and still have 2 of their 5 original members, Jimmie Ross and Benny Faiella, and frequently play in the area. I don't think Donnie has ever worked with them since he left, and the other 2 have passed on.
Dave Crookham
_______________________________________
Loved Loved Loved your piece on DI. ?? %
Watched both tiktoks and smiled, too. Not easy to do these days.
"Did your grandpa rock? I don't think so."
I've had this audio clip bookmarked for years and this is the perfect time to share it. WDVE's morning jocks did a series of skits making fun of the Pittsburgh regional accent, and not only is Donnie Iris a home boy but his name has the perfect vowels to accentuate it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3xrNlelylQ
Long Live Donnie Iris!
starless
_______________________________________
Bob, I thought you did to me a gain : Donnie Iris.
I though had left us....but NO!
82, my just hit 89 in Jan and it showing.
Donnie Rockin it, Two Thumbs!!
Keep on Rockin in a Free World....
even thought it feels a little less free right now.
Rock and Roll will never die !!!!!!
Cheers
Mitch Nixon
_______________________________________
to coax him onstage to do 'Leah' but he said he wasn't dressed for it! I didn't know anything about him as I grew up in the UK where to my knowledge he never made a dent. But what a super, down to earth, all-round nice guy…..
And yes, still rocking.
Adam Howell
_______________________________________
Hi Bob -- I saw the subject line and thought "Oh no, not Donnie" and was relieved to see that you're giving him his due BEFORE he passes. "Ah! Leah!" is, in my opinion, the quintessential 80s Power Pop song. Rock on, Donnie!
-Thomas Britt
_______________________________________
Love that old dude!
Young Hutchinson
_______________________________________
i used to go see The Jaggerz at Geneva-On-The- Lake Ohio. I was a kid. I'd stand out on the street and listen. Killer band. Donnie Iris was the star. Killer renditions of The Temptations, Sly And The Family Stone not to mention The Rolling Stones.
Then there was Ah! Leah!
Donnie Iris was HUUGE in and around the Ohio/ Eastern Penn. area.
Badass guitar player with a million dollar voice. That boy ROKKED HARD!
I couldn't sing like him but I studied his songwriting.
Someone said "good is the enemy of great."
Donnie was great.
Glad to see he is still doin it.
Bob DiPiero
Nashville tennessee
_______________________________________
Ah Leah is one of those tracks that you can never nor would you want to ever get away from, like the Smithereens "a girl like you."
I tell bands wanting to make it they should cover one or the other (both) of these tunes because they are perfect songs that never got their due.
Danny Zelisko
_______________________________________
Dear Bob,
I did not hear about Donnie Iris until about 15 years ago.
I first heard "Ah Leah!" on 100.7 Jack FM in San Diego.
I thought "What an amazing song! It had to be from the 80s...but I never heard it before".
I graduated from high school in '89 and I thought I knew all the 80s music.
I played it for my music aficionado friend who is 9 years older than me...and he had never heard it either.
(We both grew up in suburban San Diego)
I don't understand how this excellent song wasn't a national hit and is not a staple of classic rock radio.
David Evans
_______________________________________
You just put a smile on MY face, Bob.
I've been putting together a huge playlist from my younger years, and….well, how the f*** could I have forgotten Donnie Iris??
But never you worry….now the chorus of "Ah Leah" (and those amazing vocal harmonies) is stuck in my brain again. For the first time in 40 years. And probably for the foreseeable future.
Thank you.
Pete Kehoe
_______________________________________
Donnie Iris is an American treasure. Watching newer clips of him playing live are just mind-blowing. Some of the notes he can hit at his age put musicians half as young to shame. Watch his extended intro to "Ah Leah" for proof.
Speaking of shame, that's exactly what it is that he never got bigger. He's kind of like Michael Stanley in that way, who was huge in the Heartland and pretty much his home state's equivalent of Springsteen, but always on the periphery in terms of national recognition. And only Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick could possibly beat Donnie for a quirky/nerdy stage persona, which I'm sure didn't help with MTV.
But the songs! "Do You Compute" is another one that should've been a smash when it was released as a single. The chorus of that song has a hook so strong, you can't get it out of your head for days.
You never disappoint, Bob. Especially when it comes to reminding people of artists that they had forgotten or maybe never picked up on in the first place. I encourage everyone to check out some of the live clips on YouTube. Donnie may be 82, but his rock and roll heart is clearly 28.
Dan Olivadoti
_______________________________________
Hadn't thought about Donnie in years but his legacy of rock means something to me , makes me smile and boy do I need that now.
Gerry Lauderdale
_______________________________________
I very much enjoy your emails . . . no matter what the subject matter!
Regarding Donnie Iris, I was in college in Virginia when his solo career took off (I'm from Pittsburgh so I took some pride in the success of the "local boy"). In addition to the great songs you mentioned, I also loved "My Girl" which was his biggest hit (on the Hot 100, that is). But he had two noncharting singles that are pretty much totally obscure yet quite spectacular: "You're Only Dreaming" (from "Back On The Streets") and "This Time It Must Be Love" (from "The High And The Mighty") -- if you still have some Donnie-time left in you, revisit those tracks.
To me, one of the keys of a great artist is that each of their songs sounds unique BUT you immediately know exactly who you are listening to when one of their songs is played.
Today, in the mainstream, it's all about five or six "sounds" and all artists within their respective "sound", are almost indistinguishable from each other.
Thanks again for giving us regular access to your thoughts!
Walter Janaro
Front Royal, Virginia
_______________________________________
Hi Bob,
I love Donnie Iris. I think I lost track of him after Fortune 410 - Donnie Iris (1983), but I loved his energy, and his stuff was always easy to sing along with.
It was great high energy Rock.
Bill live from MN.
_______________________________________
Great songs, quintessentially 80's. I would've been twelve around the time of his solo discs, which somehow got ignored by radio in the Bay Area when I was growing up. Mostly new to me, though I do faintly recall hearing "Ah! Leah!" like a distant memory. I detect a strong Queen influence - from the thick guitar tone to the big choruses with harmonized background vocals. He seems to acknowledge as much in the last minute of "Love is Like a Rock" with a guitar riff that is basically quoting "We Will Rock You" (and next to the chorus "Love Can Rock You" in similar chant vocal style, it's obvious) - credit for acknowledging an influence and having a sense of humor.
His recent clip is inspiring and emblematic of the term "aging goals." Thanks for turning us on to him (those of us who missed him the first time around).
Alex Skolnick
_______________________________________
Do you know who else was born in New Castle? Me. Donnie is still huge in western PA.
Harold Love
_______________________________________
Bob, SWEET MERILEE! WOW! I have never heard this, but I LOVE IT!
It's a natural for CHICAGO, Today! They should record it. Call them. With REAL CHICAGO HORNS, and They're HARMONIES…BAM!! COULD BE THE SONG of SUMMER OF 2025! Just think Mr. Iris at 82 could have a hit in 2025.
Olie Kornelsen
_______________________________________
Wild Cherry guitarist Bryan Bassett - the guy who laid down the licks on "Play That Funky Music" - toured and recorded with Molly Hatchet throughout the 90's. He left Hatchet in '99 and has been with Foghat ever since. He was an adjunct professor at Daytona State for years.
Vince Welsh
_______________________________________
Damn, you're always coming up with some crazy sh*t. I grew up on Philly soul/radio, home of so much amazing soul music. Occasionally there were a bunch of legit "blue eyed soul" groups from Philly like The Temptones (Daryl Hall's first group) and The Soul Survivors (Expressway to Your Heart) and the Pittsburgh area had The Jaggerz (on Gamble Records—Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff's label before Philadelphia International) and The Magnificent Men—all these groups were played heavily on black radio there.
Thanks for keeping this old sh*t alive. Kudos.
Best,
Dennis Page
_______________________________________
Thank you for sending this. I always wondered what ever happened to Donnie as I was a huge fan in the late 70's. Remember seeing him with The Romantics and UFO. Lol. They don't Tour like that anymore….
Bob Hathaway
_______________________________________
Enjoyed the trip down memory lane about Donnie Iris. In 1985, I was working for a Pop radio station in Northern Ontario and we were spinning Ah Leah, Love Is Like a Rock and Glad All Over. It's great to hear he is still alive and rockin.
Thanks for sharing!
Duane Duck
Listowel, Ontario
_______________________________________
Thanks for the shout out to local stars
Jaggerz.
I used to see their van driving around Warren Ohio back in the day. It was a chevy corvair van, not one on the best.
I am 72, pushing 73 in August and I am still playing. moving the gear is the biggest setback,. but once we start playing, it all goes away.
Dale Janus
_______________________________________
Hey Bob
This is so awesome,thanks for sharing.
Like a lot of our generation I haven't let go of any of my record collection, and I'm sitting here looking at my copy of Donnie's "Fortune 410" of which I can unfortunately only find 2 tracks on streaming.
I'll give it a spin sometime today and whilst I realise I may not remember it as fondly as I did back in 1983, it will still bring back great memories.
Thanks again
Cheers
Dave Thompson
_______________________________________
Bob, I cannot tell you how much your email just made me smile! I was a very young teenager when Ah! Leah! came out but
it was an instant favorite of mine (as a young aspiring rock drummer at the time). Every time I have heard it over the years, it always made me blast the car radio and sing along at the top of my lungs!
But I will be honest, I didn't keep up with whatever happened to Donnie Iris kind of thing and now, thanks to you, I found out.
I will now go down the YouTube rabbit hole for sure.
Thanks Bob
Cheryl Prashker
Artistic Director Goderich Celtic Roots Festival
_______________________________________
Great story Bob. I never did see him even though in Cleveland he plays a lot and he just played here but I never got a chance to see him. Straight to give Midwest music it's due. Eric Carmen The raspberries Michael Stanley a lot of great groups and good music came out of this area. And even though Donnie Iris was from Pittsburgh he was considered a adoptive clevelander.
Rob Barrish
_______________________________________
Donnie Iris is an absolute icon in Pittsburgh, as I learned when I visited there for the first time in my 50s.
Tycho Manson
_______________________________________
https://youtu.be/-z5wnkEh21U?t=275
Mark Balletto
_______________________________________
It's interesting how TikTok works. You and I have similar feeds in the sense that we were both hit with the same heritage artists around the same time. Donnie Iris this week and Molly Hatchet a couple weeks back. You got "Dreams" and I got "Bounty Hunter." Same show. The look of pure joy on Donnie's 82-year-old face is priceless. I guess the moral of the story is keep doing what you love.
Niels Schroeter
_______________________________________
Bob—I had to write back to you on this one.
I'm a copyright attorney—specialized in music. I'm a musician and had to continue my passions. The writer and keys player from Donnie Iris is my boss—the renowned and everlasting Mark Avsec. You two should know each other. He's a music copyright attorney now too.
He wrote Ah! Leah! and so many of these songs with Donnie. He and Donnie are life long best friends. They met in Wild Cherry.
We've followed you for many years. Mark teaches a Copyright in the Music Industry course in law school, and I was his student many moons ago. You were part of his essentials list to get up to speed.
I'm not a rocker by training, so Mark brings me to their shows, so I can learn every aspect of the industry. Donnie and Mark are as genuine as it gets—the whole band is. Their shows are always sold out.
We'd love to host you if you're ever in Pittsburgh or Cleveland.
Lidia Mowad
_______________________________________
I grew up near Pittsburgh, the music scene in those days was great. Donnie Iris, The Iron City House Rockers, BE Taylor and The Silencers stood out. I had Back On The Streets and my boss at the time asked me if that was the same Donnie Iris that was in the Jaggerz, so I checked them out as well.
Michael Kimball
_______________________________________
"Ah, Leah" 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's beyond great. It's the personification of it all.
I'm not kidding! THAT is rock and roll!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh5kuxnDUc8
Richard Pachter
_______________________________________
"Love Is Like a Rock" cut through a lot of the noise in the early 80s. It was a breath fo fresh air for sure. Glad to see he is still around.
Dave Richards
_______________________________________
My favorite cut off of King Cool is My Girl. Don't know if it's true, but I heard it was about his dog... Bart
_______________________________________
November 1981 - Athens, Ohio…..My very first, all-by-myself show as Pop Concert Chairman at Ohio U (Bobcats!!).
I buy the King for $4,000 from Andy Waters at ATI cuz I need a show for Fall Quarter and my offer for Steve Landesberg went in the sh*tter because no one but Steve realized it was Yom Kippur.
Completely stiffs. I've been left w a $12,000 kitty because we're a self-promoting, non-funded committee. Show loses $7,200 or something.
I'm crushed.
I write letters to ATI, the manager Mike Belkin, copy who knows who in the college brass and plead my case. WTF, this and that, you added a show in Columbus, just high on my soapbox.
Nothing and of course, no answered phone calls, especially when I continually called Mike Belkin.
Phone rings one morning at my house about 10:30am. "Bob... Jules Belkin" in the raspy voice I cherished hearing always trying to get Belkin to promote shows at OU. Jules proceeds to give me a lesson in the Chain of Command Promoter-Agent-Manager. God bless him. Learned more from the loser than I ever would and here I am still standing just fine. And I was too green tocut the catering
But re Ah! Leah!…..of course he rocked, of course The Rapper is legendary.
405 paid people in a 2,500 seater had a night.
Barry, Michael Jr and Stacie applaud the Octogenarian whenever he pops up and we share the now and back-then.
Bob Cayne
_______________________________________
NEVER FORGET:
Up until his death, Michael Stanley was STILL the rock god of Cleveland. God! Period, full stop.
Ironic the man whose "Midwest Midnight" radio homage cir du couer'd, "Does the man still play all the hits that you wanna hear?" ended up doing afternoon drive on classic rock WNCX.
But when Michael decamped -- one of the amphitheaters down on the Cuyahoga River in the Flats (same one Dylan played one summer) -- the faithful turned out, rocked out, arms in the air and voices raw from screaming the choruses. They didn't care he didn't become John Mellencamp or Bruce Springsteen. He was theirs -- and damn it, that straining against the yoke to make it was respected. Ditto his four more acoustic night stands at the vintage Tangiers Supper Club in Akron and his New Year's Eve/holiday shows at the House of Blues.
Mike Belkin managed him. Donnie Iris, too, for a while. Because Rust Belt hearts beat strong for their own. You can hear that angst-strewn passion in "Ah Leah" so hard, it almost embarasses you. Donnie Iris wasn't cool, didn't care, he wanted you to know what he wanted. Michael Stanley, too, sweltered in the desire of trying to get there.
This Tik Tok makes me smile. Of course Donnie Iris, mortgage broker, strapped it on and was having a ball. Why not? He was doing it for love and grit, not fame and money. It's why people in the flyover are different -- and people on the coasts just don't get them.
Thanks for giving the second best Buddy Holly glasses wearing rocker his due!
Holly Gleason
_______________________________________
I met a gorgeous girl at Burning Man and when I asked her name she said, "Alia."
I said, "That sounds like the song, were your parents Donnie Iris fans?"
"Yes, and you're the only person I've ever met who got that," she replied.
I told her that my older brother took my younger brother and I to see Donnie when it was Little Siblings day at Bowling Green State University around 1984. My first time partying on a college campus. They had us drinking "hairy buffalo," which was like Hawaiian Punch with vodka, and then we went and watched Donnie rock. Hazy, but unforgettable. Made me want to rock.
Thanks for the share,
Jimmy Leslie
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Thanks for the nice article about Donnie Iris (which I woke up to). I am his longtime partner, musical director, songwriter/producer, and keyboardist. My inbox is piling up. (After Donnie and I went through some litigation together, I went to law school to be an IP lawyer.)
The thing I am most proud of after all these years is that Donnie and I (and our longtime guitarist, Marty Lee, and other guys in the original group) are still best friends. We've been through a lot together. And we've been together for almost 50 years.
I still play keys with the band. And one of the joys of my life is watching the crowd watch Donnie. I've never seen such JOY on people's faces. It happens every time we play, and we're 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't think he has ever had so much fun on stage. Donnie always tells me he's having the time of his life. Same goes for me.
Thanks for honoring Donnie with your post.
Best,
Mark Avsec
Mark E. Avsec
Partner and Vice Chair, Intellectual Property Group
Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP
127 Public Square, Suite 4900 | Cleveland, Ohio 44114
_______________________________________
That sure looks like the great Joe Vitale Sr. on drums.
I say Sr. because there is a Joe Vitale Jr. who has been known to play with Dad.
Marc Avsec, the main and/or co-writer of the Donnie Iris catalogue, still plays with the band.
Bob, you may want to consider a podcast with Marc.
He and Donnie basically lost money on "Ah Leah."
That resulted in Marc becoming an intellectual property attorney.
He also teaches law classes about the music industry.
It is great to see Donnie Iris lining up yet another tour this year.
45 years ago, I was on the air in Cleveland.
I was handed a white-label, test pressing of an album and told to play side two, cut one.
It was the first of many, many radio plays for "Ah Leah."
Marty Bender
_______________________________________
hey Bob......King Cool is easily in my top 100 best rock albums of all time. my band opened for him in 1999 in Cleveland and it was quite an honor for me personally.....he's a great dude and so is Mark Avsec, who was very involved in the local Cleveland music scene back then. I'm not surprised whatsoever that Donnie is still rocking at 82!
Mike Farley
_______________________________________
It was 1980 and I was in sixth grade listening to 96 Rock WHNN in Detroit patiently waiting for this song to come on so I could record it on my Aiwa boom box as the first song on my mix tape.
Thanks for the memories.
Jeff Cramer
_______________________________________
I've loved music as long as I can remember, but when I first heard "Love Is Like A Rock" on The Loop FM98 in 1981 everything changed. A switch flipped. That 11-year-old went out and bought "King Cool" and played it about a thousand times without ever getting sick of it. Still haven't. One of the catchiest riffs ever with a huge sound that was both rock hard and doo-wop.
Puts a smile on my face too. Rock on Donnie, let 'em "never stop you!"
Matt Burnham
_______________________________________
The best song on the King Cool album is the title track, about a guy choosing between his girl and his guitar. "Between her and his guitar, it was push and shove" - it's one of the saddest and happiest songs ever at the same time!
Mike Blakesley
_______________________________________
Thanks for this. You nailed it by saying Ah Leah is a song you don't get tired of hearing. It still plays on local rock radio and I first heard it on Q107 in Toronto when it came out.
And The Rapper?
Back then Q had a homegrown contest with the winners getting their songs on a compilation album.
In '81 or '82…one of those tunes was a cover of The Rapper by Santers, aka the Rick Santers Band. They didn't make it big like many of us thought though Eddie Trunk knows them.
Rock on, Donnie!
John O'Mara,
Wasaga Beach, Ontario
_______________________________________
Bob, There were 2 great bands on MCA at that time from the Pittsburgh area, Donnie Iris and the Cruisers and the Iron City Houserockers, led by Joe Grushecky. Both came from the working class, beer joint world of steel mill land. The music was straight ahead Rock, so it translated. Donnie had a big hit while the Houserocker, backed by the legendary Steve Popovitch, ground it out in the streets more akin to being Pittsburgh's answer to Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger. Joey still plays and is close to the Boss, kindred spirits.
Donnie is a survivor and it was a great time to be the local MCA rep during their heydays.
Thanks for writing about Donnie.
Stephen Knill
_______________________________________
Bob, I was a college kid in Pittsburgh when I first heard Donnie Iris and I was hooked. It was one of those albums that I knew the timing of all of the song transitions by heart. You know what I mean, I know you do.
I also had the several follow ups on vinyl and still love to hear Ah Leah when it shows up in CVS or supermarket.
What a treasure of an artist. So glad to hear that he's still rocking.
Mark Fisher
_______________________________________
Donnie lives! He's been in my playlist for at least 55 years (Pittsburgh boy) - love that power pop. Lets' not forget a couple more old timers from da Burgh that are still going strong - Billy Price and Joe Grushecky. Rock on
Jim Egler
_______________________________________
Hello Bob,
In conjunction with your Donnie Iris post, here's a 1987 cover of "Love Is Like a Rock" by Slade from their
'You Boyz Make Big Noize' album https://youtu.be/dOUrqwLkzis
Stephen Marsh
_______________________________________
About 20 years ago, a friend of mine and I went on a cocktail cruise on the Allegheny (or the Monongahela or the Ohio-one of the three) River that featured Donnie as the entertainment. At first, I thought it was something of a joke ... Then he turned out to be amazing! The band was great ... If I'm not mistaken with te OG keyboardist & guitarist from the Cruisers.
That same buddy turned me onto the YouTube footage of his 80th birthday party from a couple of years ago and still ... Its f*cking Donnie Iris! and now you turn us all on to this clip! I found the "Ah Leah" clip from this show and he still wails on the outro! Man, I can only hope that in 15+ years, I can still rock like Donnie!
Thanks for this piece, man! The memories are rich!
Bob Reeves
Nashville, TN
_______________________________________
Terrific…The boy can still rock, and his band ain't so bad either… The audience loved him, and so did I!
Michael Abramson
_______________________________________
Love that song. Thank you for the clip. And thank you for the insight because one of my favorite songs growing up was "rap a rap a rap they call him the rapper. Rap rap rap you know what he's after..."
Plus I needed the smile after today's news
TY
julie coulter
_______________________________________
Donnie Iris is a Pittsburgh INSTITUTION!!! So many great tracks:) A YINZER tried and true:)
Ilan Fong
_______________________________________
Great to see you cover Beaver County's own Donnie Iris. He still plays a few shows a year in western Pennsylvania. He and Joe Grushecky are the rock royalty in the Pittsburgh area.
The funny thing is the Jaggerz are also still around and still have 2 of their 5 original members, Jimmie Ross and Benny Faiella, and frequently play in the area. I don't think Donnie has ever worked with them since he left, and the other 2 have passed on.
Dave Crookham
_______________________________________
Loved Loved Loved your piece on DI. ?? %
Watched both tiktoks and smiled, too. Not easy to do these days.
"Did your grandpa rock? I don't think so."
I've had this audio clip bookmarked for years and this is the perfect time to share it. WDVE's morning jocks did a series of skits making fun of the Pittsburgh regional accent, and not only is Donnie Iris a home boy but his name has the perfect vowels to accentuate it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3xrNlelylQ
Long Live Donnie Iris!
starless
_______________________________________
Bob, I thought you did to me a gain : Donnie Iris.
I though had left us....but NO!
82, my just hit 89 in Jan and it showing.
Donnie Rockin it, Two Thumbs!!
Keep on Rockin in a Free World....
even thought it feels a little less free right now.
Rock and Roll will never die !!!!!!
Cheers
Mitch Nixon
_______________________________________
to coax him onstage to do 'Leah' but he said he wasn't dressed for it! I didn't know anything about him as I grew up in the UK where to my knowledge he never made a dent. But what a super, down to earth, all-round nice guy…..
And yes, still rocking.
Adam Howell
_______________________________________
Hi Bob -- I saw the subject line and thought "Oh no, not Donnie" and was relieved to see that you're giving him his due BEFORE he passes. "Ah! Leah!" is, in my opinion, the quintessential 80s Power Pop song. Rock on, Donnie!
-Thomas Britt
_______________________________________
Love that old dude!
Young Hutchinson
_______________________________________
i used to go see The Jaggerz at Geneva-On-The- Lake Ohio. I was a kid. I'd stand out on the street and listen. Killer band. Donnie Iris was the star. Killer renditions of The Temptations, Sly And The Family Stone not to mention The Rolling Stones.
Then there was Ah! Leah!
Donnie Iris was HUUGE in and around the Ohio/ Eastern Penn. area.
Badass guitar player with a million dollar voice. That boy ROKKED HARD!
I couldn't sing like him but I studied his songwriting.
Someone said "good is the enemy of great."
Donnie was great.
Glad to see he is still doin it.
Bob DiPiero
Nashville tennessee
_______________________________________
Ah Leah is one of those tracks that you can never nor would you want to ever get away from, like the Smithereens "a girl like you."
I tell bands wanting to make it they should cover one or the other (both) of these tunes because they are perfect songs that never got their due.
Danny Zelisko
_______________________________________
Dear Bob,
I did not hear about Donnie Iris until about 15 years ago.
I first heard "Ah Leah!" on 100.7 Jack FM in San Diego.
I thought "What an amazing song! It had to be from the 80s...but I never heard it before".
I graduated from high school in '89 and I thought I knew all the 80s music.
I played it for my music aficionado friend who is 9 years older than me...and he had never heard it either.
(We both grew up in suburban San Diego)
I don't understand how this excellent song wasn't a national hit and is not a staple of classic rock radio.
David Evans
_______________________________________
You just put a smile on MY face, Bob.
I've been putting together a huge playlist from my younger years, and….well, how the f*** could I have forgotten Donnie Iris??
But never you worry….now the chorus of "Ah Leah" (and those amazing vocal harmonies) is stuck in my brain again. For the first time in 40 years. And probably for the foreseeable future.
Thank you.
Pete Kehoe
_______________________________________
Donnie Iris is an American treasure. Watching newer clips of him playing live are just mind-blowing. Some of the notes he can hit at his age put musicians half as young to shame. Watch his extended intro to "Ah Leah" for proof.
Speaking of shame, that's exactly what it is that he never got bigger. He's kind of like Michael Stanley in that way, who was huge in the Heartland and pretty much his home state's equivalent of Springsteen, but always on the periphery in terms of national recognition. And only Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick could possibly beat Donnie for a quirky/nerdy stage persona, which I'm sure didn't help with MTV.
But the songs! "Do You Compute" is another one that should've been a smash when it was released as a single. The chorus of that song has a hook so strong, you can't get it out of your head for days.
You never disappoint, Bob. Especially when it comes to reminding people of artists that they had forgotten or maybe never picked up on in the first place. I encourage everyone to check out some of the live clips on YouTube. Donnie may be 82, but his rock and roll heart is clearly 28.
Dan Olivadoti
_______________________________________
Hadn't thought about Donnie in years but his legacy of rock means something to me , makes me smile and boy do I need that now.
Gerry Lauderdale
_______________________________________
I very much enjoy your emails . . . no matter what the subject matter!
Regarding Donnie Iris, I was in college in Virginia when his solo career took off (I'm from Pittsburgh so I took some pride in the success of the "local boy"). In addition to the great songs you mentioned, I also loved "My Girl" which was his biggest hit (on the Hot 100, that is). But he had two noncharting singles that are pretty much totally obscure yet quite spectacular: "You're Only Dreaming" (from "Back On The Streets") and "This Time It Must Be Love" (from "The High And The Mighty") -- if you still have some Donnie-time left in you, revisit those tracks.
To me, one of the keys of a great artist is that each of their songs sounds unique BUT you immediately know exactly who you are listening to when one of their songs is played.
Today, in the mainstream, it's all about five or six "sounds" and all artists within their respective "sound", are almost indistinguishable from each other.
Thanks again for giving us regular access to your thoughts!
Walter Janaro
Front Royal, Virginia
_______________________________________
Hi Bob,
I love Donnie Iris. I think I lost track of him after Fortune 410 - Donnie Iris (1983), but I loved his energy, and his stuff was always easy to sing along with.
It was great high energy Rock.
Bill live from MN.
_______________________________________
Great songs, quintessentially 80's. I would've been twelve around the time of his solo discs, which somehow got ignored by radio in the Bay Area when I was growing up. Mostly new to me, though I do faintly recall hearing "Ah! Leah!" like a distant memory. I detect a strong Queen influence - from the thick guitar tone to the big choruses with harmonized background vocals. He seems to acknowledge as much in the last minute of "Love is Like a Rock" with a guitar riff that is basically quoting "We Will Rock You" (and next to the chorus "Love Can Rock You" in similar chant vocal style, it's obvious) - credit for acknowledging an influence and having a sense of humor.
His recent clip is inspiring and emblematic of the term "aging goals." Thanks for turning us on to him (those of us who missed him the first time around).
Alex Skolnick
_______________________________________
Do you know who else was born in New Castle? Me. Donnie is still huge in western PA.
Harold Love
_______________________________________
Bob, SWEET MERILEE! WOW! I have never heard this, but I LOVE IT!
It's a natural for CHICAGO, Today! They should record it. Call them. With REAL CHICAGO HORNS, and They're HARMONIES…BAM!! COULD BE THE SONG of SUMMER OF 2025! Just think Mr. Iris at 82 could have a hit in 2025.
Olie Kornelsen
_______________________________________
Wild Cherry guitarist Bryan Bassett - the guy who laid down the licks on "Play That Funky Music" - toured and recorded with Molly Hatchet throughout the 90's. He left Hatchet in '99 and has been with Foghat ever since. He was an adjunct professor at Daytona State for years.
Vince Welsh
_______________________________________
Damn, you're always coming up with some crazy sh*t. I grew up on Philly soul/radio, home of so much amazing soul music. Occasionally there were a bunch of legit "blue eyed soul" groups from Philly like The Temptones (Daryl Hall's first group) and The Soul Survivors (Expressway to Your Heart) and the Pittsburgh area had The Jaggerz (on Gamble Records—Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff's label before Philadelphia International) and The Magnificent Men—all these groups were played heavily on black radio there.
Thanks for keeping this old sh*t alive. Kudos.
Best,
Dennis Page
_______________________________________
Thank you for sending this. I always wondered what ever happened to Donnie as I was a huge fan in the late 70's. Remember seeing him with The Romantics and UFO. Lol. They don't Tour like that anymore….
Bob Hathaway
_______________________________________
Enjoyed the trip down memory lane about Donnie Iris. In 1985, I was working for a Pop radio station in Northern Ontario and we were spinning Ah Leah, Love Is Like a Rock and Glad All Over. It's great to hear he is still alive and rockin.
Thanks for sharing!
Duane Duck
Listowel, Ontario
_______________________________________
Thanks for the shout out to local stars
Jaggerz.
I used to see their van driving around Warren Ohio back in the day. It was a chevy corvair van, not one on the best.
I am 72, pushing 73 in August and I am still playing. moving the gear is the biggest setback,. but once we start playing, it all goes away.
Dale Janus
_______________________________________
Hey Bob
This is so awesome,thanks for sharing.
Like a lot of our generation I haven't let go of any of my record collection, and I'm sitting here looking at my copy of Donnie's "Fortune 410" of which I can unfortunately only find 2 tracks on streaming.
I'll give it a spin sometime today and whilst I realise I may not remember it as fondly as I did back in 1983, it will still bring back great memories.
Thanks again
Cheers
Dave Thompson
_______________________________________
Bob, I cannot tell you how much your email just made me smile! I was a very young teenager when Ah! Leah! came out but
it was an instant favorite of mine (as a young aspiring rock drummer at the time). Every time I have heard it over the years, it always made me blast the car radio and sing along at the top of my lungs!
But I will be honest, I didn't keep up with whatever happened to Donnie Iris kind of thing and now, thanks to you, I found out.
I will now go down the YouTube rabbit hole for sure.
Thanks Bob
Cheryl Prashker
Artistic Director Goderich Celtic Roots Festival
_______________________________________
Great story Bob. I never did see him even though in Cleveland he plays a lot and he just played here but I never got a chance to see him. Straight to give Midwest music it's due. Eric Carmen The raspberries Michael Stanley a lot of great groups and good music came out of this area. And even though Donnie Iris was from Pittsburgh he was considered a adoptive clevelander.
Rob Barrish
_______________________________________
Donnie Iris is an absolute icon in Pittsburgh, as I learned when I visited there for the first time in my 50s.
Tycho Manson
_______________________________________
https://youtu.be/-z5wnkEh21U?t=275
Mark Balletto
_______________________________________
It's interesting how TikTok works. You and I have similar feeds in the sense that we were both hit with the same heritage artists around the same time. Donnie Iris this week and Molly Hatchet a couple weeks back. You got "Dreams" and I got "Bounty Hunter." Same show. The look of pure joy on Donnie's 82-year-old face is priceless. I guess the moral of the story is keep doing what you love.
Niels Schroeter
_______________________________________
Bob—I had to write back to you on this one.
I'm a copyright attorney—specialized in music. I'm a musician and had to continue my passions. The writer and keys player from Donnie Iris is my boss—the renowned and everlasting Mark Avsec. You two should know each other. He's a music copyright attorney now too.
He wrote Ah! Leah! and so many of these songs with Donnie. He and Donnie are life long best friends. They met in Wild Cherry.
We've followed you for many years. Mark teaches a Copyright in the Music Industry course in law school, and I was his student many moons ago. You were part of his essentials list to get up to speed.
I'm not a rocker by training, so Mark brings me to their shows, so I can learn every aspect of the industry. Donnie and Mark are as genuine as it gets—the whole band is. Their shows are always sold out.
We'd love to host you if you're ever in Pittsburgh or Cleveland.
Lidia Mowad
_______________________________________
I grew up near Pittsburgh, the music scene in those days was great. Donnie Iris, The Iron City House Rockers, BE Taylor and The Silencers stood out. I had Back On The Streets and my boss at the time asked me if that was the same Donnie Iris that was in the Jaggerz, so I checked them out as well.
Michael Kimball
_______________________________________
"Ah, Leah" 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's beyond great. It's the personification of it all.
I'm not kidding! THAT is rock and roll!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh5kuxnDUc8
Richard Pachter
_______________________________________
"Love Is Like a Rock" cut through a lot of the noise in the early 80s. It was a breath fo fresh air for sure. Glad to see he is still around.
Dave Richards
_______________________________________
My favorite cut off of King Cool is My Girl. Don't know if it's true, but I heard it was about his dog... Bart
_______________________________________
November 1981 - Athens, Ohio…..My very first, all-by-myself show as Pop Concert Chairman at Ohio U (Bobcats!!).
I buy the King for $4,000 from Andy Waters at ATI cuz I need a show for Fall Quarter and my offer for Steve Landesberg went in the sh*tter because no one but Steve realized it was Yom Kippur.
Completely stiffs. I've been left w a $12,000 kitty because we're a self-promoting, non-funded committee. Show loses $7,200 or something.
I'm crushed.
I write letters to ATI, the manager Mike Belkin, copy who knows who in the college brass and plead my case. WTF, this and that, you added a show in Columbus, just high on my soapbox.
Nothing and of course, no answered phone calls, especially when I continually called Mike Belkin.
Phone rings one morning at my house about 10:30am. "Bob... Jules Belkin" in the raspy voice I cherished hearing always trying to get Belkin to promote shows at OU. Jules proceeds to give me a lesson in the Chain of Command Promoter-Agent-Manager. God bless him. Learned more from the loser than I ever would and here I am still standing just fine. And I was too green tocut the catering
But re Ah! Leah!…..of course he rocked, of course The Rapper is legendary.
405 paid people in a 2,500 seater had a night.
Barry, Michael Jr and Stacie applaud the Octogenarian whenever he pops up and we share the now and back-then.
Bob Cayne
_______________________________________
NEVER FORGET:
Up until his death, Michael Stanley was STILL the rock god of Cleveland. God! Period, full stop.
Ironic the man whose "Midwest Midnight" radio homage cir du couer'd, "Does the man still play all the hits that you wanna hear?" ended up doing afternoon drive on classic rock WNCX.
But when Michael decamped -- one of the amphitheaters down on the Cuyahoga River in the Flats (same one Dylan played one summer) -- the faithful turned out, rocked out, arms in the air and voices raw from screaming the choruses. They didn't care he didn't become John Mellencamp or Bruce Springsteen. He was theirs -- and damn it, that straining against the yoke to make it was respected. Ditto his four more acoustic night stands at the vintage Tangiers Supper Club in Akron and his New Year's Eve/holiday shows at the House of Blues.
Mike Belkin managed him. Donnie Iris, too, for a while. Because Rust Belt hearts beat strong for their own. You can hear that angst-strewn passion in "Ah Leah" so hard, it almost embarasses you. Donnie Iris wasn't cool, didn't care, he wanted you to know what he wanted. Michael Stanley, too, sweltered in the desire of trying to get there.
This Tik Tok makes me smile. Of course Donnie Iris, mortgage broker, strapped it on and was having a ball. Why not? He was doing it for love and grit, not fame and money. It's why people in the flyover are different -- and people on the coasts just don't get them.
Thanks for giving the second best Buddy Holly glasses wearing rocker his due!
Holly Gleason
_______________________________________
I met a gorgeous girl at Burning Man and when I asked her name she said, "Alia."
I said, "That sounds like the song, were your parents Donnie Iris fans?"
"Yes, and you're the only person I've ever met who got that," she replied.
I told her that my older brother took my younger brother and I to see Donnie when it was Little Siblings day at Bowling Green State University around 1984. My first time partying on a college campus. They had us drinking "hairy buffalo," which was like Hawaiian Punch with vodka, and then we went and watched Donnie rock. Hazy, but unforgettable. Made me want to rock.
Thanks for the share,
Jimmy Leslie
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Charlie Hellman-This Week's Podcast
Charlie Hellman is Vice President and Global Head of Music Product for Spotify. We discuss the tools artists are offered, how to promote yourself, the truth about payment and... This is the guy who oversees artists' interaction with Spotify, get it from the source.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/charlie-hellman/id1316200737?i=1000700094057
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2VuraOpv5rsGVgaus0ZjnL?si=CyQU1xAlQxeCgZsGy5_qYg
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/charlie-hellman-270612374/
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/dd895760-a1a7-4a81-af3c-28829a9d208d/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-charlie-hellman
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Wednesday, 19 March 2025
Donnie Iris
"Love Is Like a Rock" live on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bobbo99999/video/7480666558923197742
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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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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Paul Rappaport's Book
"Gliders Over Hollywood: Airships, Airplay, And The Art Of Rock Promotion": https://rb.gy/l4m82v
This is the best book about how it used to be.
And it certainly ain't that way anymore.
Sometime early in this century everybody started to say the record business was no longer fun.
This book tells the story of when it was fun. When there was seemingly unlimited money and the bands that were broken were household names.
Rap grows up in the burbs of Southern California and is bitten by the music bug, he gets a guitar, he plays in a band... WE ALL DID! We saw the Beatles on TV and said THIS IS IT!
Actually, we started before that, with nylon-stringed acoustic guitars, to be part of the folk scene. All anybody seems to remember from that era is Bob Dylan, but there were a plethora of acts telling stories about life in this world and the music was so popular that there even was a TV show, "Hootenanny." The Beatles killed all that, that's what Dylan at Newport was all about. Bob crawled from the wreckage into a brand new car, everybody else shook their fist and was left in the dust. Actually, it's akin to Napster and Spotify. Either you got on board or you were left behind. And those whose cheese was moved are still bitter.
Anyway, kids weren't at home on their computers, they were outside, playing sports, playing music, going to dances. And Rap was there, on stage. Every community had bands, even battles of the bands, now there are robot wars.
So at UCLA Rap is a prankster at the fraternity and a friend comes up and tells him he should be the college rep for Columbia Records.
Rap is fearful of selling out to the man, but he takes the job and ultimately becomes a full time employee of the company and 33 1/3 years ensue and tales are told.
Now if you're of a certain vintage, if you were in the business, you'll recognize a ton of names. Not only the bands, but the players, people like Harvey Leeds and Jim McKeon...this list goes on and on. Actually, it's interesting to see the transition from the old days, the unknowns who pre-dated the Beatles and then moved on so that the boomers could build up this business. These new employees lived for the music, it was everything to them.
But they were handsomely paid and had the time of their lives in the process.
Yes, all the stars and their stories are included.
Yes, we get Springsteen, at the Roxy and elsewhere.
Bob Geldof singling out radio and paying the price in return. Also pissed that his band was competing with the Fabulous Poodles.
You get characters like Bruce Allen, and the breaking of Loverboy.
You get a spat between Scott Muni and Bill Curbishley, the former won't play one of Bill's acts on WNEW because Bill threw him out of a party...and Bill says justifiably!
All the inside dope on Pink Floyd. Even stories about Paul McCartney himself. And the Stones too!
And Rap is not just an observer, he's a participant. Doing the coke, staying up all night, involved in the food fights...
Yes, everybody seems kind of adolescent. Or as Harvey Leeds said when he won a Pollstar award...you can grow up, but you can be immature forever! And the bands are mercurial. And one thing is for sure, the labels make the bands successful, and it's all done via radio.
And Rap comes up with one innovative promotion after another. Whether it be a laser cannon for Blue Öyster Cult or a blimp for Pink Floyd.
There's reference to the pressure to deliver, a report card every Tuesday, that was the pain that came with the gig, that kept you up at night. It was all about the numbers in "Radio & Records"...do young 'uns even know what that was?
And it's definitely different today. Terrestrial radio comes last. The labels still have radio promotion staffs, because they don't know what else to do. The public, via internet platforms, is in charge of creating hits. Maybe the label can amplify them, maybe it can't.
And there is not a constant juggernaut of superstars. The labels have slimmed down both their employee and artist rosters. It's not an endless money machine. The labels used to dominate the business, now they can't even afford more than a handful of tickets to the show, where they're treated as second-class citizens by the promoter.
I've known Rap for decades. First met him at a radio conference. Yes, that used to be a thing. Labels had suites in the hotel and you didn't walk out the front door until the sun was up.
He was there. For all the shenanigans, for the high life.
This book is extremely readable, unlike the plethora of tomes written by those who can no longer work about the old days they lived through. You'll have a hard time putting it down. But as you approach the end...
You'll get depressed. Because all of this is in the rearview mirror. And you are too. Rap was born in '48, he's in his late seventies. And if you were around to experience all this you're probably a septuagenarian too, or close.
This is the only book I can remember that truly details what it was like inside the star factory. What it was like to be a worker bee, a well-compensated worker bee who was working around the clock because it was both fun and what was expected.
If you were around back then, you definitely want to read it.
If you weren't...READ IT AND WEEP!
--
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--
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-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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--
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This is the best book about how it used to be.
And it certainly ain't that way anymore.
Sometime early in this century everybody started to say the record business was no longer fun.
This book tells the story of when it was fun. When there was seemingly unlimited money and the bands that were broken were household names.
Rap grows up in the burbs of Southern California and is bitten by the music bug, he gets a guitar, he plays in a band... WE ALL DID! We saw the Beatles on TV and said THIS IS IT!
Actually, we started before that, with nylon-stringed acoustic guitars, to be part of the folk scene. All anybody seems to remember from that era is Bob Dylan, but there were a plethora of acts telling stories about life in this world and the music was so popular that there even was a TV show, "Hootenanny." The Beatles killed all that, that's what Dylan at Newport was all about. Bob crawled from the wreckage into a brand new car, everybody else shook their fist and was left in the dust. Actually, it's akin to Napster and Spotify. Either you got on board or you were left behind. And those whose cheese was moved are still bitter.
Anyway, kids weren't at home on their computers, they were outside, playing sports, playing music, going to dances. And Rap was there, on stage. Every community had bands, even battles of the bands, now there are robot wars.
So at UCLA Rap is a prankster at the fraternity and a friend comes up and tells him he should be the college rep for Columbia Records.
Rap is fearful of selling out to the man, but he takes the job and ultimately becomes a full time employee of the company and 33 1/3 years ensue and tales are told.
Now if you're of a certain vintage, if you were in the business, you'll recognize a ton of names. Not only the bands, but the players, people like Harvey Leeds and Jim McKeon...this list goes on and on. Actually, it's interesting to see the transition from the old days, the unknowns who pre-dated the Beatles and then moved on so that the boomers could build up this business. These new employees lived for the music, it was everything to them.
But they were handsomely paid and had the time of their lives in the process.
Yes, all the stars and their stories are included.
Yes, we get Springsteen, at the Roxy and elsewhere.
Bob Geldof singling out radio and paying the price in return. Also pissed that his band was competing with the Fabulous Poodles.
You get characters like Bruce Allen, and the breaking of Loverboy.
You get a spat between Scott Muni and Bill Curbishley, the former won't play one of Bill's acts on WNEW because Bill threw him out of a party...and Bill says justifiably!
All the inside dope on Pink Floyd. Even stories about Paul McCartney himself. And the Stones too!
And Rap is not just an observer, he's a participant. Doing the coke, staying up all night, involved in the food fights...
Yes, everybody seems kind of adolescent. Or as Harvey Leeds said when he won a Pollstar award...you can grow up, but you can be immature forever! And the bands are mercurial. And one thing is for sure, the labels make the bands successful, and it's all done via radio.
And Rap comes up with one innovative promotion after another. Whether it be a laser cannon for Blue Öyster Cult or a blimp for Pink Floyd.
There's reference to the pressure to deliver, a report card every Tuesday, that was the pain that came with the gig, that kept you up at night. It was all about the numbers in "Radio & Records"...do young 'uns even know what that was?
And it's definitely different today. Terrestrial radio comes last. The labels still have radio promotion staffs, because they don't know what else to do. The public, via internet platforms, is in charge of creating hits. Maybe the label can amplify them, maybe it can't.
And there is not a constant juggernaut of superstars. The labels have slimmed down both their employee and artist rosters. It's not an endless money machine. The labels used to dominate the business, now they can't even afford more than a handful of tickets to the show, where they're treated as second-class citizens by the promoter.
I've known Rap for decades. First met him at a radio conference. Yes, that used to be a thing. Labels had suites in the hotel and you didn't walk out the front door until the sun was up.
He was there. For all the shenanigans, for the high life.
This book is extremely readable, unlike the plethora of tomes written by those who can no longer work about the old days they lived through. You'll have a hard time putting it down. But as you approach the end...
You'll get depressed. Because all of this is in the rearview mirror. And you are too. Rap was born in '48, he's in his late seventies. And if you were around to experience all this you're probably a septuagenarian too, or close.
This is the only book I can remember that truly details what it was like inside the star factory. What it was like to be a worker bee, a well-compensated worker bee who was working around the clock because it was both fun and what was expected.
If you were around back then, you definitely want to read it.
If you weren't...READ IT AND WEEP!
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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Tuesday, 18 March 2025
More Supertramp
Hi Bob, nice to see you write about Supertramp. Growing up in Glendale I played in high school with drummer Bob Siebenberg a number of times. Straight out of high school Bob moved to London followed by his brother-in-law Scott Gorham (Thin Lizzy) the following year. In 1978 I was frequenting a club called Jason's in Toluca Lake and those two guys walked in. I couldn't believe it. All of us Glendale guys knew that they were in these successful bands and we were all in awe that they were able to do that.
They kept coming into the club, and one evening Bob brought a cassette of Breakfast in America straight from the mix sessions. A bunch of us piled into cars went to someone's house at 2 AM and listened to that album with our jaws on the floor.
Over the next few years Bob and I wrote songs and in the early 80s Scott and I started a band actually. Nearly signed by Atlantic but alas, it didn't happen. As I was working with Bob and Scott, I got to know all of the Supertramp guys and when Roger left the band, because I was a known session guitarist in LA at the time, Rick Davies asked me to come and play with the band which I did and then he hired me as the guitarist on the subsequent two albums that they did, "Brother Where You Bound" and Free As A Bird". I went on those tours and I must say the response was phenomenal. The band, even without Roger, was really popular especially overseas.
I don't know if their work would ever get them into the Hall of Fame but those initial albums that you mentioned were of course top of the sonic heap at the time
Marty Walsh
________________________________________
Ask any Canadian stoner kid who grew up in the mid 70's the theme albums of their youth and it's Crime of the Century, Dark Side of the Moon and Led Zeppelin 4. Crime of the Century is still in my top 3 all these years later. Their performance of the title track at the old Empire Stadium in 1979 is still my favourite live moment. The album went platinum here in Canada.
Rob Schlyecher
________________________________________
What's so fascinating are all the Canadians who are sharing memories of Supertramp..
I loved Supertramp and owned Crime of the Century and Even in the Quietest Moments, which might be one of my desert island pics. I doubt I was old enough to see them live, but I recently downloaded both to Spotify (on my "Roadtrip" playlist). Listening to Quietest Moments and the memories of growing up in Toronto just flooded over me - the good and the bad..
I think Canadians always had an affinity to Supertramp..
Simma Levine
________________________________________
I remember reading the liner notes of BREAKFAST IN AMERICA and loving that there was a guy not credited for saxophone and or clarinet... but WOODWINDS! Dude was a whole family of instruments! Somehow they rocked with clarinet... that alone puts SUPERTRAMP up there with anyone who's ever attempted the rock and the roll. Thanks as always for another great read.
Adam Dalton
________________________________________
All I had to see was the subject line Re-Supertramp and knew your readers would nail the historical significance of Supertramp coming out with "Crime of the Century" at the time they did. I was 16 yo and I remember being kind of pissed that this band getting a lot of attention, that*I* had never heard of (and I was the guy in high school who was supposed to have heard of everybody). And, to boot, they had a stupid name (by 1975 standards). They were out of the mainstream for 1975. Almost a little "throwbacky". But the confidence and verve percolating through the opening track "School" communicated that these guys had arrived, no matter what art "school" they belonged to … or no art school at all, .. whether they were late… or early …they were just sui generis.
Emmett McAuliffe Esq.
________________________________________
In 1977 I opened for Supertramp with my then band - The Hometown Band at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. They were a class act - both musically and to their opening act which wasn't always the norm in those times.They were such a signature sound of that era. Great band and a highlight in a 52 yr career.
Shari Ulrich
________________________________________
This album was clearly one of the first pieces of music that MOVED me. I was just old enough and just young enough to get it. It remains in my top 5 of all time. And it maybe has just a slight bit to do with I don't hear as well as I used to. Made me want to go out and spend every last dime I had me on the best stereo equipment I could find, so I could play it as loud as it deserved. And I did. Still have the Bose 901's and it's the album of choice when I want to shake the room. Imagine a reunion in the Sphere. I would pay dearly to be in that room.
Thanks
Frank J Biederer
________________________________________
I was at the March '75 Supertramp Santa Monica Civic show.Found them on KWST,my favorite station.They handed on pins when you entered with crime logo.
J.D. LePera
________________________________________
Supertramp! That run from "Crime of The Century" through "Breakfast In America" is one for the books. I'd rate "Crime" as one of the 20 best albums ever.
Seeing them perform live in Bezerkely in '75 was magical. Greg Khin opened but the dude had a tough chore to work that crowd.
One of the best bands ever. Too bad Rodger Hodgson and Rick Davies couldn't work out their creative differences because what they had in common was as special as Dave Gilmour and Roger Waters.
Like 10cc, it sucks to gave these bands that are greater than the sum of their parts fracture and produce lesser works of art.
But that goes all the way back to the Beatles and it's hard to find examples otherwise.
Lee Elliott
________________________________________
I think one of the most interesting aspects of Supertramp's story is that they were funded by Sam Meisegaes, a Dutch millionaire. Without that seed money, would they have made it to the big time? Talk amongst yourselves….
Tom Scharf
________________________________________
There was a phenomenal sounding Supertramp bootleg back in the day..It opened with "School"..A (blues) harp lick..Then cheering..Sounded like a small venue, possibly a club..The ANTICIPATION!..Then, "He's coming along"..Pause..Cheering..Then, the band kicks in..Does anyone remember DYNAMICS? I can still picture the crude album sleeve, and our red bong.
I was lucky enough to catch Roger's solo show in the mid 90s..Just him, an acoustic guitar, digital piano, and the SONGS..He did the hits, AND some of his more recent solo work..Which is worth a revisit.. Brilliant chap..Someone in the royal family loved his music, and had him do command performances..Why isn't he in the R&RHOF!? (Spoiler alert-It's a load of HOOEY!)
He was one of the great Prog lyricists..Few brought those themes into the top forty more often, nor more succinctly.."The Logical Song", "School",etc..It resonated/still resonates with the disenfranchised..Some of the enfranchised, too!
The QUESTIONING..Of societal norms and expectations..The SEARCHING..For some meaning beyond the scripts we've pitched by polite society.. Somebody GOT us..(Spoiler alert-It weren't Jesus.) And in the Progosphere, Supertramp will always be persona GRATA..
And THIS hidden gem is the best example..Best coupled with that iconic "Crisis, What Crisis?" album cover..
THE MEANING..
The Meaning - Roger Hodgson (co-founder of Supertramp), Writer and Composer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_Xz2q40ijA
James Spencer
I saw Supertramp in 1976 (Crisis! What Crisis tour) and again in 1977 (Even In The Quietest Moments tour) in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Both featured heavy doses of Crime of The Century at these absolutely stunning and technically proficient shows. But what else that I noticed was how much fun this band was having and despite being sonically 'perfect', they were enjoying their time onstage immensely, with John C. Helliwell making sure the audience knew that.
As you know Supertramp were on A&M as were many of their label mates of the era like Nazareth, Styx, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Tubes, Split Enz, the Police and others.
You may not know this but it was Canada who broke most of these groups first and A&M was a label that helped make that happen. Might have been something in the water up here but it is also fairly well known fact that many groups got their toehold in North America via Canada first. And Supertramp was one.
I might also add, the Beatles were a phenom in Canada in 1963, almost 7-8 months before they conquered America in Feb '64.
Keep digging Bob, threads like this are great, longtime Lefsetz Letter follower,
Stephen Marsh
Halifax,. N.S. Canada
________________________________________
I loved your piece on Supertramp…….one of my fave bands of all-time. Roger is a gifted generous soul as well! For my 50th a few years back, he had me come as his guest (with three friends) to my local venue - the gorgeous Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA - and proceeded to dedicate "Logical Song" to me in front of the crowd to acknowledge my special day. Then he had me come backstage to hang out after the show; needless to say it was a magical evening.
Like so many others who have chimed in, their music was a huge part of the soundtrack of my life; "Breakfast in America" was the big breakthrough during my teen years — I didn't come to appreciate "Crime of the Century" 'til I was in college. One of my fave tracks hasn't been mentioned — that's "Child of Vision"; a true masterpiece. A great homage to prog rock/fusion it has stood the test of time as have most of their music. As others have said, they were totally underrated. I really appreciate you acknowledging them and their contributions……
Kelli Richards
________________________________________
"Right, quite right, you're bloody well right
you got a bloody right to say ...
Me, I don't care anyway!"
They could a written this song about you Bob.
Don't you ever stop.
Saw Supertramp Reading Rock Festival 1975.
Blown away, next act up was Yes, they put me to sleep.
Cheers,
Paul Holdom
New Zealand
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They kept coming into the club, and one evening Bob brought a cassette of Breakfast in America straight from the mix sessions. A bunch of us piled into cars went to someone's house at 2 AM and listened to that album with our jaws on the floor.
Over the next few years Bob and I wrote songs and in the early 80s Scott and I started a band actually. Nearly signed by Atlantic but alas, it didn't happen. As I was working with Bob and Scott, I got to know all of the Supertramp guys and when Roger left the band, because I was a known session guitarist in LA at the time, Rick Davies asked me to come and play with the band which I did and then he hired me as the guitarist on the subsequent two albums that they did, "Brother Where You Bound" and Free As A Bird". I went on those tours and I must say the response was phenomenal. The band, even without Roger, was really popular especially overseas.
I don't know if their work would ever get them into the Hall of Fame but those initial albums that you mentioned were of course top of the sonic heap at the time
Marty Walsh
________________________________________
Ask any Canadian stoner kid who grew up in the mid 70's the theme albums of their youth and it's Crime of the Century, Dark Side of the Moon and Led Zeppelin 4. Crime of the Century is still in my top 3 all these years later. Their performance of the title track at the old Empire Stadium in 1979 is still my favourite live moment. The album went platinum here in Canada.
Rob Schlyecher
________________________________________
What's so fascinating are all the Canadians who are sharing memories of Supertramp..
I loved Supertramp and owned Crime of the Century and Even in the Quietest Moments, which might be one of my desert island pics. I doubt I was old enough to see them live, but I recently downloaded both to Spotify (on my "Roadtrip" playlist). Listening to Quietest Moments and the memories of growing up in Toronto just flooded over me - the good and the bad..
I think Canadians always had an affinity to Supertramp..
Simma Levine
________________________________________
I remember reading the liner notes of BREAKFAST IN AMERICA and loving that there was a guy not credited for saxophone and or clarinet... but WOODWINDS! Dude was a whole family of instruments! Somehow they rocked with clarinet... that alone puts SUPERTRAMP up there with anyone who's ever attempted the rock and the roll. Thanks as always for another great read.
Adam Dalton
________________________________________
All I had to see was the subject line Re-Supertramp and knew your readers would nail the historical significance of Supertramp coming out with "Crime of the Century" at the time they did. I was 16 yo and I remember being kind of pissed that this band getting a lot of attention, that*I* had never heard of (and I was the guy in high school who was supposed to have heard of everybody). And, to boot, they had a stupid name (by 1975 standards). They were out of the mainstream for 1975. Almost a little "throwbacky". But the confidence and verve percolating through the opening track "School" communicated that these guys had arrived, no matter what art "school" they belonged to … or no art school at all, .. whether they were late… or early …they were just sui generis.
Emmett McAuliffe Esq.
________________________________________
In 1977 I opened for Supertramp with my then band - The Hometown Band at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. They were a class act - both musically and to their opening act which wasn't always the norm in those times.They were such a signature sound of that era. Great band and a highlight in a 52 yr career.
Shari Ulrich
________________________________________
This album was clearly one of the first pieces of music that MOVED me. I was just old enough and just young enough to get it. It remains in my top 5 of all time. And it maybe has just a slight bit to do with I don't hear as well as I used to. Made me want to go out and spend every last dime I had me on the best stereo equipment I could find, so I could play it as loud as it deserved. And I did. Still have the Bose 901's and it's the album of choice when I want to shake the room. Imagine a reunion in the Sphere. I would pay dearly to be in that room.
Thanks
Frank J Biederer
________________________________________
I was at the March '75 Supertramp Santa Monica Civic show.Found them on KWST,my favorite station.They handed on pins when you entered with crime logo.
J.D. LePera
________________________________________
Supertramp! That run from "Crime of The Century" through "Breakfast In America" is one for the books. I'd rate "Crime" as one of the 20 best albums ever.
Seeing them perform live in Bezerkely in '75 was magical. Greg Khin opened but the dude had a tough chore to work that crowd.
One of the best bands ever. Too bad Rodger Hodgson and Rick Davies couldn't work out their creative differences because what they had in common was as special as Dave Gilmour and Roger Waters.
Like 10cc, it sucks to gave these bands that are greater than the sum of their parts fracture and produce lesser works of art.
But that goes all the way back to the Beatles and it's hard to find examples otherwise.
Lee Elliott
________________________________________
I think one of the most interesting aspects of Supertramp's story is that they were funded by Sam Meisegaes, a Dutch millionaire. Without that seed money, would they have made it to the big time? Talk amongst yourselves….
Tom Scharf
________________________________________
There was a phenomenal sounding Supertramp bootleg back in the day..It opened with "School"..A (blues) harp lick..Then cheering..Sounded like a small venue, possibly a club..The ANTICIPATION!..Then, "He's coming along"..Pause..Cheering..Then, the band kicks in..Does anyone remember DYNAMICS? I can still picture the crude album sleeve, and our red bong.
I was lucky enough to catch Roger's solo show in the mid 90s..Just him, an acoustic guitar, digital piano, and the SONGS..He did the hits, AND some of his more recent solo work..Which is worth a revisit.. Brilliant chap..Someone in the royal family loved his music, and had him do command performances..Why isn't he in the R&RHOF!? (Spoiler alert-It's a load of HOOEY!)
He was one of the great Prog lyricists..Few brought those themes into the top forty more often, nor more succinctly.."The Logical Song", "School",etc..It resonated/still resonates with the disenfranchised..Some of the enfranchised, too!
The QUESTIONING..Of societal norms and expectations..The SEARCHING..For some meaning beyond the scripts we've pitched by polite society.. Somebody GOT us..(Spoiler alert-It weren't Jesus.) And in the Progosphere, Supertramp will always be persona GRATA..
And THIS hidden gem is the best example..Best coupled with that iconic "Crisis, What Crisis?" album cover..
THE MEANING..
The Meaning - Roger Hodgson (co-founder of Supertramp), Writer and Composer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_Xz2q40ijA
James Spencer
I saw Supertramp in 1976 (Crisis! What Crisis tour) and again in 1977 (Even In The Quietest Moments tour) in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Both featured heavy doses of Crime of The Century at these absolutely stunning and technically proficient shows. But what else that I noticed was how much fun this band was having and despite being sonically 'perfect', they were enjoying their time onstage immensely, with John C. Helliwell making sure the audience knew that.
As you know Supertramp were on A&M as were many of their label mates of the era like Nazareth, Styx, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Tubes, Split Enz, the Police and others.
You may not know this but it was Canada who broke most of these groups first and A&M was a label that helped make that happen. Might have been something in the water up here but it is also fairly well known fact that many groups got their toehold in North America via Canada first. And Supertramp was one.
I might also add, the Beatles were a phenom in Canada in 1963, almost 7-8 months before they conquered America in Feb '64.
Keep digging Bob, threads like this are great, longtime Lefsetz Letter follower,
Stephen Marsh
Halifax,. N.S. Canada
________________________________________
I loved your piece on Supertramp…….one of my fave bands of all-time. Roger is a gifted generous soul as well! For my 50th a few years back, he had me come as his guest (with three friends) to my local venue - the gorgeous Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA - and proceeded to dedicate "Logical Song" to me in front of the crowd to acknowledge my special day. Then he had me come backstage to hang out after the show; needless to say it was a magical evening.
Like so many others who have chimed in, their music was a huge part of the soundtrack of my life; "Breakfast in America" was the big breakthrough during my teen years — I didn't come to appreciate "Crime of the Century" 'til I was in college. One of my fave tracks hasn't been mentioned — that's "Child of Vision"; a true masterpiece. A great homage to prog rock/fusion it has stood the test of time as have most of their music. As others have said, they were totally underrated. I really appreciate you acknowledging them and their contributions……
Kelli Richards
________________________________________
"Right, quite right, you're bloody well right
you got a bloody right to say ...
Me, I don't care anyway!"
They could a written this song about you Bob.
Don't you ever stop.
Saw Supertramp Reading Rock Festival 1975.
Blown away, next act up was Yes, they put me to sleep.
Cheers,
Paul Holdom
New Zealand
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Adolescence
If I see one more story about "White Lotus"...
The "Wall Street Journal" did a piece on the effect on Four Seasons Hotels. "Vanity Fair" wrote about Aimee Lou Wood's teeth.
And do you know how many people have e-mailed me about this HBO/MAX show?
ZERO!
But my inbox is blowing up about "Adolescence." And until the last twenty four hours, the mainstream media has been out of the loop, because it's been an underground story. Other than Trump, almost everything worth considering is an underground story today.
But this does not fit with the paradigm of the last century, where gatekeepers determine hits and the public consumes such, reporting is out of touch.
This is not only prevalent in streaming television, but music. Spotify told us last week... The share of the stars is coming down, music from around the globe is getting significant listens and independents are growing.
But all we hear about is Lady Gaga's new album. I'm sure people are listening to it, but not most. It's a return to what once was, as Gaga tries to recapture her success in the popular music world. We've been distracted by her work with Tony Bennett and in film so unless you're a student of the game you don't realize that other than a movie song, her work has been disappointing commercially for years.
Meanwhile, in the independent sphere you have acts testing the limits, because they're less worried about maintaining the commercial juggernaut. It's the same as it was in the late sixties and early seventies. Hit acts are hit dependent, the fans come and go, but the acts who made albums back then, who are independent today, can work forever, because they have DIEHARD FANS!
Fans of streaming television are making "Adolescence" a hit. They're always looking for something new, they're not brain dead and only watching HBO like it's 1995. And when they find something they like, they tell everybody they know about it. This is how you know if you have a hit, is anybody talking about it?
HBO and the rest of the companies married to the old paradigm believe that by dripping out episodes week by week they're building momentum, water cooler talk. In an on demand world where we want it all and we want it now, this is out of touch. If you induce any friction, you're leaving people out. People love to binge, love to marinate in the story, THAT'S PART OF THE EXPERIENCE!
But HBO has its PR team. Working the media constantly. Dropping stories week after week to feed that water cooler talk. But there is none.
Now there is talk about "Severance," I'm getting e-mail about that, but Apple has so little product it's afraid of the one time drop, for fear people will sign off. This is backwards. You don't screw your customers to pad your bottom line anymore, you superserve your customers and then they testify about you!
Like Netflix. Where churn is de minimis.
Because Netflix puts out a plethora of product, and with both music and filmed entertainment, you never know what's good until it's done. So you've got to come up to bat many times.
People are believers in Netflix. I've never heard a young 'un talk about HBO... It doesn't square with them. Little product that appeals to their parents dripped out over months? Who needs that, if you want me I'll be in the bar, or on TikTok, or the big kahuna of streaming, YouTube.
You adjust or die. And many newspapers have passed. And those who worked at them, or still have a job, lament this. But institutions only survive if they change and deliver what the public wants.
Mainstream entertainment coverage is a tool of PR people. As inauthentic as it gets. Why is there suddenly an interview with some star...oh, that's right, they've got a new movie or show coming out! As phony as it comes. Whereas TikTok is fluid, a constant river, which the public dips in and out of.
The public wants to feel that it's understood.
Or you can tie yourself to an old demo and when it dies you do too.
I wish I got as many e-mails about music as I did about streaming television (I get almost none about movies), but the story is the music scene is overwhelming, with a tsunami of product that mostly doesn't live up to the hype. Where's the one listen hit of yore? The anti-establishment statement?
"Adolescence" is successful because it's all available now. The public owns it, not the media. And it focuses on the one thing we're all doing, living life. There are acolytes of science fiction and fantasy, but we all relate to real life. But it's too scary for too many to touch.
The world changes whether you want it to or not.
And one thing is for sure , the starmaking machinery behind the popular song is moribund.
We're living in a free-for-all, but when something resonates, word spreads and it touches everybody.
And isn't it funny that the biggest streaming hits are totally original, don't fit in a known genre, are things we haven't seen before?
And they're almost all on Netflix: "Squid Game," "Baby Reindeer," "Apple Cider Vinegar"...
The public wants new and different. Sure, there's a market for sequels, but rarely are they anywhere close to the quality of the original.
Everybody's playing it safe.
That's not the way to succeed in today's market.
And just like in tech, failure is a badge of honor, AS LONG AS YOU GET BACK IN THE GAME!
Identity, credibility are everything today. But too much media has sacrificed this, and the public knows.
Just like it knows when it sees something great, like "Adolescence."
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The "Wall Street Journal" did a piece on the effect on Four Seasons Hotels. "Vanity Fair" wrote about Aimee Lou Wood's teeth.
And do you know how many people have e-mailed me about this HBO/MAX show?
ZERO!
But my inbox is blowing up about "Adolescence." And until the last twenty four hours, the mainstream media has been out of the loop, because it's been an underground story. Other than Trump, almost everything worth considering is an underground story today.
But this does not fit with the paradigm of the last century, where gatekeepers determine hits and the public consumes such, reporting is out of touch.
This is not only prevalent in streaming television, but music. Spotify told us last week... The share of the stars is coming down, music from around the globe is getting significant listens and independents are growing.
But all we hear about is Lady Gaga's new album. I'm sure people are listening to it, but not most. It's a return to what once was, as Gaga tries to recapture her success in the popular music world. We've been distracted by her work with Tony Bennett and in film so unless you're a student of the game you don't realize that other than a movie song, her work has been disappointing commercially for years.
Meanwhile, in the independent sphere you have acts testing the limits, because they're less worried about maintaining the commercial juggernaut. It's the same as it was in the late sixties and early seventies. Hit acts are hit dependent, the fans come and go, but the acts who made albums back then, who are independent today, can work forever, because they have DIEHARD FANS!
Fans of streaming television are making "Adolescence" a hit. They're always looking for something new, they're not brain dead and only watching HBO like it's 1995. And when they find something they like, they tell everybody they know about it. This is how you know if you have a hit, is anybody talking about it?
HBO and the rest of the companies married to the old paradigm believe that by dripping out episodes week by week they're building momentum, water cooler talk. In an on demand world where we want it all and we want it now, this is out of touch. If you induce any friction, you're leaving people out. People love to binge, love to marinate in the story, THAT'S PART OF THE EXPERIENCE!
But HBO has its PR team. Working the media constantly. Dropping stories week after week to feed that water cooler talk. But there is none.
Now there is talk about "Severance," I'm getting e-mail about that, but Apple has so little product it's afraid of the one time drop, for fear people will sign off. This is backwards. You don't screw your customers to pad your bottom line anymore, you superserve your customers and then they testify about you!
Like Netflix. Where churn is de minimis.
Because Netflix puts out a plethora of product, and with both music and filmed entertainment, you never know what's good until it's done. So you've got to come up to bat many times.
People are believers in Netflix. I've never heard a young 'un talk about HBO... It doesn't square with them. Little product that appeals to their parents dripped out over months? Who needs that, if you want me I'll be in the bar, or on TikTok, or the big kahuna of streaming, YouTube.
You adjust or die. And many newspapers have passed. And those who worked at them, or still have a job, lament this. But institutions only survive if they change and deliver what the public wants.
Mainstream entertainment coverage is a tool of PR people. As inauthentic as it gets. Why is there suddenly an interview with some star...oh, that's right, they've got a new movie or show coming out! As phony as it comes. Whereas TikTok is fluid, a constant river, which the public dips in and out of.
The public wants to feel that it's understood.
Or you can tie yourself to an old demo and when it dies you do too.
I wish I got as many e-mails about music as I did about streaming television (I get almost none about movies), but the story is the music scene is overwhelming, with a tsunami of product that mostly doesn't live up to the hype. Where's the one listen hit of yore? The anti-establishment statement?
"Adolescence" is successful because it's all available now. The public owns it, not the media. And it focuses on the one thing we're all doing, living life. There are acolytes of science fiction and fantasy, but we all relate to real life. But it's too scary for too many to touch.
The world changes whether you want it to or not.
And one thing is for sure , the starmaking machinery behind the popular song is moribund.
We're living in a free-for-all, but when something resonates, word spreads and it touches everybody.
And isn't it funny that the biggest streaming hits are totally original, don't fit in a known genre, are things we haven't seen before?
And they're almost all on Netflix: "Squid Game," "Baby Reindeer," "Apple Cider Vinegar"...
The public wants new and different. Sure, there's a market for sequels, but rarely are they anywhere close to the quality of the original.
Everybody's playing it safe.
That's not the way to succeed in today's market.
And just like in tech, failure is a badge of honor, AS LONG AS YOU GET BACK IN THE GAME!
Identity, credibility are everything today. But too much media has sacrificed this, and the public knows.
Just like it knows when it sees something great, like "Adolescence."
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
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Monday, 17 March 2025
Re-Supertramp
When I moved from Detroit to LA in December '74 to launch a bold new album rock station, KWST (K-WEST) to compete with KLOS and KMET, we chose Supertramp "Crime of the Century" as one of the albums and bands we would hang our new hat on and pounded in Heavy + rotation throughout the year. If not the first, certainly the most powerful major market station to blow it out. We played it all, including my two favorites, the title track and "Rudy". A&M flipped and ran around the country spreading the story.
By March '75 Supertramp headlined Santa Monica Civic and delivered a state of the art, magical show that lives in my memory. The show was recorded for us to air. Somewhere there is this recording of the show, beautifully mixed by legend, Ken Scott. We were permitted to then play it a week later start to finish and then again a short time later. It's a truly extraordinary recording which deserves to be released if anyone can find it wherever A&M Records or band archives might be hidden away.
PS/ When the CD format debuted, Supertramp's "Crime of the Century" was my first purchase.
Joni Mitchell "Blue" the second.
Jim McKeon
_____________________________________
Bob, I caught the Crime of the Century tour at the Santa Monica Civic in 1975. Everybody played the Civic in those days. Everybody. The album came out of nowhere and I ran to the Wherehouse in Westwood to pick up the vinyl. Then I saw it was produced by Ken Scott and it gave this band I never heard of before immediate cred to this stoner kid immersed in fusion and prog. You are spot on that this music could never register in another era, but 50 years ago was wide open. It was crisp, it was fresh, it was smart. The Civic show was a meticulous note for note recreation of the record. They didn't stray and it wasn't adventurous, but it was sparkling.
Jim Brock
_____________________________________
.. top 10 shows of all time .. Miami Jai Alai Fronton .. 04/11/79 .. they blew everyone away .. !
Jordan Zucker
Infirst Promotion
_____________________________________
Back in 1981, my college friends and I would go to Stereo Sound in Chapel Hill on slow Fridays. If it was a slow sales day, our buddy who worked there would usher us into the high end room with the $800 amps, $1000 turntables, and the giant speakers. He would play side one of "Crime of the Century" at full blast.
Ever since then, "School" is my go-to song for audio testing any piece of sound equipment.
Steven Leventhal
_____________________________________
I saw them at Madison Square Garden for the Breakfast in America in 1979. They were magnificent live. One of my top five concerts of all time. A very underrated group.
Harlan Coben
_____________________________________
Yes, Roger still has it. And the songs still resonate.
Had the pleasure of working with them in their heyday and nearly broke "Bloody Well Right" Top 40 (flipped the stillborn A-side, "Dreamer") abetted by WB's David Cahn and the rest of the local Buffalo promo guys plus the inestimable Barry Lyons.
And "Crisis? What Crisis" is basically "Crime Pt. 2," with "Sister Moonshine" and "Another Man's Woman." Ken Scott, whoah!
Great stuff. Priceless memories.
Richard Pachter
_____________________________________
Saw Supertramp twice in Buffalo. Which was only fitting since the band was HUGE in Western NewYork. The 1978 show was better than the 1983. The visuals were excellent as well. When we went to the 1983 it was my last show in Buffalo as I was transferred to KC. While it to was also outstanding it was also also the show I believe Rodger announced that this was the last tour for him as he would be leaving band. There was a strange moment where no one knew how to react. Cheer him to show appreciation? Silence? Yell no?
I remember for a long time after many of us
were in the "He will be back probably just taking a break"
Jeff Appleton
_____________________________________
When i was in college in Washington, DC in the early 1970s, i worked for a concert promoter and one of our venues was a great little theater at Georgetown University called Gaston Hall. We did some great shows there including Bruce Springsteen (pre Born In The USA), National Lampoon's Lemmings with all of the early Saturday Night Live cast members, a great double bill of Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt, and many others. In 1975 we received a call from A&M Records telling us they had a new band they had just signed called Supertramp who had made a great album called Crime of the Century and they were going to put them on a tour where the label would 4 wall all the venues with no risk to the promoter. Over the next few weeks we received boxes of posters and other promotional materials to try and ensure a full house. Absolutely old school artist development record business which both A&M and Warner Brothers were most famous for in that era. The venue was full and the band performed Crime of the Century in its entirety and it was breathtaking. Even though he wasn't one of the two lead vocalists, sax player John Helliwell was definitely the focus of the show as he played with an electric lit jacket and did the majority of the talking. That night i became a lifelong Supertramp fan and years later got to know bassist Dougie Thomson when he was a consultant for Warner Chappel Music in Chicago. While they obviously had many hits that followed, i still feel that Crime of the Century is one of the best produced albums of the era and still holds up today.
Larry Mazer
_____________________________________
As a kid we Listened to super tramp on the way up to the ski hill. Whistler in April. Bloody well right. Goodbye stranger. On the way to a ski race. Sunshine. Spring skiing. Those memories seared in my head forever. My parents knew what to play!
James Rose
_____________________________________
Thank you for saying all this out loud, as it were. For some reason, as a senior in high school, I lived off this music. It had the rebellion and questioning you need at that age, along with the ability to feel sophisticated as you tried to figure out who you were. Roger and Rick are who I wanted to be. All the albums were easy to get lost in, but "Live" in Paris brought it all together nightly for me, hiding from my parents and sister in my room doing my homework.
Joe Fusco
_____________________________________
Thank you for sharing this. I was seventeen, in high school, when Crime of the Century came out. I still remember that opening with the harmonica wailing. It gives me chills even today. Growing up in Toronto school, was rote learning designed to get a job. I hated it. Music was my lifeline. I was alienated too as I didn't fit into the right box. I saw Supertramp live in 1977 when they were at the peak of their career. Can't say I remember much of it, but this video brought every note and lyric back to me.
Elbows Out, Canada Strong
Ellen Worling
_____________________________________
I was a bíg Supertramp fan back in the day, but never catch them in a live concert.
But some 20 years ago I saw Roger playing a small theater in Buenos Aires, him alone with a local sax player.
He blew my mind, one of the best concerts I've ever been to.
Today my 22 y.o. son listens Supertramp in awe. It seems we're a family of alienated music fans indeed.
Thanks for the memories.
Aldo Blardone
_____________________________________
Supertramp's virtuosity still thrills me all these decades later.
Tom Guarriello
_____________________________________
Crime of the Century is criminally underrated because it was too prog for wide commercial acceptance, yet too commercial for prog. Fifty-plus years later, the concert I saw in support of Crime remains one of the best shows I've ever seen. And I'll die on the hill that while not as vaunted as Fleetwood and McVie, Supertramp's rhythm section of Bob Siebenberg on drums and Dougie Thomson on bass was as rock-solid as any in the business. By Breakfast in America, Supertramp had ditched most of the prog trappings that made Crime of the Century so special and were merely a great commercial rock band.
Chris White
_____________________________________
Nice reminder of how wonderful Supertramp was. They created unique songs with interesting lyrics. Roger Hodgson toured quite a bit prior to Covid, and my wife and I were lucky to see him multiple times in small venues. His voice was still in excellent form, and he is one of the best at connecting with his audience. To me, he was the driving force behind the music of Supertramp.
I will never understand why this band is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Absurd!
Don Weis
_____________________________________
Supertramp not ever being nominated tor the Hall of Fame is a Mystery????
Mike McGinley
_____________________________________
My family just love Supertramp. My late father was the best man at their band managers, Charlie Prevost, 2nd wedding back in Southern Ontario back in the early 70's. Charlie was an AR guy for A & M records and I remember as a snot nosed kid we heard an early sampling of their music on an old reel to reel tape player. He told my father that he wanted to or was offered to manage the band and he ended up doing exactly that. I had the privilege of seeing the Crisis What Crisis tour when the played at the fabulous Queen Elizabeth Theater in Vancouver BC when I was about 12 years old with both my parents. Amazing show where they played both albums seamlessly intertwined. It still brings a tear to my eye remembering the magic, joy and how their music really impacted my life. To this day I am forever thankful that my father, along with people like Mr. Prevost, taught me about what real and meaningful music is all about. Years later both my parents went to a Summer Sunday show at the old Empire stadium by the PNE fair grounds in Burnaby BC for the Breakfast in America tour as guest of Charlies and it was shortly after that he left as their manager and Roger Hodgson quit the band. The rest, as we know, is now history.
Thanks for sharing your story and sending us a reminders of the greats in a time where music was had a soul and not cold, technical and digital as we know today.
Mission Mike
_____________________________________
I grew up in Fresno. To pay for my drone-flying and skiing habits, I got a paper route in 1969.
A guy on my route lived with his mother in a triplex apartment. Unlike my friends and I, this older kid had really long hair. When I went to collect, he would often answer the door. These were bohemian types, which I never saw as a kid.
A couple of years later, music migrated to KFIG, and this kid was now a DJ on it. The top DJ in Fresno – Ray Appleton. He also had a band that opened for Montrose, Slade, etc. in town.
A few years after that, Crime of the Century came out. I'm pretty sure it was Ray that barricaded himself in the studio and played it repeatedly for a day, letting his bosses' calls to shut it down ring off the hook. This generated a ton of good PR in California.
The band hired him as a road manager and promoter, so effective was he at getting this band widely known and played, he left town for a while to work for them.
I left Fresno in 1976, but I heard that when Supertramp band members would come to town, he would be invited to play with them. It's often said – no Fresno, no Supertramp success. Who knows?
BTW, Ray has been a right-wing talk show host for decades. MAGA these days, etc. But one of those that seems to still have hippie ethics.
Gary Lang
_____________________________________
I saw Supertramp at the Technical High School in Ottawa (about a 300 cap pocket theatre) on the Crime of the Century tour in the spring of 1975. I'd owned the album since the previous fall when it came out and listened to it incessantly. I even hand-painted the cover on t-shirts and sold dozen of them to friends. Sic months or so later, the album had hit in Canada and I saw them again, this time at the city's largest venue, the Civic Centre with about 13,000 other people. They were fantastic live.
Also managed to see Split Enz in a smallish venue in Toronto on the tour for the Dyzrythmia album in 1979 and a couple more times when they opened for Tom Petty's Damn The Torpedoes tour when True Colours was a hit.They gave Petty a run for his money. Neil. And Tim Finn were a great team until young Neil emerged as obviously the best singer and songwriter in the group.
I was working for MuchMusic in the mid 80s when Neil's new band, Crowded House, found themselves stuck in Toronto when Bruce Hornsby, who they were opening for at the time, got sick and had to postpone some shows. The band came to the station every day just to hang around because they had nothing to do. Much was a live service and one day we just just gave drummer Paul Hester a microphone and had a cameraman follow him as he roamed the building, talking to anyone and everyone. One of the funniest days of television in our history I'd say. A more personable, talented bunch of guys as you'd ever care to meet.
Canada loved and embraced all those bands.
Mike Campbell
_____________________________________
Growing up in Montreal in the 70's, Supertramp, Genesis and Styx were my salvation.
Every week my best pal Micheal Korman would escape to his basement and play that Supertramp record over and over at the highest possible volume in his really superior Technics stereo system and Boston speakers.
We didn't know anything about music but somehow we appreciated the complex orchestration and brilliant layering of vocals and music. The record spoke to us and took us somewhere else than a faux wood paneled office.
I was fortunate that my parents had a very solid and eclectic record collection so I appreciated everything from Latin to jazz but somehow Supertramp was something completely different, elevated rock music as brilliant as opera and defined as classical music.
Barry Avrich
_____________________________________
Great read, Bob. So many of Supertramp's songs are part of the soundtrack to my life. I remember when MTV got behind them in 1985 after Hodgson left, a full special for Brother Where You Bound in a longform video with sax player John Helliwell. 'Cannonball" was an MTV exclusive, heavy rotation, followed by the superior "Better Days", their political statement at the time (still holds up), but this effort should have been poured into Hodgson's solo album the year prior. "Had A Dream (Sleeping With The Enemy)" quietly entered medium rotation, but the follow up "In Jeopardy" was relegated to "request" status on Nickelodeon's Nick Rocks, a program we were led to believe was youngsters writing in requesting such good music. On occasion, Sirius plays tracks from both of these albums, but I credit KCDX 103 out of Phoenix for having "In Jeopardy" as a cut in rotation as recent as 2015.
Kevin Andrusia
_____________________________________
Thank you for sharing, that is a remarkable performance...almost too good!
Supertramp songs were always packed with ironic, insightful lyrics that ring as true today as they did then -- "The Logical Song", "Bloody Well Right", "Breakfast in America", "Take the Long Way Home" and more. While all very agreeable FM radio sounds, they contained veiled critiques of class, culture and government rule that were (and remain) spot on.
Like Meat Loaf, Gerry Rafferty and many more, I discovered Supertramp through my sister's 8-tracks when I was a kid. So I'll admit there is a sentimental resonance in my Supertramp journey, but the lyrics and varied song compositions are unique and meaningful. "Take the Long Way Home" speaks to every broken marriage from "Mad Men" to "American Beauty" and beyond.
David Toner
_____________________________________
Long time fan of Supertramp from when "Crime of the Century" was released in 1974 during my senior year at the University of Vermont. The entire album was put into heavy rotation by the Live Earl Jive on CHOM-FM, Montreal's legendary rock music station that we picked up a hundred miles to the south in Burlington.
In June 1977, Supertramp played a concert at Burlington's Memorial Auditorium, a 2,500-seat venue that was more suited for basketball and wrestling than music. An unruly concert a few months prior by Styx already had the mayor and city council contemplating a ban on rock concerts. The same promoters, not taking the hint, once again elected to go with general admission tickets. As expected, there was a large surge forward when the doors were about to open. No one was hurt, but many without tickets attempted to gain access thru the windows. The mayor, Gordon Paquette, along with the police chief and fire marshal were called away from the city's annual retirement dinner and upon inspecting the scene they concluded that the venue had been oversold by 1,000 tickets, which the local promoter, Alan Abair, vehemently denied. Wasting no time, the city's Finance Board banned rock concerts from the auditorium a few days later.
A couple footnotes. Four years later, in March 1981, Bernie Sanders defeated Paquette, the still incumbent mayor, by ten votes in an upset no one saw coming. Rock music was subsequently restored to the Auditorium and the City of Burlington's Youth Office, which Bernie started, opened a club called 242 Main in the building's basement. With programming driven by teens, it became America's longest-running all-ages punk rock venue, and a sanctuary anchored in the hearts of thousands. Unfortunately, in 2016, after decades of deferred maintenance and neglect, the city closed the doors to the auditorium and 242 Main, declaring the structure too unsafe to occupy. Redevelopment plans have since come and gone without anything yet moving forward.
Second footnote: The day after the Supertramp show, Susan Green, the Burlington Free Press' music critic, interviewed Hodgson and asked him about the very lines from "School" that you excerpted. He thought for a moment and then replied, "There are two different types of revolutionary Iyrics. One that just incites listeners to stand up and start shouting 'This is wrong. This is wrong.' And one that suggests they become aware of what's really happening and change themselves and bring about a change. The world needs that now," he said.
That was 48 years ago. Hodgson's words still resonate today.
Chico Lager
I remember years ago reading an interview with Paul McCartney where he was asked who he was listening to, and he said Supertramp. I thought, what? That band? Aren't they a little fluffy? Then he said his favorite song of that year was "The Logical Song". So this spurred me to quickly give them a deeper and broader listen, and yes, they are great. I didn't catch it at first. What's the theme of "Logical", what's the main question? "Please tell me who I am". So, to your point, they asked, they thought, they considered how to fit, what to do about it. You described it all perfectly.
Preston Bealle
_____________________________________
Two of my favourite bands and 'Message' and 'Hide' are my all time favourites from each.
Supertramp used to have their 'choir', aka their roadies, come onstage and sing the final part refrain "So watcha gonna"…etc, onstage after the epic HIYS live performances, and it was always a hoot!
I remember the 2000 world NYE concerts and watching to see if any would be disrupted by the Y2K bug, the first was from the first nation to ring in the new millenium, New Zealand and the band was Split Enz doing 'Message' with the line 'no more new year's resolutions, it's more than that', the soon to shut down band were in fine form and Neil Finn was on song, after that Y2K trepidations dissolved and good cheer was here, if for a millisecond!
Tony Barnes
_____________________________________
As I wrote in a review I just did of the expanded, 3LP edition of Supertramp's 1980 live album Paris, I probably listened to the Supertramp records in my collection growing up in the late '70s as much as, if not more than, those I had by Led Zeppelin and Yes. And I had 'em all -- even Supertramp's 1970 self-titled "Flowerhead" debut LP, with great lost songs like "Surely," "It's a Long Road," "Aubade (and I am not like other birds of prey)," and "Try Again." Supertramp spoke directly to me for all the reasons you cited -- in essence, they let you know that you -- the internalized individual with the searching/questioning the status quo mind -- was not alone, even if it felt that way sometimes. Crime of the Century remains one of my Top 10 albums, well, ever, and Breakfast in America continues to resonate (though its production values were a tad slicker by then). And "Fool's Overture," the big 11-minute epic that closed out 1977's Even in the Quietest Moments..., was an amazing history lesson of postwar Britain -- listening to it now evokes that gnawing sense of "the more things change" that we're all going through today.
1982's ...famous last words... (don't forget those double ellipses!) was a bit of a letdown, to say the least, but Hodgson's 1984 solo album In the Eye of the Storm remains a favorite (the title track especially!), and I also love the Davies-led Supertramp's 1985 LP Brother Where You Bound, with that epic 16-and-a-half-minute title track and the sniping hit "Cannonball."
As an inveterate lover of B-sides, I knew every word of "Just Another Nervous Wreck," the Rick Davies-penned album cut that backed Roger Hodgson's "The Logical Song." Speaking of "The Logical Song," kids of that era, like me, absolutely loved that they included the double-pumped Mattel Electronics' Electronic Football "punting" sound effect -- which appears right after Hodgson stutter-sings the word "digital" -- something any handheld gameplayer of that age/era knew instantly. (Still got mine, of course, even if I haven't played it in decades.)
I've seen Hodgson live twice (interviewed him twice too -- a lovely and thoughtful chap!) and his voice remains as sound and inspiring as ever. Saw the Davies-led Supertramp once, at the Beacon in NYC for their Slow Motion tour in September 2002, and was glad I did so that I could hear him sing many of his songs from their repertoire. Bloody well right, indeed.
I'll leave you with these key lines from a track on Side 2 of Crime of the Century: "If everyone was listening, you know / There'd be a chance that we could save the show..."
Mike Mettler
Editor, Analog Planet
_____________________________________
First concert ever! Back in mid-70's or so. Hide in You Shell always brought me to tears. Even in the Quietest Moments was another great "deep cut" (even as the title song). Another great one about alienation by Roger was Sister Moonshine from Crisis What Crisis ("I'm a stranger to everyone"). It got a fair amount of FM airplay.
I do think the band's finest moment was Bloody Well Right from Crime. So many styles, and the buildup is great. I can listen to that song on loop.
Rick and Roger came to the band from such different tastes (Rick blues, Roger more pop), but they made it work. And sadly, they had the typical nasty band breakup involving animus and multiple lawsuits. They weren't allowed to touch each other's songs in performances. I'm not sure if they ever mended fences but I hope so.
Best,
Mitchell Brook
_____________________________________
"How Supertramp's $100 Million Album DESTROYED The Band"
https://youtu.be/iiS5J2J-QF0?si=3YXH5BO0nAm8q_-d
Mitchell Sussman
_____________________________________
Howdy Bob,
Coincidentally, Breakfast In America was released on this day (March 16) in 1979.
Your friend and mine,
West Anthony.
_____________________________________
You recent missive about the band brought back a memory. In 1977/78 we were touring Europe including stops in Portugal and Spain. During a press session in Madrid, the local press were on Roger's case about what the Crime of the century was. They were convinced it was about the late Franco and nothing we said could convince them otherwise. We were the first major UK band to play Spain after Franco died. It was wild, really wild at those gigs.
Charly Prevost
Mismanagement
By March '75 Supertramp headlined Santa Monica Civic and delivered a state of the art, magical show that lives in my memory. The show was recorded for us to air. Somewhere there is this recording of the show, beautifully mixed by legend, Ken Scott. We were permitted to then play it a week later start to finish and then again a short time later. It's a truly extraordinary recording which deserves to be released if anyone can find it wherever A&M Records or band archives might be hidden away.
PS/ When the CD format debuted, Supertramp's "Crime of the Century" was my first purchase.
Joni Mitchell "Blue" the second.
Jim McKeon
_____________________________________
Bob, I caught the Crime of the Century tour at the Santa Monica Civic in 1975. Everybody played the Civic in those days. Everybody. The album came out of nowhere and I ran to the Wherehouse in Westwood to pick up the vinyl. Then I saw it was produced by Ken Scott and it gave this band I never heard of before immediate cred to this stoner kid immersed in fusion and prog. You are spot on that this music could never register in another era, but 50 years ago was wide open. It was crisp, it was fresh, it was smart. The Civic show was a meticulous note for note recreation of the record. They didn't stray and it wasn't adventurous, but it was sparkling.
Jim Brock
_____________________________________
.. top 10 shows of all time .. Miami Jai Alai Fronton .. 04/11/79 .. they blew everyone away .. !
Jordan Zucker
Infirst Promotion
_____________________________________
Back in 1981, my college friends and I would go to Stereo Sound in Chapel Hill on slow Fridays. If it was a slow sales day, our buddy who worked there would usher us into the high end room with the $800 amps, $1000 turntables, and the giant speakers. He would play side one of "Crime of the Century" at full blast.
Ever since then, "School" is my go-to song for audio testing any piece of sound equipment.
Steven Leventhal
_____________________________________
I saw them at Madison Square Garden for the Breakfast in America in 1979. They were magnificent live. One of my top five concerts of all time. A very underrated group.
Harlan Coben
_____________________________________
Yes, Roger still has it. And the songs still resonate.
Had the pleasure of working with them in their heyday and nearly broke "Bloody Well Right" Top 40 (flipped the stillborn A-side, "Dreamer") abetted by WB's David Cahn and the rest of the local Buffalo promo guys plus the inestimable Barry Lyons.
And "Crisis? What Crisis" is basically "Crime Pt. 2," with "Sister Moonshine" and "Another Man's Woman." Ken Scott, whoah!
Great stuff. Priceless memories.
Richard Pachter
_____________________________________
Saw Supertramp twice in Buffalo. Which was only fitting since the band was HUGE in Western NewYork. The 1978 show was better than the 1983. The visuals were excellent as well. When we went to the 1983 it was my last show in Buffalo as I was transferred to KC. While it to was also outstanding it was also also the show I believe Rodger announced that this was the last tour for him as he would be leaving band. There was a strange moment where no one knew how to react. Cheer him to show appreciation? Silence? Yell no?
I remember for a long time after many of us
were in the "He will be back probably just taking a break"
Jeff Appleton
_____________________________________
When i was in college in Washington, DC in the early 1970s, i worked for a concert promoter and one of our venues was a great little theater at Georgetown University called Gaston Hall. We did some great shows there including Bruce Springsteen (pre Born In The USA), National Lampoon's Lemmings with all of the early Saturday Night Live cast members, a great double bill of Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt, and many others. In 1975 we received a call from A&M Records telling us they had a new band they had just signed called Supertramp who had made a great album called Crime of the Century and they were going to put them on a tour where the label would 4 wall all the venues with no risk to the promoter. Over the next few weeks we received boxes of posters and other promotional materials to try and ensure a full house. Absolutely old school artist development record business which both A&M and Warner Brothers were most famous for in that era. The venue was full and the band performed Crime of the Century in its entirety and it was breathtaking. Even though he wasn't one of the two lead vocalists, sax player John Helliwell was definitely the focus of the show as he played with an electric lit jacket and did the majority of the talking. That night i became a lifelong Supertramp fan and years later got to know bassist Dougie Thomson when he was a consultant for Warner Chappel Music in Chicago. While they obviously had many hits that followed, i still feel that Crime of the Century is one of the best produced albums of the era and still holds up today.
Larry Mazer
_____________________________________
As a kid we Listened to super tramp on the way up to the ski hill. Whistler in April. Bloody well right. Goodbye stranger. On the way to a ski race. Sunshine. Spring skiing. Those memories seared in my head forever. My parents knew what to play!
James Rose
_____________________________________
Thank you for saying all this out loud, as it were. For some reason, as a senior in high school, I lived off this music. It had the rebellion and questioning you need at that age, along with the ability to feel sophisticated as you tried to figure out who you were. Roger and Rick are who I wanted to be. All the albums were easy to get lost in, but "Live" in Paris brought it all together nightly for me, hiding from my parents and sister in my room doing my homework.
Joe Fusco
_____________________________________
Thank you for sharing this. I was seventeen, in high school, when Crime of the Century came out. I still remember that opening with the harmonica wailing. It gives me chills even today. Growing up in Toronto school, was rote learning designed to get a job. I hated it. Music was my lifeline. I was alienated too as I didn't fit into the right box. I saw Supertramp live in 1977 when they were at the peak of their career. Can't say I remember much of it, but this video brought every note and lyric back to me.
Elbows Out, Canada Strong
Ellen Worling
_____________________________________
I was a bíg Supertramp fan back in the day, but never catch them in a live concert.
But some 20 years ago I saw Roger playing a small theater in Buenos Aires, him alone with a local sax player.
He blew my mind, one of the best concerts I've ever been to.
Today my 22 y.o. son listens Supertramp in awe. It seems we're a family of alienated music fans indeed.
Thanks for the memories.
Aldo Blardone
_____________________________________
Supertramp's virtuosity still thrills me all these decades later.
Tom Guarriello
_____________________________________
Crime of the Century is criminally underrated because it was too prog for wide commercial acceptance, yet too commercial for prog. Fifty-plus years later, the concert I saw in support of Crime remains one of the best shows I've ever seen. And I'll die on the hill that while not as vaunted as Fleetwood and McVie, Supertramp's rhythm section of Bob Siebenberg on drums and Dougie Thomson on bass was as rock-solid as any in the business. By Breakfast in America, Supertramp had ditched most of the prog trappings that made Crime of the Century so special and were merely a great commercial rock band.
Chris White
_____________________________________
Nice reminder of how wonderful Supertramp was. They created unique songs with interesting lyrics. Roger Hodgson toured quite a bit prior to Covid, and my wife and I were lucky to see him multiple times in small venues. His voice was still in excellent form, and he is one of the best at connecting with his audience. To me, he was the driving force behind the music of Supertramp.
I will never understand why this band is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Absurd!
Don Weis
_____________________________________
Supertramp not ever being nominated tor the Hall of Fame is a Mystery????
Mike McGinley
_____________________________________
My family just love Supertramp. My late father was the best man at their band managers, Charlie Prevost, 2nd wedding back in Southern Ontario back in the early 70's. Charlie was an AR guy for A & M records and I remember as a snot nosed kid we heard an early sampling of their music on an old reel to reel tape player. He told my father that he wanted to or was offered to manage the band and he ended up doing exactly that. I had the privilege of seeing the Crisis What Crisis tour when the played at the fabulous Queen Elizabeth Theater in Vancouver BC when I was about 12 years old with both my parents. Amazing show where they played both albums seamlessly intertwined. It still brings a tear to my eye remembering the magic, joy and how their music really impacted my life. To this day I am forever thankful that my father, along with people like Mr. Prevost, taught me about what real and meaningful music is all about. Years later both my parents went to a Summer Sunday show at the old Empire stadium by the PNE fair grounds in Burnaby BC for the Breakfast in America tour as guest of Charlies and it was shortly after that he left as their manager and Roger Hodgson quit the band. The rest, as we know, is now history.
Thanks for sharing your story and sending us a reminders of the greats in a time where music was had a soul and not cold, technical and digital as we know today.
Mission Mike
_____________________________________
I grew up in Fresno. To pay for my drone-flying and skiing habits, I got a paper route in 1969.
A guy on my route lived with his mother in a triplex apartment. Unlike my friends and I, this older kid had really long hair. When I went to collect, he would often answer the door. These were bohemian types, which I never saw as a kid.
A couple of years later, music migrated to KFIG, and this kid was now a DJ on it. The top DJ in Fresno – Ray Appleton. He also had a band that opened for Montrose, Slade, etc. in town.
A few years after that, Crime of the Century came out. I'm pretty sure it was Ray that barricaded himself in the studio and played it repeatedly for a day, letting his bosses' calls to shut it down ring off the hook. This generated a ton of good PR in California.
The band hired him as a road manager and promoter, so effective was he at getting this band widely known and played, he left town for a while to work for them.
I left Fresno in 1976, but I heard that when Supertramp band members would come to town, he would be invited to play with them. It's often said – no Fresno, no Supertramp success. Who knows?
BTW, Ray has been a right-wing talk show host for decades. MAGA these days, etc. But one of those that seems to still have hippie ethics.
Gary Lang
_____________________________________
I saw Supertramp at the Technical High School in Ottawa (about a 300 cap pocket theatre) on the Crime of the Century tour in the spring of 1975. I'd owned the album since the previous fall when it came out and listened to it incessantly. I even hand-painted the cover on t-shirts and sold dozen of them to friends. Sic months or so later, the album had hit in Canada and I saw them again, this time at the city's largest venue, the Civic Centre with about 13,000 other people. They were fantastic live.
Also managed to see Split Enz in a smallish venue in Toronto on the tour for the Dyzrythmia album in 1979 and a couple more times when they opened for Tom Petty's Damn The Torpedoes tour when True Colours was a hit.They gave Petty a run for his money. Neil. And Tim Finn were a great team until young Neil emerged as obviously the best singer and songwriter in the group.
I was working for MuchMusic in the mid 80s when Neil's new band, Crowded House, found themselves stuck in Toronto when Bruce Hornsby, who they were opening for at the time, got sick and had to postpone some shows. The band came to the station every day just to hang around because they had nothing to do. Much was a live service and one day we just just gave drummer Paul Hester a microphone and had a cameraman follow him as he roamed the building, talking to anyone and everyone. One of the funniest days of television in our history I'd say. A more personable, talented bunch of guys as you'd ever care to meet.
Canada loved and embraced all those bands.
Mike Campbell
_____________________________________
Growing up in Montreal in the 70's, Supertramp, Genesis and Styx were my salvation.
Every week my best pal Micheal Korman would escape to his basement and play that Supertramp record over and over at the highest possible volume in his really superior Technics stereo system and Boston speakers.
We didn't know anything about music but somehow we appreciated the complex orchestration and brilliant layering of vocals and music. The record spoke to us and took us somewhere else than a faux wood paneled office.
I was fortunate that my parents had a very solid and eclectic record collection so I appreciated everything from Latin to jazz but somehow Supertramp was something completely different, elevated rock music as brilliant as opera and defined as classical music.
Barry Avrich
_____________________________________
Great read, Bob. So many of Supertramp's songs are part of the soundtrack to my life. I remember when MTV got behind them in 1985 after Hodgson left, a full special for Brother Where You Bound in a longform video with sax player John Helliwell. 'Cannonball" was an MTV exclusive, heavy rotation, followed by the superior "Better Days", their political statement at the time (still holds up), but this effort should have been poured into Hodgson's solo album the year prior. "Had A Dream (Sleeping With The Enemy)" quietly entered medium rotation, but the follow up "In Jeopardy" was relegated to "request" status on Nickelodeon's Nick Rocks, a program we were led to believe was youngsters writing in requesting such good music. On occasion, Sirius plays tracks from both of these albums, but I credit KCDX 103 out of Phoenix for having "In Jeopardy" as a cut in rotation as recent as 2015.
Kevin Andrusia
_____________________________________
Thank you for sharing, that is a remarkable performance...almost too good!
Supertramp songs were always packed with ironic, insightful lyrics that ring as true today as they did then -- "The Logical Song", "Bloody Well Right", "Breakfast in America", "Take the Long Way Home" and more. While all very agreeable FM radio sounds, they contained veiled critiques of class, culture and government rule that were (and remain) spot on.
Like Meat Loaf, Gerry Rafferty and many more, I discovered Supertramp through my sister's 8-tracks when I was a kid. So I'll admit there is a sentimental resonance in my Supertramp journey, but the lyrics and varied song compositions are unique and meaningful. "Take the Long Way Home" speaks to every broken marriage from "Mad Men" to "American Beauty" and beyond.
David Toner
_____________________________________
Long time fan of Supertramp from when "Crime of the Century" was released in 1974 during my senior year at the University of Vermont. The entire album was put into heavy rotation by the Live Earl Jive on CHOM-FM, Montreal's legendary rock music station that we picked up a hundred miles to the south in Burlington.
In June 1977, Supertramp played a concert at Burlington's Memorial Auditorium, a 2,500-seat venue that was more suited for basketball and wrestling than music. An unruly concert a few months prior by Styx already had the mayor and city council contemplating a ban on rock concerts. The same promoters, not taking the hint, once again elected to go with general admission tickets. As expected, there was a large surge forward when the doors were about to open. No one was hurt, but many without tickets attempted to gain access thru the windows. The mayor, Gordon Paquette, along with the police chief and fire marshal were called away from the city's annual retirement dinner and upon inspecting the scene they concluded that the venue had been oversold by 1,000 tickets, which the local promoter, Alan Abair, vehemently denied. Wasting no time, the city's Finance Board banned rock concerts from the auditorium a few days later.
A couple footnotes. Four years later, in March 1981, Bernie Sanders defeated Paquette, the still incumbent mayor, by ten votes in an upset no one saw coming. Rock music was subsequently restored to the Auditorium and the City of Burlington's Youth Office, which Bernie started, opened a club called 242 Main in the building's basement. With programming driven by teens, it became America's longest-running all-ages punk rock venue, and a sanctuary anchored in the hearts of thousands. Unfortunately, in 2016, after decades of deferred maintenance and neglect, the city closed the doors to the auditorium and 242 Main, declaring the structure too unsafe to occupy. Redevelopment plans have since come and gone without anything yet moving forward.
Second footnote: The day after the Supertramp show, Susan Green, the Burlington Free Press' music critic, interviewed Hodgson and asked him about the very lines from "School" that you excerpted. He thought for a moment and then replied, "There are two different types of revolutionary Iyrics. One that just incites listeners to stand up and start shouting 'This is wrong. This is wrong.' And one that suggests they become aware of what's really happening and change themselves and bring about a change. The world needs that now," he said.
That was 48 years ago. Hodgson's words still resonate today.
Chico Lager
I remember years ago reading an interview with Paul McCartney where he was asked who he was listening to, and he said Supertramp. I thought, what? That band? Aren't they a little fluffy? Then he said his favorite song of that year was "The Logical Song". So this spurred me to quickly give them a deeper and broader listen, and yes, they are great. I didn't catch it at first. What's the theme of "Logical", what's the main question? "Please tell me who I am". So, to your point, they asked, they thought, they considered how to fit, what to do about it. You described it all perfectly.
Preston Bealle
_____________________________________
Two of my favourite bands and 'Message' and 'Hide' are my all time favourites from each.
Supertramp used to have their 'choir', aka their roadies, come onstage and sing the final part refrain "So watcha gonna"…etc, onstage after the epic HIYS live performances, and it was always a hoot!
I remember the 2000 world NYE concerts and watching to see if any would be disrupted by the Y2K bug, the first was from the first nation to ring in the new millenium, New Zealand and the band was Split Enz doing 'Message' with the line 'no more new year's resolutions, it's more than that', the soon to shut down band were in fine form and Neil Finn was on song, after that Y2K trepidations dissolved and good cheer was here, if for a millisecond!
Tony Barnes
_____________________________________
As I wrote in a review I just did of the expanded, 3LP edition of Supertramp's 1980 live album Paris, I probably listened to the Supertramp records in my collection growing up in the late '70s as much as, if not more than, those I had by Led Zeppelin and Yes. And I had 'em all -- even Supertramp's 1970 self-titled "Flowerhead" debut LP, with great lost songs like "Surely," "It's a Long Road," "Aubade (and I am not like other birds of prey)," and "Try Again." Supertramp spoke directly to me for all the reasons you cited -- in essence, they let you know that you -- the internalized individual with the searching/questioning the status quo mind -- was not alone, even if it felt that way sometimes. Crime of the Century remains one of my Top 10 albums, well, ever, and Breakfast in America continues to resonate (though its production values were a tad slicker by then). And "Fool's Overture," the big 11-minute epic that closed out 1977's Even in the Quietest Moments..., was an amazing history lesson of postwar Britain -- listening to it now evokes that gnawing sense of "the more things change" that we're all going through today.
1982's ...famous last words... (don't forget those double ellipses!) was a bit of a letdown, to say the least, but Hodgson's 1984 solo album In the Eye of the Storm remains a favorite (the title track especially!), and I also love the Davies-led Supertramp's 1985 LP Brother Where You Bound, with that epic 16-and-a-half-minute title track and the sniping hit "Cannonball."
As an inveterate lover of B-sides, I knew every word of "Just Another Nervous Wreck," the Rick Davies-penned album cut that backed Roger Hodgson's "The Logical Song." Speaking of "The Logical Song," kids of that era, like me, absolutely loved that they included the double-pumped Mattel Electronics' Electronic Football "punting" sound effect -- which appears right after Hodgson stutter-sings the word "digital" -- something any handheld gameplayer of that age/era knew instantly. (Still got mine, of course, even if I haven't played it in decades.)
I've seen Hodgson live twice (interviewed him twice too -- a lovely and thoughtful chap!) and his voice remains as sound and inspiring as ever. Saw the Davies-led Supertramp once, at the Beacon in NYC for their Slow Motion tour in September 2002, and was glad I did so that I could hear him sing many of his songs from their repertoire. Bloody well right, indeed.
I'll leave you with these key lines from a track on Side 2 of Crime of the Century: "If everyone was listening, you know / There'd be a chance that we could save the show..."
Mike Mettler
Editor, Analog Planet
_____________________________________
First concert ever! Back in mid-70's or so. Hide in You Shell always brought me to tears. Even in the Quietest Moments was another great "deep cut" (even as the title song). Another great one about alienation by Roger was Sister Moonshine from Crisis What Crisis ("I'm a stranger to everyone"). It got a fair amount of FM airplay.
I do think the band's finest moment was Bloody Well Right from Crime. So many styles, and the buildup is great. I can listen to that song on loop.
Rick and Roger came to the band from such different tastes (Rick blues, Roger more pop), but they made it work. And sadly, they had the typical nasty band breakup involving animus and multiple lawsuits. They weren't allowed to touch each other's songs in performances. I'm not sure if they ever mended fences but I hope so.
Best,
Mitchell Brook
_____________________________________
"How Supertramp's $100 Million Album DESTROYED The Band"
https://youtu.be/iiS5J2J-QF0?si=3YXH5BO0nAm8q_-d
Mitchell Sussman
_____________________________________
Howdy Bob,
Coincidentally, Breakfast In America was released on this day (March 16) in 1979.
Your friend and mine,
West Anthony.
_____________________________________
You recent missive about the band brought back a memory. In 1977/78 we were touring Europe including stops in Portugal and Spain. During a press session in Madrid, the local press were on Roger's case about what the Crime of the century was. They were convinced it was about the late Franco and nothing we said could convince them otherwise. We were the first major UK band to play Spain after Franco died. It was wild, really wild at those gigs.
Charly Prevost
Mismanagement
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Sunday, 16 March 2025
Take The Long Way Home
https://www.tiktok.com/@franfloyd/video/7473656464880438551?_r=1&_t=ZT-8uk8PLz9ZhD
I was served this up on TikTok.
I've got a special place in my heart for "Take the Long Way Home" because that's the song I sang in my head after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. This was when California was still hip and natural disasters were not everyday events. Still...unless you've experienced an earthquake you don't really get it. It's so unnatural. I guess because it is natural. You count on terra firma being...firm. And when it's not, your body is not prepared for it.
Anyway, the freeway collapsed, ergo "Take the Long Way Home."
Now I never saw Supertramp in their heyday, even though I was a huge fan. Actually, "Breakfast in America" was the last hurrah. The audience finally caught up with the band, then again the band compromised too...gave up most of the alienation.
That's what made "Crime of the Century" so fantastic. You could resonate with it.
Of course, of course, we can all resonate with love songs, either dreamy or breakup. But the human condition... Today people will testify they're depressed, but not that they're alienated, that's taboo. You've got your tribe. But in reality, you may not. Certainly not in the sixties and seventies, before money was everything and income inequality was rampant.
I'm an alienated f*ck. Have been my entire life. I feel...just outside of life. I'm here, but my mind is elsewhere. Not all the time, but a lot of the time. It seems that everybody else is on a different wavelength, getting with the program, hopping through the steps, investing in a car, a spouse, a house, a retirement account... Where are my people, who are questioning everything?
In a song.
So I'm watching this performance of "Take the Long Way Home" and it's so perfect, I cannot believe it. First and foremost, Roger Hodgson still has his pipes, unlike many of the singers of his vintage. But all the flourishes in the original, they're reproduced, with an orchestra.
These are some of my favorite finds. One of my Napster gems was Neil Finn singing "Message to My Girl" with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. You can see it on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-6Ta_8T7QM
"No more empty self-possession
Visions swept under the mat
It's no New Year's resolution
It's more than that"
"Message to My Girl" comes from the last real Split Enz album, before Tim Finn left. And I'd like to say "Conflicting Emotions" is as good as "True Colours," the band's best work, or even "Waiata," but it's not.
However, it's got "Message to My Girl."
He's infatuated, but he's having a hard time crossing the gap, telling his object of affection, but finally...
"I can't spend the rest of my life
Buried in the sand"
These are the moments of every alienated, pessimistic life. You realize that you've got to stop listening to your records and take a risk.
That Neil Finn with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra track/video was recorded in 1996, when was this iteration of "Take the Long Way Home" recorded?
Well, when the camera pulls back, you can see the words "Jazz Open Stuttgart," so I Googled and it came right up.
2013.
Okay, okay... I remember the early days of YouTube, when we'd find amazing things and send them to each other. But that era faded, just like the early days of e-mail when you forwarded jokes.
So Google told me the full show was on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBUCNKQyTIQ
So I clicked and...
I went through the track listing and the second song was "School."
"Don't do this and don't do that
What are they trying to do? (Make a good boy of you)
And do they know where it's at?
But don't criticize, they're old and wise
Do as they tell you to, don't want the devil to
Come and put out your eyes"
That's what they teach you in school, to obey the rules. And if you continue to go to school, matriculate at a college, you ultimately realize it's all...
B.S.
The puffed up professors. The grinding students. All for what? A grade that will mean nothing in your future life? Maybe you can trade in your grades for a good graduate school, or a job, but at some point you're going to wake up and realize none of this make sense. Or you're going to get fired and confront reality.
Which is why baby boomers can't understand the techies. You dropped out of college, WHAT DIDYOUR PARENTS SAY?
The concert also includes "Hide in Your Shell," the second longest song from "Crime of the Century," it's got multiple movements, it's a tour-de-force.
"But what you see is just illusion
(What you see is just illusion)
You're surrounded by confusion
(You're surrounded by confusion)
Saying life's begun to cheat you
Friends are out to beat you
Grab on to what you can scramble for"
Now ultimately "Hide in Your Shell" is akin to "Message to My Girl," a hand extended to bring you into the world of love.
However...
"Crime of the Century" closes with the title track.
"Now they're planning the crime of the century
Well what would it be?
Read all about their schemes and adventuring
Yes it's well worth the fee
So roll up and see
As they rape the universe
How they've gone from bad to worse"
Us versus them. That's the way we saw it back then. To sell out was anathema. Now selling out is the goal, that's the backbone of social media influencers. Screw credibility, it's money I want!
But the acts of yore left money on the table. Not everything felt right.
Not anymore.
Now "Crime of the Century" is not a part of the Stuttgart show, it was sung by Rick Davies.
"Crisis? What Crisis?" followed "Crime of the Century," it was for fans only.
But after that came "In the Quietest Moments" with "Give a Little Bit."
That's a Hodgson song, and it's part of this show. But also included is the title cut, my favorite from the album.
"Don't you let the sun fade away
Don't you let the sun fade away
Don't you let the sun be leaving
Won't you come to me soon?"
There's a reaching out, an optimism.
But the pure sound of the record... It's hermetically sealed. It's not made for dancing, but listening. You want to sidle up to it, try to get inside it.
That's music.
Assuming you're a big fan from the seventies. When the charts meant nothing, even though those who were not there keep referencing said charts whilst depicting a reality that is far from the one those who were there experienced.
So I'm thinking how this music wouldn't float today. Sure, we've got some introspection, but everybody's looking for a way in, nobody is on the outside feeling that they don't fit in and this might be their condition for the rest of their life, people with more questions than answers.
Then again, the outsiders question the status quo, whereas the insiders are invested in it.
Now punk was a reaction to corporate rock, which Supertramp was not, however Supertramp was a bunch of skilled musicians taking their time to create a seamless statement. So the punks didn't embrace it. However, Supertramp and the punks did share a basic trait, the aforesaid ALIENATION!
So you may pooh-pooh Supertramp, not only not watch this video, but feel a need to insult it.
However, for a chosen few...
This is manna from heaven.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
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I was served this up on TikTok.
I've got a special place in my heart for "Take the Long Way Home" because that's the song I sang in my head after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. This was when California was still hip and natural disasters were not everyday events. Still...unless you've experienced an earthquake you don't really get it. It's so unnatural. I guess because it is natural. You count on terra firma being...firm. And when it's not, your body is not prepared for it.
Anyway, the freeway collapsed, ergo "Take the Long Way Home."
Now I never saw Supertramp in their heyday, even though I was a huge fan. Actually, "Breakfast in America" was the last hurrah. The audience finally caught up with the band, then again the band compromised too...gave up most of the alienation.
That's what made "Crime of the Century" so fantastic. You could resonate with it.
Of course, of course, we can all resonate with love songs, either dreamy or breakup. But the human condition... Today people will testify they're depressed, but not that they're alienated, that's taboo. You've got your tribe. But in reality, you may not. Certainly not in the sixties and seventies, before money was everything and income inequality was rampant.
I'm an alienated f*ck. Have been my entire life. I feel...just outside of life. I'm here, but my mind is elsewhere. Not all the time, but a lot of the time. It seems that everybody else is on a different wavelength, getting with the program, hopping through the steps, investing in a car, a spouse, a house, a retirement account... Where are my people, who are questioning everything?
In a song.
So I'm watching this performance of "Take the Long Way Home" and it's so perfect, I cannot believe it. First and foremost, Roger Hodgson still has his pipes, unlike many of the singers of his vintage. But all the flourishes in the original, they're reproduced, with an orchestra.
These are some of my favorite finds. One of my Napster gems was Neil Finn singing "Message to My Girl" with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. You can see it on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-6Ta_8T7QM
"No more empty self-possession
Visions swept under the mat
It's no New Year's resolution
It's more than that"
"Message to My Girl" comes from the last real Split Enz album, before Tim Finn left. And I'd like to say "Conflicting Emotions" is as good as "True Colours," the band's best work, or even "Waiata," but it's not.
However, it's got "Message to My Girl."
He's infatuated, but he's having a hard time crossing the gap, telling his object of affection, but finally...
"I can't spend the rest of my life
Buried in the sand"
These are the moments of every alienated, pessimistic life. You realize that you've got to stop listening to your records and take a risk.
That Neil Finn with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra track/video was recorded in 1996, when was this iteration of "Take the Long Way Home" recorded?
Well, when the camera pulls back, you can see the words "Jazz Open Stuttgart," so I Googled and it came right up.
2013.
Okay, okay... I remember the early days of YouTube, when we'd find amazing things and send them to each other. But that era faded, just like the early days of e-mail when you forwarded jokes.
So Google told me the full show was on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBUCNKQyTIQ
So I clicked and...
I went through the track listing and the second song was "School."
"Don't do this and don't do that
What are they trying to do? (Make a good boy of you)
And do they know where it's at?
But don't criticize, they're old and wise
Do as they tell you to, don't want the devil to
Come and put out your eyes"
That's what they teach you in school, to obey the rules. And if you continue to go to school, matriculate at a college, you ultimately realize it's all...
B.S.
The puffed up professors. The grinding students. All for what? A grade that will mean nothing in your future life? Maybe you can trade in your grades for a good graduate school, or a job, but at some point you're going to wake up and realize none of this make sense. Or you're going to get fired and confront reality.
Which is why baby boomers can't understand the techies. You dropped out of college, WHAT DIDYOUR PARENTS SAY?
The concert also includes "Hide in Your Shell," the second longest song from "Crime of the Century," it's got multiple movements, it's a tour-de-force.
"But what you see is just illusion
(What you see is just illusion)
You're surrounded by confusion
(You're surrounded by confusion)
Saying life's begun to cheat you
Friends are out to beat you
Grab on to what you can scramble for"
Now ultimately "Hide in Your Shell" is akin to "Message to My Girl," a hand extended to bring you into the world of love.
However...
"Crime of the Century" closes with the title track.
"Now they're planning the crime of the century
Well what would it be?
Read all about their schemes and adventuring
Yes it's well worth the fee
So roll up and see
As they rape the universe
How they've gone from bad to worse"
Us versus them. That's the way we saw it back then. To sell out was anathema. Now selling out is the goal, that's the backbone of social media influencers. Screw credibility, it's money I want!
But the acts of yore left money on the table. Not everything felt right.
Not anymore.
Now "Crime of the Century" is not a part of the Stuttgart show, it was sung by Rick Davies.
"Crisis? What Crisis?" followed "Crime of the Century," it was for fans only.
But after that came "In the Quietest Moments" with "Give a Little Bit."
That's a Hodgson song, and it's part of this show. But also included is the title cut, my favorite from the album.
"Don't you let the sun fade away
Don't you let the sun fade away
Don't you let the sun be leaving
Won't you come to me soon?"
There's a reaching out, an optimism.
But the pure sound of the record... It's hermetically sealed. It's not made for dancing, but listening. You want to sidle up to it, try to get inside it.
That's music.
Assuming you're a big fan from the seventies. When the charts meant nothing, even though those who were not there keep referencing said charts whilst depicting a reality that is far from the one those who were there experienced.
So I'm thinking how this music wouldn't float today. Sure, we've got some introspection, but everybody's looking for a way in, nobody is on the outside feeling that they don't fit in and this might be their condition for the rest of their life, people with more questions than answers.
Then again, the outsiders question the status quo, whereas the insiders are invested in it.
Now punk was a reaction to corporate rock, which Supertramp was not, however Supertramp was a bunch of skilled musicians taking their time to create a seamless statement. So the punks didn't embrace it. However, Supertramp and the punks did share a basic trait, the aforesaid ALIENATION!
So you may pooh-pooh Supertramp, not only not watch this video, but feel a need to insult it.
However, for a chosen few...
This is manna from heaven.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
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