Donna Summer

Donna Summer
Image:Dsummer.jpg
Background information
Birth name	LaDonna Adrian Gaines
Born	December 31 1948 (age 59)
Origin	Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Genre(s)	Pop, Disco, Hi-NRG, R&B, Urban, Soul, House, Rock, Gospel
Occupation(s)	Singer, Songwriter, actress
Instrument(s)	Singing, piano/keyboard
Years active	1971–present
Label(s)	Casablanca Geffen Atlantic Mercury Epic Burgundy
Associated acts	Giorgio Moroder

Donna Summer (born LaDonna Adrian Gaines on December 31 1948) is a Grammy Award-winning American singer, songwriter, and occasional actress, best known for a string of dance hits in the 1970s that earned her the title "Queen of Disco" and as one of the few disco-based artists to have longevity on the charts into the late-1980s. Even though she is one of the best-known artists of the disco era, Summer has covered different genres - notably R&B, Rock, and Gospel music, earning her Grammy Awards in those categories. Summer is also known for her exquisite vocal range and power. It has been estimated that Summer's album and single sales total more than 150 million, easily making her part of the list of best-selling music artists.

Biography

Early life and career

Born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, Gaines was one of seven children raised by devout Christian parents. She sang in church and later joined a rock group as a teenager influenced by the sounds of Janis Joplin. At eighteen, the youngster left home and school to take up a supporting role in the Broadway musical, "Hair". The show moved to Germany shortly afterwards and Gaines eventually became a German resident and performed in the German versions of several musicals including "Godspell" and "Show Boat". She settled in Munich and also performed with the Viennese Folk Opera.

In 1971, Gaines released a single in Europe entitled "Sally Go 'Round the Roses", her first solo recording. The single was unsuccessful, however, and she had to wait until 1974 to launch a solo career. Gaines married Austrian actor Helmuth Sommer ("Summer" is an anglicization of his last name) in 1972 and gave birth to daughter Mimi the following year. The newlywed Mrs Sommer felt trapped in her new role as wife and mother, and her husband worked long hours and was rarely home. Before long, the couple separated. Using the name Donna Summer, she decided to concentrate on her musical career and made the heartbreaking decision of sending Mimi back to America to live with her parents, as she felt that until her career took off she could not give her daughter the life she deserved. Summer did various musical jobs in studios and theaters for several years, including the pop group FamilyTree from 1974-75.

Early success and notoriety

While singing back-up for groups such as Three Dog Night, she met producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. With these producers, Summer signed a contract in the Netherlands and issued her first album, Lady of the Night, which included the European hit, "The Hostage", which made #1 in France, Belgium, and Holland and #2 in Germany. Its follow-up, the title track of the album, also gained some degree of European success.

In the late summer of 1975, Summer approached Moroder and Bellotte with an idea for a song. She came up with the lyric "Love To Love You Baby" as the possible title for the song. Moroder in particular was interested in developing the new disco sound that was becoming more and more popular and used Summer's idea to develop the song into a raunchy disco track. He had the idea that she should moan and groan in an orgasmic way, but Summer was unsure of the idea. Eventually she agreed to record the song as a demo to give to someone else (possibly singer Penny McLean). She has stated that she was not completely sure of some of the lyrics, and parts of the song were improvised during the recording (she later stated on a VH-1 "Behind The Music" programme that she pictured herself as Marilyn Monroe acting out the part of someone in sexual ecstasy). Moroder was astounded with Summer's orgasmic vocals and her imaginative moans and groans that he insisted she should release the single herself. Summer reluctantly agreed and the song, titled "Love To Love You", was released. While originally a modest success in Europe, it reached America and the hands of Casablanca president Neil Bogart, who was so ecstatic over the demo that he requested Moroder to produce a twenty-minute version of the song. Summer, Moroder and producer Pete Bellotte cut a seventeen-minute version and with that, renamed it "Love To Love You Baby" (rumours have been spread over the years that Summer recorded the track lying on the floor of a pitch dark studio in order to help "get into the part"), and Casablanca signed Summer and issued the single in November 1975. Casablanca distributed Summer's work in the U.S., while other labels distributed it in different nations during this period.

The "Love To Love You Baby" single was Summer's first big hit in America reaching number-two on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in February 1976 and becoming her first number-one Hot Dance Club Play chart hit. The seventeen-minute version became one of a recurring trend of single song, side-long disco versions, with French disco acts Cerrone, the Alec. R. Costandinos helmed Love And Kisses and many others following suit. The album (side one of which was completely taken up with the full-length version of the title track) was also released in 1975 and was soon certified gold. The song was branded "raunchy" by some rock critics and was even banned by some radio stations for its graphic content. In some areas of the music press, Summer was dubbed "the first lady of love." The two concept albums that followed - A Love Trilogy featured the moderate hit, "Try Me (I Know We Can Make It) (#80 on the Hot 100)" and Four Seasons of Love which featured the disco hit, "Spring Affair," (#58 on the Hot 100), as well as "Winter Melody," (#43 on the Hot 100) Both albums had a reasonably high sensual/fantasy content though Summer felt uneasy by her image.

The 1977 album I Remember Yesterday, another concept album, showed the Summer/Moroder/Bellotte team combining the disco sound with sounds of the past, present and future. The song representing the future, "I Feel Love" , originally released as a "B" side to the R&B ballad "Can't We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over)", became a landmark recording, reaching number-six on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and number-one in the UK and various other European countries. The song was arguably the first song to use techno and electronic sounds in dance music. A version of I Feel Love released in 1982, with additional overdubs by Disco lightman turned synthesist and producer, the late Patrick Cowley, took the eight minute and fifteen second extended version and overlayed new elements, causing an underground sensation. Summer released another album in 1977 called Once Upon a Time, a concept album telling a modern-day "rags to riches" story through the means of electronic disco and is regarded by many fans as some of her best work.

Continued success in music

In 1978, Summer acted in the film Thank God It's Friday, and released the hit single, "Last Dance". Written by Paul Jabara who also co-wrote "It's Raining Men", "The Main Event (Fight)" and "No More Tears (Enough is Enough)", the song became another monumental hit for Summer reaching number-three on the Billboard Hot 100 and resulted in her first Grammy win while Jabara took home the Oscar after the song was nominated for Song of the Year. Summer also recorded a side-long version of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je T'Aime (Moi Non Plus)" which was very similar in style to "Love To Love You Baby", initially shelved and later released as a part of the Thank God It's Friday soundtrack.

That same year, she released her first live album, Live and More. A double-album, it was also Summer's first number-one album and included her first number-one American pop single, a cover of the Jimmy Webb-penned "MacArthur Park", originally made famous by Irish singer/actor Richard Harris. The version found on the Live and More album was a longer version and incorporated two other tracks, including "Heaven Knows" which also featured vocals by the Brooklyn Dreams. Group member Bruce Sudano would become romantically involved with Summer, and "Heaven Knows" became another top five hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S.

Bad Girls and the break from disco

In 1979, she released the landmark double album, Bad Girls. Unlike other disco albums, it mixed rock, blues, and soul into electronic disco beats. It yielded three top ten singles: the back-to-back number-one hits, "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls", plus the number-two hit "Dim All the Lights". "Hot Stuff" won Summer a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Bad Girls became Summer's second #1 album and her most successful one, selling over seven million copies worldwide. Once again, Summer's music was years ahead of its time, and elements of Bad Girls would surface in the 1980s from such artists as the Eurythmics, New Order, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Madonna, Bronski Beat, and many other New Wave and techno bands. Several different artists were involved in the writing of Bad Girls including Bruce Sudano, who Summer had worked with the previous year on her "Heaven Knows" single. The two grew closer during the making of this album and became engaged. During this period, Donna Summer became the first woman ever to have two songs on Billboard's top three of the Hot 100 during the same week with "Bad Girls" and "Hot Stuff". Just a few months later, she accomplished the same feat again with "No More Tears" and "Dim All the Lights" both in the top three slots of the Billboard Hot 100 during the same week.

Summer's first main international compilation album, On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes 1 & 2, was her third number-one U.S. album. With this, Summer became the first artist to have three consecutive number-one double-albums. The album also contained two new tracks - "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)", a duet with Barbra Streisand, and "On the Radio", a song written for the film Foxes. Both were big hits when released as singles, the former becoming Summer's fourth and final number-one pop hit in the U.S. Afterwards, disagreements and fractions between Summer and Casablanca Records led to her exit from the label in 1980. Despite early feelings of retirement, Summer was given a lucrative offer by David Geffen and became the first ever artist to be signed to his new Geffen label in 1980. At this time, Summer's record deal was the highest around for a female artist. She also became a Born Again Christian during this time and used the religion as a new guiding force within her life.

The Wanderer and She Works Hard for the Money

Summer's first Geffen release, 1980s The Wanderer, was a full-fledged rock/New Wave affair. Though two of the songs were hits on the dance charts, songs like the title track, and the accompanying singles ("Cold Love" and "Who Do You Think You're Foolin'") saw Summer reaching the same audience that contemporaries like Blondie and Pat Benatar were dominating. The album sold relatively well, and the title track became Summer's eleventh top ten Billboard Hot 100 single in the U.S.

A second release, I'm a Rainbow, a dance-oriented double album which also featured elements of soul, R&B, period British techno-pop and even synth-based disco, was shelved by Geffen (although two of the tracks would surface during the 1980s on the Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Flashdance film soundtracks) because he believed Summer needed fresh production. Reluctantly, Summer left Moroder after seven years of collaboration together, and released her self-titled 1982 album with production from Quincy Jones, who got her back in the top ten of the pop, R&B, and dance charts with "Love Is In Control (Finger on the Trigger)". A second single, "State of Independence," on which Michael Jackson sang background on... along with a veritable "who's who" of the music world also lending vocal support & was ALSO one of the main inspirations for "We Are the World", became a sizable international hit (#1 in The Netherlands), followed by another Top 40 Pop & Top 30 R&B hit The Woman In Me. "State of Independence" had been originally written and performed by the duo Jon & Vangelis (Jon Anderson and Vangelis Papathanassiou), on their second album "The Friends of Mr. Cairo", released in 1981.

In 1983, Summer scored her biggest triumph since Bad Girls with the release of the She Works Hard for the Money single and album. The song became a pro-feminist anthem and was a staple on BET and MTV, making her the first black female artist to have a video air in heavy rotation by the latter channel. That album was rejected by Geffen and Summer gave the album to PolyGram to settle her legal dispute with them, which was due from her early years with the Casablanca Records label. Released on PolyGram's Mercury Records, the success of the She Works Hard for the Money album permanently poisoned Summer's relationship with Geffen, in fact, album liner notes on the "Cats..." album pointedly allude to "thanking David for staying out of the kitchen this time and hopefully enjoying this meal that Donna'd prepared for him". PolyGram would also be responsible for releasing The Summer Collection in 1985, which contained some of her disco classics as well as tracks from the She Works Hard for the Money album, and later The Dance Collection in 1987, which showcased Summer's disco songs in the form of their extended remixes. A second single from the She Works Hard for the Money album, the reggae-flavored "Unconditional Love" (which also featured vocals by black British group Musical Youth), was also an early MTV favorite. The further single and 12" release "Stop, Look and Listen" unfortunately did not have much impact.

Her subsequent Geffen releases also did not fare as well. 1984's Cats Without Claws and 1987's All Systems Go stalled with only minor hit singles ("Supernatural Love" 12" Single, radio and video, "There Goes My Baby" radio and video, "Dinner With Gershwin" radio, video and 12" single, "Fascination" radio, "Only the Fool Survives" radio duet with Mickey Thomas from Starship). Summer left Geffen in 1988 to sign with Atlantic Records. Rumours have circulated among fans that as well as the I'm a Rainbow album, Summer had more unreleased material turned down by Geffen during her time with them. Her disco style was emulated by such singers as Barbara Pennington, Claudja Barry, Irene Cara, Evelyn Thomas, Miquel Brown and Earlene Bentley, singing in the keyboard based dance and Hi-NRG club hits of the early-mid 1980's era. These lesser known, more underrated, independent label singers together filled the void as "Disco Queens", especially with gay audiences. (In fact, it is worth noting that during this period the gay community realized its own heritage as purveyors of Disco music as opposed to the greater straight Rock fan base, and therein may lay some of the reason for Disco's demise.)

Later career

Summer regained her hit luster again in 1989 with her Another Place and Time album. This was a collaboration with England's Top Dance-pop Production Team Stock Aitken Waterman. The album went platinum based on the success of the single, "This Time I Know It's For Real", which became her fourteenth top ten Billboard Hot 100 hit in U.S. . A second single, "I Don't Wanna Get Hurt" was a Top Ten UK hit. The third single, "Love's About To Change My Heart" became a moderate pop chart and dance chart hit. The forth and final single from the album was "Breakaway." In 1991, she released Mistaken Identity, which was an attempt at incorporating new jack swing and urban adult contemporary R&B into her music. The album failed to chart on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart but did make it to #97 on the Billboard Top R&B Chart. Although, the album scored a moderate Urban chart hit with "When Love Cries" #18 R&B, and an underground club hit with, "Work That Magic." In 1992, Summer received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This year also saw her collaborate with Giorgio Moroder for the first time in over a decade with the song "Carry On." This was featured on his Forever Dancing album and the following year would be featured on the double compilation album The Donna Summer Anthology. This anthology also featured two exclusive remixes from the unreleased I'm a Rainbow album recorded back in 1981. It would be a while before her next release as she decided to take some time out to spend with her family. 1994 saw Summer release a gospel-influenced Christmas album entitled Christmas Spirit (her first full-length album for over three years) and a new compilation entitled Endless Summer (both albums were released by PolyGram) which also contained a couple of new tracks including "Melody of Love (Wanna Be Loved)", which became a huge hit on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart.

In 1995, a re-release of "I Feel Love" (with newly recorded vocals) as a dance remix, became a hit again in the UK reaching #8 there. The following year she would score a Top 20 there with a new remix of "State of Independence". In 1996, Summer's album I'm a Rainbow was finally released in by Polygram's Mercury Records to the delight of her fans. In 1998, Summer was the first artist to receive a Grammy award for Best Dance Recording for her 1992 collaboration with Giorgio Moroder, "Carry On", after the song was remixed and released as a single. In 1999, Summer starred in a televised live concert on the VH1 network entitled 'Donna Summer - Live and More Encore. The special earned the network their highest ratings of the year, second only to their annual Divas concert. Performing a string of her classics and new singles, she also sung "Dim All the Lights" as a tribute to Rod Stewart. Summer acknowledges that she wrote the song for Stewart but recorded it herself. A CD (on the Epic label) and DVD of the special were released, returning the singer back to the U.S. albums chart. Summer scored two #1 dance hits that year with "I Will Go With You" and "Love Is the Healer" (both found as new studio tracks on the album). During that year, Summer recorded the title track for Pokémon: The Movie 2000 entitled The Power Of One. Around this time, Summer also recorded the song "Dreamcatcher" for the "Naturally Native" Original Soundtrack.

In 2003, Donna Summer released a greatest-hits compilation called The Journey, which rocketed into the UK Top 10 in the following year, thanks to her appearance on ITV1 show Discomania - in which she co-presented & sang a number of her hits: a medley of "Hot Stuff" & "Bad Girls", "MacArthur Park", "Last Dance" & a duet with Westlife on "No More Tears (Enough is Enough)" - which appeared on the Discomania soundtrack album.

Current work

On September 20, 2004, Summer was among the first artists to be inducted into the newly formed Dance Music Hall of Fame in New York City. She was inducted in two categories, Artist Inductees, along with fellow disco legends The Bee Gees and Barry White and Record Inductees for her classic hit "I Feel Love". Summer added to her credits in October 2004, when she performed "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch at Game 2 of the 2004 World Series at Boston's Fenway Park. Two of her most recent singles, "You're So Beautiful" (2004) and "I Got Your Love" (2005) reached the Top 10 on both the Hot Dance Airplay and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts.

Today, Summer and her family make their home in Nashville, Tennessee. In July 2006, Summer joined forces with Pure Tone Music, an A&R consulting and full service independent music company, located just outside of New York City, and Summer's official web site has announced an upcoming CD on the Burgundy label to be released in Spring, 2007. She is touring extensively in mid-2006, and is to be featured in Sade's upcoming album "Pearls." Summer has hinted that her upcoming album will be more political, and is currently fundraising for the incumbent Democratic governor of Tennessee.

Personal life

In 1972, Summer married her first husband, Helmuth Sommer, and permanently moved to Germany to star in musicals, which resulted in her learning to speak fluent German. With Sommer, she gave birth to her first child, Mimi. The couple divorced in 1976 but before then, Donna anglicized Sommer into Summer and began her professional singing career in 1974 as Donna Summer. In 1978, she collaborated with the disco group Brooklyn Dreams for the hit, "Heaven Knows". While at the session recording the single, she met their frontman Bruce Sudano. The duo began a romance that culminated in their July 16, 1980 marriage and later the birth of daughters Brooklyn and Amanda. Today, Mimi and Amanda sing alongside their mother while Brooklyn has been seen acting in TV shows, including the since-canceled My Wife and Kids. Summer is still married to Sudano, and she is a grandmother of four.

Controversy

During her lengthy career, Summer has dealt with controversy both professionally and personally. Her first hit, "The Hostage" was banned in Germany, and other radio stations banned her music for being sexually suggestive, with "Love to Love You Baby" being an example.

In 1991, during the height of the Gulf War, Summer's song "State Of Independence" was banned from US radio play alongside many other songs that were deemed to have an inflammatory effect on the population.

Rumors persisted that Summer was in fact a man in drag and not a woman, a rumour Summer addressed in 1989 on The Arsenio Hall Show. A far more painful incident came in the early 1980s with reports that she had made anti-gay remarks associated with the AIDS epidemic. Her songs were banned for a number of years in some gay establishments over these rumours.

Summer has long denied such allegations, and finally took legal action against a newspaper which printed the rumors during a review of a concert. Summer tearfully stated, "I never said anything that was written about me in that article". To make amends, Summer has since played for AIDS benefits and has donated proceeds to AIDS research. Even in 2006, she is still asked about the rumours, recently by a Canadian newspaper. Summer responded, "So many people in my audiences are gay. I can’t live my life trying to assure people of anything. You have to live knowing who you are. I think that my actions and the person that I am speak louder than somebody else’s misgivings or lies about me," says Summer now. "They print all kinds of things about people all the time but you can’t run after every single lie. You tell people the truth and if they choose to believe you, they do."

Regardless, even among gays, her brilliant talent and musicianship (aided by Giorgio Moroder) are lovingly embraced as the epitome of the disco era, as is her subsequent support in fighting AIDS.

Awards and recognition

• Summer is the recipient of five Grammy Awards including a rare berth as being the first African-American act ever to win an award for rock in the Best Female Rock Vocal Performance category for her single, "Hot Stuff". She has also won Grammys in the R&B and gospel categories. Her recent Grammy win was for 1997's "Carry On", which was the first to be given to an artist in the dance music category.
• Summer placed a top forty pop hit in every year of her recording career from 1975's "Love to Love You Baby" to 1984's "There Goes My Baby".
• Summer has fourteen top ten pop singles with four of the singles reaching number-one on the pop singles chart and overall has netted 16 number-one singles in various Billboard charts.
• Summer became the first female artist to score three consecutive number-one DOUBLE albums and have three number-one pop singles in the same year. She's also the first to have two singles in a row placed at the top three slots of the Billboard Hot 100, TWICE.
• Summer has been eligible for induction to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame since 1999 but has not been nominated to be inducted. Although it might be because her music style has never exactly been known as Rock & Roll.
• Summer received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1992.
• Summer was one of the first to be inducted to the Dance Music Hall of Fame and was inducted twice; one as a recording artist and another for her influential single, "I Feel Love".
• Summer's successful music career has landed her as the eighth most successful recording artist in the history of Billboard behind contemporary female acts as Whitney Houston and Madonna among others.

Cover versions by other artists

• Summer's "Love To Love You Baby" has been an oft-repeated line in R&B and hip-hop songs most notably in Beyoncé's "Naughty Girl" single, Timbaland & Magoo's 1997 track, "Love to Love You", and TLC's 1999 album track, "I'm Good At Being Bad".
• Summer's "I Feel Love" has been covered onstage by the Red Hot Chili Peppers' John Frusciante, Kylie Minogue, Madonna Blondie Goldfrapp Basement Jaxx and was performed by Venus Hum with Blue Man Group for their album The Complex. In 2006, Tracy Bonham stood in for Venus Hum on the Blue Man Group tour. Bronski Beat and Marc Almond released the track as a duet with an added bridge section and titled it "I Feel Love/Johnny Remember Me", reaching number 3 in the UK charts in April 1985.^[1] In 1992 U.K. alterna-pop group Curve recorded a version for the NME's 40th anniversary compilation "Ruby Trax" which became an instant underground classic, the music of which later Madonna's production team used for her Confessions tour and album. It is widely considered one of the most sampled recordings in dance music history. The song was sampled by a record breaking number of people including Whitney Houston, Bette Midler, Diana Ross, Moloko, Britney Spears, Robbie Williams, Mylo, David Guetta, Stuart Price, Moby and many more.
• Summer's self-penned "Starting Over" was covered by country singer Dolly Parton, whose version reached number-one on the country singles chart.
• Summer's "Last Dance" and "On the Radio" was covered by Tejano/pop singer Selena, most famously at one of her last shows at the Houston Astrodome in February 26, 1995
• Summer's "On the Radio" was covered by British singer and actress Martine McCutcheon, reaching number 7 in the UK charts in February 2001.^[2]
• Summer's "Only The Fool Survives" and "Once Upon A Time" have both been covered by Awaken on their album "Party In Lyceum's Toilets" in 2001.
• Summer's "I Feel Love" was remixed by electro trance outfit CRW. It has gone on to be remixed many times, all successes in the clubbing world.
• Summer's "Dim all the lights" was recorded by Laura Branigan in 1995

Trivia

• Summer wrote the song, "Mimi's Song", for her eldest daughter and later donated proceeds to UNICEF.
• Summer was the only black member of her first band The Crow.
• Summer guest-starred in several episodes of Family Matters playing the role of Steve Urkel's (Jaleel White) relative, Aunt Oona.
• While recording for the hit, "No More Tears" with Barbra Streisand, Summer fell out of her stool after hitting a high note along Streisand who continued singing until stopping in time to ask a conscious Summer if she was alright. Summer stated she had partied the night before.

• The longest note held by a woman, is found in "Dim All The Lights," Donna Summer's 1979 hit (16 seconds).
• She's known in Boston as the "Duchess of Dorchester".
• Summer's devout Christian parents criticized her for recording "Love to Love You Baby" with Summer's mother in disbelief that her daughter recorded the sensous track.
• Time magazine reports that "Love to Love You Baby" featured 22 orgasms by Summer.
• Summer became a born-again Christian in 1979 after suffering a nervous breakdown.

Discography

For a detailed listing of albums and singles, see: Donna Summer discography.

References

1. ^ http://www.everyhit.com - accessed 28 Jan 2007
2. ^ http://www.everyhit.com - accessed 28 Jan 2007

See also

• Best selling music artists
• List of number-one hits (United States)
• List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)
• List of number-one dance hits (United States)
• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Dance chart

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