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50-557: The band's name derives from the Western Pennsylvania English term, "jagger," meaning any small, sharp-pointed object, typically thorns, spines, and prickles . They were managed by The Skyliners manager, Joe Rock. While attending Slippery Rock State College, now known as Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, Donnie Iris (birth name Dominic Ierace) started a band called the Tri-Vels. The band became known as Donnie and

100-524: A Group or Duo. "Play That Funky Music" was the only hit on the album, although "Hot to Trot" was a minor follow-up hit in some non-U.S. markets. The album featured contributions from keyboardist Mark Avsec , who soon thereafter became a permanent member of the band. None of Wild Cherry's three subsequent albums were very popular. Neither Electrified Funk (1977) (which contained the "Play That Funky Music" soundalike single "Baby Don't You Know") nor I Love My Music (1978) produced any top 40 hits, and Only

150-622: A contrastive THOUGHT vowel instead: [no̞ːʔt] , which falls together with [ ɒ ] in Pittsburgh). Earlier reports give [ ɜ ] as the norm for STRUT in Pittsburgh. The remaining checked vowels /ɪ/ , /ʊ/ , /ɛ/ and /æ/ are all within the General American norm. The GOAT vowel often has an unrounded central or fronted starting point in Pittsburgh: [əʊ] . Outside of

200-419: A description of the dialect, whose author Bruce Lee Johnson notes that the auxiliary verb might is typically pronounced with nasalization, as [mɜ̃ɪ̃ʔt] . Elsewhere in the article, this allophone is transcribed ⟨ ʌɪ ⟩, following its usual transcription on Misplaced Pages. The MOUTH vowel typically begins front in the mouth [æʊ] . A less common variant has a central starting point, [äʊ] , matching

250-523: A huge hit when released in 1976, peaking at number one on both the Billboard R&;B and pop charts. Both the single and Wild Cherry's self-titled debut album went platinum. The band was named Best Pop Group of the Year by Billboard and received an American Music Award for Top R&B Single of the Year as well as a pair of Grammy nominations for Best New Vocal Group and Best R&B Performance by

300-554: A pen borrowed from the bartender. After the band recorded the song, studio engineer Ken Hamann brought the band to the attention of Sweet City Records, distributed by Epic/CBS , which signed the group. Parissi had intended to record the song as the B-side to a cover version of the Commodores ' "I Feel Sanctified", but the label suggested it as the A-side instead. "Play That Funky Music" became

350-564: A rounded /ɒ/ (phonetically [ ɒ ~ ɔ ] ). As in most other American dialects, the father–bother merger also occurs. Therefore, cot and caught are both pronounced /kɒt/ ; Don and dawn are both /dɒn/ . While the merger of the low back vowels is also widespread elsewhere in the United States, the rounded realizations of the merged vowel around [ɒ] is less common, except in Canada , California and Northeastern New England . /ɒ/ has

400-416: A stylistic variant, which is open central unrounded [ ä ] , as in the sarcastic pronunciation of I apologize as [aɪ əˈpʰäɫɨdʒaɪz] . It may also occur before /r/ , as in start [stäɹʔt] or car [kʰäɹ] , but a more common pronunciation is back and rounded: [stɒɹʔt] etc. The vowel in hoarse is the same as the one in horse , phonetically [ ɔ ] : [hɔɹs] but phonemically /oʊ/ due to

450-565: Is also common in African-American English . The word mirror can be pronounced as the single-syllable mere . Western Pennsylvania English speakers may use falling intonation at the end of questions, for example, in "Are you painting your garage?" [↗ˈɒɹ jə ˈpʰeɪɾ̃ɪŋ jɚ ɡə↘ˈɹɒdʒ] (with pitch rising in intonation up to just before the last syllable and then falling precipitously). Such speakers typically use falling pitch for yes–no questions for which they already are quite sure of

500-746: Is confined to the environment of a following nasal, matching the GenAm allophony. An epenthetic (intruding) /r/ sound may occur after vowels in a few words, such as water pronounced as [ˈwɔɹɾɚ] , and wash as [wɔɹʃ] . A number of vowel mergers occur uniquely in Western Pennsylvania English before the consonant /l/ . The pair of vowels /i/ and /ɪ/ may merge before the /l/ consonant, cause both steel and still to be pronounced as something like [stɪɫ] . Similarly, /u/ , /oʊ/ , and /ʊ/ may merge before /l/ , so that pool , pull , and pole may merge to something like [pʰʊɫ] . On

550-549: Is consistently found only in western Pennsylvania. The /i/~/ɪ/ merger towards [ɪ] may also appear before /ɡ/ : eagle then sounds to outsiders like iggle . L -vocalization is also common in the Western Pennsylvania dialect; an /l/ then sounds like a /w/ or a cross between a vowel and a "dark" /l/ at the end of a syllable. For example, well is pronounced as [wɛw] ; milk as [mɪwk] or [mɛwk] ; role as [ɹʊw] ; and cold as [ˈkʰʊwd] . The phenomenon

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600-568: Is one of the few features, if not the only one, restricted almost exclusively to western Pennsylvania in North America, but it can sometimes be found in other accents of the English-speaking world, such as Cockney and South African English . The sound may be the result of contact from Slavic languages during the early 20th century. Monophthongization also occurs for the sound /aɪ/ , as in eye , before liquid consonants, so that tile

650-568: Is pronounced [tʰɑːɫ] ; pile is pronounced [pʰɑːɫ] ; and iron is pronounced [ɑːɹn] . That phenomenon allows tire to merge with the sound of tar : [tʰɑːɹ] . The NURSE vowel (phonemically an /ər/ sequence) is phonetically close-mid [ ɘ˞ ] . Johnson notes a tendency to diphthongize /æ/ to [ɛə] not only before nasals (as in GenAm) but also before all voiced consonants (as in bad [bɛəd] ) and voiceless fricatives (as in grass [ɡɹɛəs] ). This has since been reversed and now [ɛə]

700-634: The Billboard Hot 100 on March 21, 1970. It was on the Hot 100 chart for 13 weeks and was certified gold by the RIAA . Another track from the album reached the Hot 100: "I Call My Baby Candy" peaked at No. 75 and "What A Bummer" (a non-album track) climbed to No. 88. The album went to No. 62 on the Billboard Top 200 chart. The album’s classic R&B tune "Memoirs of a Traveler" written by Benny Faiella and Donnie Iris

750-417: The /il/~/ɪl/ merger, Labov, Ash and Boberg (2006) note "the stereotype of merger of /ɪl ~ il/ is based only on a close approximation of some forms, and does not represent the underlying norms of the dialect." The /i/~/ɪ/ merger is found in western Pennsylvania, as well as parts of the southern United States, including Alabama, Texas and the west (McElhinny 1999). On the other hand, the /u/~/ʊ/ merger

800-540: The Ohio Valley region, the Northern West Virginia panhandle, and Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania. The original lineup included Ben Difabbio (drums and vocals) and Louie Osso (guitar and vocals) from Steubenville, Larry Brown (bass and vocals) from Weirton , West Virginia, Larry Mader (keyboard and vocals) from East Springfield , Ohio, and Ron Vallera (guitar and background vocals) from Steubenville, Ohio). Over time,

850-601: The cot–caught merger , has expanded into central Pennsylvania, moving eastward until being blocked at Harrisburg . Perhaps the only feature whose distribution is restricted almost exclusively to the immediate vicinity of Pittsburgh is /aʊ/ monophthongization in which words such as house , down , found , and sauerkraut are sometimes pronounced with an "ah" sound, instead of the more standard pronunciation of "ow", rendering eye spellings such as hahs , dahn , fahnd , and sahrkraht . Speakers of Pittsburgh English are sometimes called "Yinzers" in reference to their use of

900-402: The working class of Pittsburgh, users of the dialect are colloquially known as "Yinzers". Scots-Irish , Pennsylvania Dutch , Polish , Ukrainian and Croatian immigrants to the area all provided certain loanwords to the dialect (see "Vocabulary" below). Many of the sounds and words found in the dialect are popularly thought to be unique to Pittsburgh, but that is a misconception since

950-668: The "s" in "Jaggers" be changed to a "z". In 1969, their debut album, Introducing the Jaggerz , was released. It is a blue-eyed soul album featuring the Jaggerz original song "(That's Why) Baby I Love You", the Ken Gamble tune "Together" and "Gotta Find My Way Back Home", written by Melvin & Mervin Steals who later wrote "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love" for the Spinners. Achieving most of its airplay in

1000-431: The 1990s and, more recently, Pede B ( Denmark ). Original lead vocalist and bass player Maybray (born William R. Maybray on May 14, 1944) died on December 5, 2004, at age 60. He wrote and sang the group's debut single, "That's Why Baby I Love You". The original drummer Pugliano (born James Pugliano on December 4, 1946) died on June 15, 2010, at age 63. Original members Ross and Faiella continue to perform as members of

1050-594: The A.J. Palumbo Center. The melody of "Memoirs of the Traveler" from the Jaggerz' album We Went to Different Schools Together has been sampled by various hip hop artists. In 2008, rap artist The Game released a track "Letter to the King", produced by Hi-Tek, from his album, LAX , that sampled the song. Other hip hop musicians who have sampled the song on their releases including Rollin' Up by Curren$ y and Wiz Khalifa (2009), 1, 2 by Slum Village (2005) Dilated Peoples in

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1100-552: The Cruisers , released their first album in 1980, Back on the Streets . The album's first single, " Ah! Leah! ", began a series of successful albums and singles. Donnie Iris landed 10 singles in the Billboard top 100 lists. He released ten albums with the Cruisers, five of which made it to the Billboard top 200 list. Donnie Iris and the Cruisers are still together to this day. Ross joined

1150-511: The Donnells when the line up increased from three members to four. Shortly after dropping out of college, Iris found out that a band called Gary and the Jewel Tones, of which Jimmie Ross was a member, needed a new guitarist. This gave birth to a new band called the "Jaggers". Forming around 1964, they began playing night clubs and other venues for the next few years gathering a respectable following in

1200-594: The Jaggerz album: the Gamble & Huff tune Together and The Jaggerz original That's Why Baby I Love You . Ross' voice and the Jaggerz harmonies appear on the love ballads Love Won't Let Me Wait , The Whole Town's Laughing at Me and That's Why Baby I Love You . Donna Groom, of the Skyliners, guest stars on a duet with Ross on the medley arrangement of It's Gonna Take a Miracle/ I'm On The Outside . Five time Grammy winning producer/engineer Jay Dudt of Audile Images engineered

1250-421: The Jaggerz' original band members began leaving. By late 1977, Benny Faiella was the only original member left. He was joined by Gene and Robert Vallecorsa (lead guitar and keyboards, respectively), Sam Ippolito (lead vocals), and Mark Zeppuhar (saxophone). Even though they were now only playing at nightclubs, Faiella believed that the lineup was the strongest it had been in twelve years and that they would return to

1300-539: The Jaggerz. Ross was recruited by the Jaggerz manager Joe Rock to join the Skyliners . Keyboard player and singer Frank Czuri and songwriter/keyboard player Hermie Granati joined the band for the album Come Again that was released by Wooden Nickel Records in 1975. The single "2 + 2 / Don't It Make You Wanna Dance" was also released in 1975 but did not reach the charts. The Jaggerz were dropped from Wooden Nickel in 1976. Sometime after being dropped from Wooden Nickel,

1350-432: The Jaggerz. The current roster of the Jaggerz also includes vocalist and keyboardist Granati, guitarist McAbee, saxophonist Chris Patarini, and drummer Paul Martello. In 2014, The Jaggerz returned to the blue-eyed soul roots to release the album The Walk . Led by singer Ross, the Jaggerz brought their five part harmonies to the arrangements of eight R&B classics and two updated recordings from their 1969 Introducing

1400-572: The Skyliners after the death of Vogel in 1980. Ross sang with the Skyliners through 1982. In 1982 Cooper and Ross left the Skyliners to form the singing duo Cooper and Ross. They signed with Sweet City Records / MCA and released the album "Bottom Line". Cooper and Ross became a fixture in the Atlantic City casinos with a 36-week appearance at the Trump Plaza and extended engagements at Harrah's. They worked together for five years. Frank Czuri became

1450-441: The Skyliners in 1975 after two of the original members left. Joe Rock, who managed both the Jaggerz and Skyliners, advised Ross to leave the Jaggerz. He sang with the Skyliners original members Jimmy Beaumont and Janet Vogel. The Skyliners appeared in 1950s revival shows around the country. In 1977, Ross recorded with the Skyliners on their Tortoise International Records album release titled “The Skyliners”. Singer Cathy Cooper joined

1500-568: The Wild Survive (1979) did not even produce a top 100 single. The band broke up in late 1979. Coogie Stoddart returned to perform with Wild Cherry, beginning with the tour to support Electrified Funk , and recorded I Love My Music with the band. Stoddart toured with the group, in support of I Love My Music , but left before Only the Wild Survive was recorded. Wild Cherry's musical style has been described as funk rock blue-eyed soul , disco , and R&B . The band originally formed as

1550-570: The Wild Survive . But Wild Cherry's fate seemed to be similar to the Jaggerz and they broke up in 1979. Iris then went solo with the help of Avsec, first with the non-album singles "Bring on the Eighties" and " Because of You ." These singles proved to be of little influence and Avsec and Iris decided to put a band together. The lineup consisted of Iris, Avsec, Marty Lee Hoenes , Albritton McClain , and Kevin Valentine . The new band, called Donnie Iris and

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1600-537: The album for co-producers Granati and Ross. Western Pennsylvania English Western Pennsylvania English , known more narrowly as Pittsburgh English or popularly as Pittsburghese , is a dialect of American English native primarily to the western half of Pennsylvania , centered on the city of Pittsburgh , but potentially appearing in some speakers as far north as Erie County , as far east as Harrisburg , as far south as Clarksburg, West Virginia , and as far west as Youngstown, Ohio . Commonly associated with

1650-498: The answer. A speaker uttering the above example is simply confirming what is already thought: yes, the person spoken to is painting their garage. It is most common in areas of heavy German settlement, especially southeastern Pennsylvania, hence its nickname, the "Pennsylvania Dutch question", but it is also found elsewhere in Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh. It is of German origin. Wild Cherry (band) Wild Cherry

1700-406: The band members changed; Osso, Brown, Mader, and Vallera left the band and were replaced by Parissi's cousin, Coogie Stoddart (guitar and vocals), and Joe Buchmelter (bass). Buchmelter was soon replaced by Bucky Lusk. In the early 1970s, several records were released under their own label, including "You Can Be High (But Lay Low)" and "Something Special On Your Mind", in 1971. The music at this stage

1750-406: The band writing the orchestrations, performing on keyboards and vocals, and co-producing the album with Ross. The Jaggerz released their sixth album Re-Rapped by Request in 2001. It features a mix of the most requested songs that they have performed over their career including "Dancin' in the Streets", "Some Kind of Wonderful", "The Love I Never Had" and a live version of the "Rapper" recorded at

1800-522: The charts. However this proved not to be and the Jaggerz finally broke up around 1977. Dominic Ierace, the band's guitarist and vocalist, joined Wild Cherry . By 1976, they had been together for six years and had just recently risen to prominence with " Play That Funky Music ." While in the group, Ierace met keyboardist Mark Avsec . Ierace (continuing to use his "Donnie Iris" nickname more and more) engineered Wild Cherry's third album I Love My Music and appeared playing guitar on their fourth album Only

1850-570: The city itself, [oʊ] is more common. GOOSE is sometimes also fronted, to [ɨu] (more usual value: [ʊu] ). As in other American dialects, FLEECE and FACE are narrow diphthongs [ɪi, ee̝] . CHOICE is also within GenAm norm: [ɔ̟ɪ] . The PRICE vowel alone undergoes Canadian raising to [ɜɪ] before voiceless consonants, as in ice [ɜɪs] . In 1971, the Journal of the International Phonetic Association published

1900-567: The cot-caught merger: /hoʊrs/ . /ʌ/ is backer and more open than [ ɜ ] found in Midland American English , being closer to [ ɑ ] . This makes STRUT an unrounded counterpart of LOT , with pairs such as nut [nɑʔt] vs. not [nɒʔt] or cut [kʰɑʔt] vs. cot [kʰɒʔt] contrasting mainly by roundedness . This is also found in contemporary Standard Southern British English, where nut [nʌʔt] also differs from not [nɔʔt] by rounding (though nought has

1950-461: The dialect resides throughout the greater part of western Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas. Central Pennsylvania, currently an intersection of several dialect regions, was identified in 1949 by Hans Kurath as a subregion between western and eastern Pennsylvania, but some scholars in the 20th century onwards have identified it within the western Pennsylvania dialect region. Since Kurath's study, one of western Pennsylvania's defining features,

2000-408: The group began to develop a following in the Pittsburgh area, disco was becoming increasingly popular, and they were repeatedly asked by listeners to play more dance music. While brainstorming for new song ideas, Beitle recounted hearing a fan shout, "Are you white boys gonna play some funky music?" Parissi was inspired to write a song based on the phrase, so he began writing on a drink order pad with

2050-437: The group's native western Pennsylvania, it was a moderate success. In its November 22, 1969 article, Record World stated that Buddah Records had reactivated its Kama Sutra label and The Jaggerz along with The Sir Men had been signed to Kama Sutra. So by 1970, the Jaggerz had left Gamble and signed with Neil Bogart 's Kama Sutra label. There they recorded their second album, We Went to Different Schools Together , which

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2100-785: The lead singer for the CBS recording act the Silencers who appeared on the first ever broadcast of MTV. In 1980 the Silencers single "Shiver and Shake" reached number 81 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Hermie Granati formed the Granati Brothers, recorded the 1979 album G-Force on A&M Records and opened 78 shows for Van Halen during the early 1980s. Drummer James Pugliano toured and recorded with Leon Russell, Roger Miller, J.J. Cale, Willie Nelson, and Mel Tillis. The original members (sans Iris) reunited in 1989 to perform live. The reunited band included

2150-696: The original members Pugliano, Faiella, and Maybray along with organist Fred Dulu, sax player Robbie Klein and vocalist Donnie Marsico. Their first appearance was at a 25-year reunion concert on June 23, 1989, at the Beaver County College Golden Dome. The band with differing line-ups has played 20 to 25 shows a year since then. The Jaggerz released their fifth album, And the Band Played On... in 1998. AllMusic called it "Heartfelt soul music". Performing on this release were Ross, Faiella, Pugliano, Dennis McAbee, and Jamie Peck. Granati rejoined

2200-574: The region. Their lineup consisted of Iris, Allen George, Benny Faiella, and Kenny Koodrich. In 1968, the Jaggers signed with Gamble Records . The Philadelphia soul music team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff produced their debut album which was recorded in Philadelphia. While in the early stages of recording the album, Jimmie Ross saw a magazine advertisement featuring another band called "The Jaggers". In order to avoid confusion, manager Joe Rock suggested that

2250-453: The second-person plural pronoun " yinz ." The word "yinzer" is sometimes heard as pejorative, indicating a lack of sophistication, but the term is now used in a variety of ways. Older men are more likely to use the accent than women "possibly because of a stronger interest in displaying local identity...." A defining feature of Western Pennsylvania English is the cot–caught merger , in which /ɑ/ (as in ah ) and /ɔ/ (as in aw ) merge to

2300-439: The starting point of PRICE ( [äɪ] ). It is monophthongized to [aː] in some environments (sounding instead like ah ), namely: before nasal consonants ( downtown [daːnˈtʰaːn] and found [faːnd] ), liquid consonants ( fowl , hour ) and obstruents ( house [haːs] , out , cloudy ). The monophthongization does not occur, however, in word-final positions ( how , now ), and the diphthong then remains [æʊ] . That

2350-545: Was an American funk rock band formed in Mingo Junction, Ohio, in 1970 that was best known for its song " Play That Funky Music ". Rob Parissi (lead vocals and guitar) was raised in the steel-mill town of Mingo Junction, Ohio . He graduated from Mingo High School in 1968 and formed the band Wild Cherry in 1970 in Steubenville , Ohio . The band's name, 'Wild Cherry', was taken from a box of cough drops. The band played

2400-535: Was pure rock music. Wild Cherry eventually gained a record contract with Brown Bag Records, owned and operated by Terry Knight . Brown Bag produced several demos and singles that were later distributed by United Artists , including "Get Down" (1973) and "Show Me Your Badge" (1973). The band broke up, and Parissi left the music scene temporarily. He reformed the band in 1975. The new lineup consisted of Bryan Bassett (guitar/vocals), Allen Wentz (bass guitar/synthesizer/vocals), Ronald Beitle (drums), and Parissi. As

2450-545: Was released in 1970. One of the singles from We Went to Different Schools Together became the group's first chart-topping hit. " The Rapper ", written by Donnie Iris, was released to the Pittsburgh market in December 1969. It quickly rose on the KQV Top 40 singles chart reaching No. 1 on the week of January 5, 1970. It was No. 1 on KQV for four straight weeks during January 1970. Released nationally "The Rapper" reached No. 2 on

2500-637: Was sampled by Wiz Khalifa, The Game, Slum Village and seven other hip hop artists. The Jaggerz continued to release singles through Kama Sutra until 1973, when they moved to the RCA subsidiary Wooden Nickel Records. In 1973, the Jaggerz performed on the Wolfman Jack novelty album Through The Ages that was released on Wooden Nickel Records. They backed up DJ Wolfman Jack on ten songs including "The Rapper". The Jaggerz also produced and recorded with Bobby Rydell and James Darren. Singers Bill Maybray and Jimmie Ross left

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