DONNA SUMMER

The Donna Summer Story:

‘Love To Love You Baby’, ‘I Feel Love’, ‘Hot Stuff’, or ‘On The Radio’ are only four classics of international electronic pop music the name Donna Summer is well known for. With estimated 130 million in worldwide record sales (donnasummer.com 2008), she is one of the big names in pop history (host Thomas Gottschalk in: TV show ‘Wetten, dass ..?’ ZDF (Germany) 1999).

She had already her solo-singing debut in the gospel choir of the Grant A.M.E. Church in Boston, U.S.A., at age 10 and fronted Boston’s psychedelic rock band Crow at age 17 when she begins her career at age 19 in Munich, Germany. There she performs on October 24, 1968 in the German opening night of the musical ‘Haare’ (‘Hair’), that musical whose philosophy becomes an example for young people in Germany at the end of the 60ies / the beginning of the 70ies (TV documentary ‘Halbstark an Rhein und Ruhr’ WDR (Germany) 2006). In this musical Donna Summer sings catchy tunes like ‘Wassermann’ (‘Aquarius’) - in German, the language she still speaks fluently. In 1973 she meets her legendary music producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. Three years later ‘Love To Love You Baby’ makes her an international star. Soon after she returns to the U.S.A..

The 17 minutes long ambient house symphony ‘Love To Love You Baby’ with its jazzy bass line and the erotic moaning is written in 1975 in the Munich MusicLand studios by Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, and Pete Bellotte. This song is not only a hit in Germany and the U.S.A., it has also such an influence on the music that comes that the official institute for culture of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Goethe-Institute, presents Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer on its website, together with other protagonists of electronic music from Germany like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Can, Kraftwerk, Neu!, Tangerine Dream, Conny Plank.

Giorgio Moroder’s, Pete Bellotte’s, and Donna Summer’s minimalist ground-breaking ‘I Feel Love’, the worldwide most successful song of the 70ies from Germany (TV programme ‘German Beats’ Deutsche Welle TV 2010) and the song which makes Donna Summer also the most successful female singer in the German album and single charts in 1977 (Der Musikmarkt 1989), anticipates the techno life style more than a decade. Even at that time the musician Brian Eno calls ‘I Feel Love’ “the sound of the future“ (in CD: David Bowie ‘Sound And Vision’ 1989). Also people who looked down on this music at the end of the 70ies begin to appreciate Donna Summer at the end of the 80ies when techno makes its way as a music and life style (musician Inga Humpe from 2Raumwohnung in: Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin August 4, 2009). And for the musician Moby (moby.com October 29, 2003) Donna Summer is still the most revolutionary artist of the last 30 years, because ‘I Feel Love’ was the first ever song made in that way (electronics and vocals and nothing else).

With such a background, who is more predestined to launch a concert series which should bridge the gap between the pioneers and the current artists of electronic music. So in 2009, Donna Summer is in Berlin’s Tempodrom the first musician of Electronic Beat’s live event series ‘Classics’. (electronicbeats.de June 2, 2009) The audience could wonder what an artist is going to sound like the U.S. music magazine ‘Rolling Stone’ (July 12, 1979) writes about already in 1979: “She stretches her chameleonlike voice to new limits, adding the role of a rock&roll singer to her already established sex-kitten and Las Vegas schlockmistress poses.“

In a Las Vegas show style Donna Summer presents in 1978 in the music film ‘Thank God It’s Friday’ the song ‘Last Dance’, a song which receives an Oscar (Academy Award). After ‘Last Dance’ Donna Summer breaks records in the U.S.A.. She earns three consecutive #1 double albums; she is the first musician, female, male, or group, to accomplish this. She is the first female singer to have a #1 single and a #1 album on the Billboard charts simultaneously, a feat she repeats twice six months later. She is the first female solo artist to have four #1 singles in a 12 month period; two of them are also produced in a dance-minded Las Vegas big entertainment style: ‘MacArthur Park’ and the duet with Barbra Streisand ‘No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)’. (SonyBMG press release August 7, 2006) And she becomes finally in 1979 and in 1980 the most successful female musician of the U.S.A. (Billboard December 22, 1979 and December 20, 1980). In Germany she achieves with the Las-Vegas-like ‘On The Radio’ from 1979, the title melody of the film ‘Foxes’, one of her highest airplay charts positions.

For ‘Hot Stuff’ from the album ‘Bad Girls’ she earns in 1979 a Grammy Award in the rock category, one out of five Grammy Awards she wins so far. ‘Hot Stuff’ is one of the reasons why Donna Summer is in 1979 again the most successful female singer in Germany, according to the album and single charts (Der Musikmarkt 1989). The German rock encyclopaedia ‘Das neue Rock-Lexikon’ (1990) declares the album ‘Bad Girls’ to the “essential album of the late 70ies“. The ‘Rolling Stone’ (August 21, 2003) writes: “Along with her brilliant producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, she was creating a new idea of international pop. Madonna’s career without Summer and ‘Bad Girls’? Unthinkable.“ Because unlike soul singers she has an icy, businesslike edge to her voice (Rolling Stone August 21, 2003). So with this voice down to earth, Donna Summer turns the pop music into a new direction. But she also inspires Giorgio Moroder to transform further music styles with the synthesizer; on ‘Bad Girls’ dance-minded, electronic music is crossed over R&B, pop, country, rock. And the team around Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte works with such a perfection that the electronic sound seems integral to the lyrics (Rolling Stone July 12, 1979). So the title track hits the German charts, too. And in the U.S.A. ‘Bad Girls’, ‘Hot Stuff’, and the album even climb to the #1 spot of the Billboard charts.

Also after ‘Bad Girls’ she chooses to experiment rather than stagnate, veering gradually in new directions and in doing so she progresses as a performer and a writer (Billboard November 8, 1980). In 1980 Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, and Pete Bellotte release the critically acclaimed (Der Spiegel August 2, 1982), more rock and new wave oriented album ‘The Wanderer’. Her rock&roll performance on ‘The Wanderer’ is so convincing that John Lennon compared her voice on the title track with the one of Elvis Presley (Robert Hilburn, Corn Flakes with John Lennon, 2009).

She has such a versatile voice that the German rock encyclopaedia ‘Rock-Lexikon’ (2008) calls also her jazz-ballad version of ‘’Lush Life’, the Billy Strayhorn classic, absolutely outstanding, a song from her 1982 album produced by Quincy Jones. This brilliance is no surprise because early in the 70ies Donna Summer delights during rehearsals at the Volksoper Vienna with an absolutely gorgeous soprano voice (opera singer Julia Migenes in: radio programme ‘Feelin’ Love: The Donna Summer Story’ BBC Radio 2 (UK) 2009). In 1983 follows ‘She Works Hard For The Money’ in a pop-rock style. The German magazine ‘Kultur-Spiegel’ (December 1999) calls this charts success, produced by Michael Omartian, simply Donna Summer’s “anthem”. In a sense it could be her personal anthem. Because she must realize, although she is the co-songwriter of many of her songs and especially of many of her hits, that women don’t get the recognition for it as easily as men (norwichbulletin.com August 26, 2009). Only a few know that she e.g. was the one who had this line ‘I’d love to love you” in her mind and Marylin Monroe in her mind’s eyes. That she was the one who intuitively realized how to sing to the electronic sound of ‘I Feel Love’: “Go with the feel of the rhythm.“ That she had the ideas for the melodies and the contents of ‘Bad Girls’ and ‘She Works Hard For The Money’ while empathizing with the feelings of others. In 1989 she writes together with the British hit production team Stock / Aitken / Waterman the dance-pop song ‘This Time I Know It’s For Real’ and hits again the German and the U.S. charts. In 2008 Donna Summer releases 17 years after her last pop studio album her album ‘Crayons’, an album of new material on which she crosses in her unmistakable way different music styles (electronic beats press release June 2, 2009).

In the years between she raises together with her second husband Bruce Sudano her three daughters Mimi, Brooklyn, Amanda and delights in concerts. In 1999 she presents e.g. ‘Dim All The Lights’ in an unplugged version, a song written by Donna Summer in 1979. During her summertour around the U.S.A. and Canada in 2005 she impresses after all these years without much publicity 45,000 people with an open air concert in Chicago (nathandigesare.com 2005), a concert in which only she performs. In autumn 2007 she is the star of the music festival ‘Night Of The Proms’ in Rotterdam, not only measured by the applause. It is Donna Summer who moves the people. As a thankyou she dedicates an encore to the audience. And with this encore, her interpretation of the Billy Preston / Joe Cocker classic ‘You Are So Beautiful (To Me)’, she enthralls them totally so that they sing along with her. It’s such an overwhelming moment that tears drop down her cheeks. In Paris early in July 2009, in the soldout Palais de Congrès, she is welcomed with standing ovations.

Donna Summer has made it, she has influenced the music scene and continues to inspire old and new generations of musicians (electronic beats press release June 2, 2009). Jim Kerr e.g., member of the band Simple Minds, confirms this. Simple Minds might never have happened, had he not heard Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’; he split his punk band, formed the pop-rock band Simple Minds, and uses synthesizer since that time (Sunday Mail November 15, 2009). But it is not only her music, it is also her voice other musicians refer to, like the young electro punk trio Gossip with singer Beth Ditto. They imagined for their smash hit ‘Heavy Cross’ that Donna Summer would sing a song of the gothic punk band Bauhaus (spin.com May 29, 2009). For top model Naomi Campbell Donna Summer is a great voice, too, a female Pavarotti (Welt am Sonntag October 24, 2010). Donna Summer is going to make it in the eyes of the public from the undisputed Queen of Disco (rockhall.com September 23, 2009) to the voice who has created together with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte and with her intuitive ideas for melodies and contents for songs a new idea of international electronic pop music, who has given the music a new direction with her voice. And this voice “is still full of energy, gets more emotional, and is very down-to-earth“, as the discerning German music magazine ‘Spex’ (Septermber / October 2009) describes it after her performance at Electronic Beats. When she is invited to the Nobel Peace Prize Conference 2009 in Oslo, she is for many the highlight of the concert in honour of the laureate U.S. President Barack Obama and brings the crowd to its feet (bunte.de December 12, 2009). At this evening, accompanied by an orchestra, she once again confirms what the British music magazine ‘Blues and Soul’ writes already in October 1999: “Textured arrangements, chord changes, evocative melodies and lyrics“ are marks of her songs, songs that have “stood the test of time becoming pop standards“.