Donna Summer life and biography

LaDonna Adrian Gaines, known by her stage name, Donna Summer, was an American singer/songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s. She has a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Summer is a five-time Grammy winner and was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach number one on the US Billboard chart. She also charted four number-one singles in the United States within a thirteen-month period.

Donna Summer's first U.S. release was, arguably, her most famous recording. The 17-minute disco anthem "Love to Love You Baby," replete with orgasmic moaning sounds, began Summer's undisputed reign as Disco Queen during the 1970s. In the last few years of that decade, she had numerous hit songs and albums both in pop and rhythm and blues. When disco finally faded from the musical scene, Summer became a born- again Christian, revealing a religious side to her music. Although no longer a dominating pop music force, Summer continued to make bankable albums during the 1980s, and her willingness to adapt to currently popular musical styles has suggested that she will continue to generate hits for the remainder of her musical career.

Born Donna Adrian Gaines, Summer grew up in Dorchester, Massachusetts, a working class city adjoining Boston. Her father was a butcher, her mother a school teacher. As a child she sang in Boston-area church choirs but by high school her tastes had grown more secular. She piled up hundreds of truancy slips, skipping school in order to sing with a local rock band. Two months before high school graduation, Summer dropped out. In 1967, at age 18, she debuted at Boston's Psychedelic Supermarket.

The following year found her abroad in the German production of Hair. Europe would be her home for the next eight years. After a year and a half of Hair, Summer moved to Austria, becoming a regular with the Vienna Folk Opera. The Opera offered productions of Porgy and Bess and Showboat during her tenure.

It was in Austria, in 1971, that she married local actor Helmut Sommer. Although their marriage would dissolve in 1976 under the pressure of Summer's disco success, she continued to use the anglicized version of his last name.

Back in Germany in 1973, performing in a production of Godspell and working as a session singer in Munich's Musicland studios, Summer met producer Giorgio Moroder. Moroder was to be called Summer's "Svengali" due to his influence on her career. On the Oasis label, owned by Moroder and partner Pete Bellotte, Summer made a couple of European hits that were never released in the United States.

1975 saw the end of Summer's relative obscurity, and "Love to Love You Baby" was the reason why: 17 minutes of romantic lyrics, disco beat, and feigned orgasm delivered while lying down on the studio floor with the lights dimmed. Spin magazine said of this song that it "launched the extended dance mix as we know it--the zygote of house and industrial ... and invented the 12-inch." Casablanca records received the U.S. license and became Summer's record company upon her return to the United States. The song was an immediate disco hit and within months found its way up both the pop and rhythm and blues charts, hitting Numbers Two and Three, respectively.

Summer released an album named for the hit single in 1976. Love to Love You Baby nearly made the U.S. Top Ten and reached Number 16 in the United Kingdom. She and her producers were determined not to be merely a flash in the pan. In June of that year, the Summer-Moroder-Bellotte team released A Love Trilogy and also managed to squeeze in The Four Seasons of Love by December.

The first of her albums with a title that did not contain the word "love," the 1977 release I Remember Yesterday generated the singer's second gold single "I Feel Love." The song, a synthesizer pop hit, extended Summer's stylistic range, according to The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll. In 1978, Summer contributed most of the lyrics to the disco/fairy tale concept album Once Upon a Time, which she claimed was mostly autobiographical. The Cinderella-toned lyrics talked of girls who "live in a land of dreams unreal / Hiding from reality ... trapped within their world." Later in 1978, on Live and More, Donna covered Jimmy Webb's "MacArthur Park" for an unpredictable massive hit--her first appearance in slot Number One on the pop charts.

As the 1970s ended, it seemed Summer could do no wrong. Between 1978 and 1980 she earned eight Top Ten hits. She even became a film star, portraying an aspiring singer in 1979's Thank God It's Friday. While one critic suggested audiences would thank god when this movie was over, the film's Number Three hit song "Last Dance" won an Oscar and two Grammys--one for Summer and one for writer Paul Jabara.

Bad Girls, a 1979 number one double album, was Donna's last recording for Casablanca. Four songs from this album reached the Top Ten, many sitting there for weeks, variously occupying the Number One and Two positions. But according to The Encyclopedia of Pop Rock & Soul Summer was depressed by her struggle with Casablanca to go beyond disco. She claimed that she'd been "stuck doing something that had been choking me to death for three years." She began including religious songs in her performances, a return to her church roots and a reflection of a desire for inner peace.
This soul weariness took formal expression in a lawsuit against manager Joyce Bogart and husband Neil Bogart's Casablanca Records to the tune of $10 million. When the legal dust settled, Summer was released from her contract and signed with Warner Brothers' newly formed Geffen label.

The Wanderer was Donna's first album for Geffen. The title track reached Number Three by 1981; the song addressed the singer's recent born-again Christianity. The religious thread in her music continued for the next few years but did not cost her much popular appeal, perhaps because the disco fever had already lifted. "He's a Rebel," from her 1983 Mercury release, She Works Hard for the Money, won a Grammy for best inspirational performance--a trick Summer would repeat the following year with the cut "Forgive Me" off Cats Without Claws.

A further abdication of Summer's reign as Disco Queen occurred when the singer allegedly remarked that AIDS was a form of divine ruling on homosexuality. Gay club enthusiasts who had embraced her and helped make her a star were angry. Despite Summer's denial of making the AIDS remark, the rift never healed. On the home front, the beginning of the 1980s saw her marriage to Bruce Sudano, lead singer of Brooklyn Dreams. They named their daughter Brook Lyn.

Donna continued to work steadily throughout the eighties, although six years were to pass after "She Works Hard for Her Money" before she penetrated the Top Ten again. "This Time I Know It's for Real," off 1989's Another Place Another Time, reached Number Seven. By this time Summer had moved into other areas of self-expression. Her neo-Primitive paintings and lithographs proved popular; in June 1990, a Beverly Hills gallery sold 75 such works for up to $38,000 apiece.

Summer has never stopped producing or changing. In a Billboard interview, she discussed her latest transformation--into a country music singer. Together with musician/husband Sudano, she has penned several country songs, including the hit "Starting Over" with Dolly Parton. Questioned by the interviewer regarding these many transformations, as well as the personal and professional ups and downs of her life, Summer responded with a painting metaphor. Think of a painting, she said, which is left in the sun. The painting fades but "also takes on new colors. And instead of the colors being as vivid as they once were, they change into different and perhaps richer colors." One cannot help but sense that Summer's rainbow of colors will continue to grow richer for many years.

In 2008, Summer released her first studio album of original music in 14 years since 1994 (Christmas Spirit); years entitled Crayons, which peaked at #17 on the US Top 200 Album Chart, and achieved modest international success. The album was released on the Sony BMG label Burgundy Records. The songs "I'm A Fire", "Stamp Your Feet", and "Fame (The Game)" reached number one on the US Billboard Dance Chart. The ballad "Sand on My Feet" was released to adult contemporary stations and reached number thirty on that chart.

In August 2010, she released the single "To Paris With Love", co-written with Bruce Roberts and produced by Peter Stengaard. In October 2010, the single reached #1 on the US Billboard Dance Chart. Also that month, Summer appeared in the PBS Television Special Hitman Returns: David Foster and Friends. In it, Summer performed with Seal on a medley of the songs "Unbreak My Heart / Crazy / On The Radio", before Summer closed the show with "Last Dance".

Discography:
1974: Lady of the Night
1975: Love to Love You Baby
1976: A Love Trilogy
1976: Four Seasons of Love
1977: I Remember Yesterday
1977: Once Upon a Time
1979: Bad Girls
1980: The Wanderer
1981: I'm a Rainbow
1982: Donna Summer
1983: She Works Hard for the Money
1984: Cats Without Claws
1987: All Systems Go
1989: Another Place and Time
1991: Mistaken Identity
1994: Christmas Spirit
2008: Crayons

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