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| Donna Summer |
| Webmasters Note: This page is here for several reasons. Donna is the undisputed "Queen Of Disco," I have followed Donna's career from the start and no tribute to disco would be complete without her. This page however is a very brief overview of her career as the web offers many in-depth sites about Donna. |
| Born LaDonna Andrea Gaines in Massachusetts, in Brookline, Dorchester, Boston or Mission Hills, depending on where you get your info, in 1948. Growing up in a family of six sisters and one brother, she created a unique identity by exploring an early interest in music. A young follower of gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, Donna first tested her voice at the age of eight, performing with church choirs. "It was then that I knew I had been given a very special gift from God," she recalls. "It was just a matter of how to best use it."
At the age of 18, Donna moved to New York in search of a career in entertainment. An audition to replace Melba Moore in the Broadway hit "Hair" led to a prime spot in the show's road company, which eventually landed the young singer in a German production of this classic musical theater work. After a year, she switched to the Viennese cast of the show. "That led to my joining the Vienna Folk Opera," Donna recalls. "While I was with them, I appeared in productions of "Showboat" and "Porgy and Bess." Donna Summer returned to Germany and continued her budding musical theater career, performing in productions of "Godspell" and "The Me Nobody Knows." She also began doing studio work singing background on records and cutting demos. During a demo session for a Three Dog Night song, Donna met producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. Her first single with the duo was called "Hostage," and it became a sizable hit in the Netherlands, France and Belgium. Around this time Donna married actor Helmut Sommer, a union which produced her first daughter Mimi, born in 1974, and later ended in divorce. She kept the name, however, angilcizing its spelling. Several other European hits followed, though none were released in the US. In 1975, Bellotte, Moroder and Donna Summer created the epic song "Love To Love You Baby." When it was originally recorded Donna believed it was a demo for another artist. When the track began stirring up club reaction in France, American record executive Neil Bogart took notice and licensed it to his fledgling Casablanca Company on it's Oasis label. It was Neil who insisted that producer Giorgio lengthen the song from it's original 3-plus minute version. It's rumoured that Neil didn't want to change the record during love making. When the 16-plus minutes, "Love To Love You Baby" hit the clubs it took off and rose to No.1 on the dancefloors and No.2 on the Billboard Hot 100 The creative credibility of a new musical genre and the career of its key figure took flight. Since then she has racked up fourteen top ten hits, four number one singles, eleven gold albums, three platinum albums (two of which have gone double-platinum), twelve gold singles, two platinum singles, five Grammy awards and twelve other Grammy nominations. She is the first female artist to have three number one solo singles in one year ("MacArthur Park," "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls") and she is the only artist to have three number one double albums in a row ("Live And More," "Bad Girls," and "On The Radio"). Donna was the only artist ever to guesthost Dick Clark's "American Bandstand." In 1980 she received the NAACP Image Award and became the first artist to sign with the newly formed Geffen records. 1980 also saw her marriage to former labelmate and singer of "Brooklyn Dreams," Bruce Sudano. The births of daughters Brooklyn in 1980 and Amanda 1981 followed. Over the years Donna has proven herself to be a consummate artist and songwriter - she has written or co-written many of her hits, and is currently writing a musical based on her life story. Most recently she has done a benefit performance for GMHC at Carnegie Hall that raised over $400,000 for that organization. She has also inked a multi-album deal with Epic Records and her first release for her new label was a live CD recorded at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom. This concert, "Live And More-Encore" was videotaped and became the highest rated concert special for a solo artist that VH1 ever broadcast. Over twenty five years after her biggest success, Donna is poised for a major comeback. And no one deserves it more. |
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