Disco Queen Donna Summer dies at 63

In this photo from 1979, singer Donna Sum­mer poses with three awards she won at the Amer­i­can Music Awards in Los Ange­les, Calif. Sum­mer, the Queen of Disco who ruled the dance floors with anthems like “Last Dance” “Love to Love You Baby” and “Bad Girl,” has died. Her fam­ily announced her death in a state­ment Thurs­day. She was 63. (Asso­ci­ated Press file)

MESFIN FEKADU

Asso­ci­ated Press

NEW YORK — Like the King of Pop or the Queen of Soul, Donna Sum­mer was bestowed a title fit­ting of musi­cal roy­alty — the Queen of Disco.

Yet unlike Michael Jack­son or Aretha Franklin, it was a des­ig­na­tion she wasn’t com­fort­able embracing.

“I grew up on rock ‘n’ roll,” Sum­mer once said when explain­ing her reluc­tance to claim the title.

Indeed, as disco boomed then crashed in a sin­gle decade in the 1970s, Sum­mer, the beau­ti­ful voice and face of the genre with pul­sat­ing hits like “I Feel Love,” ”Love to Love You Baby” and “Last Dance,” would con­tinue to make hits incor­po­rat­ing the rock roots she so loved. One of her biggest hits, “She Works Hard for the Money,” came in the early 1980s and relied on a smol­der­ing gui­tar solo as well as Summer’s boom­ing voice.

Yet it was with her disco anthems that she would have the most impact in music, and it’s how she was remem­bered Thurs­day as news spread of her death at age 63.

Sum­mer died of can­cer Thurs­day morn­ing in Naples, Fla., said her pub­li­cist Brian Edwards. Her fam­ily released a state­ment say­ing they “are at peace cel­e­brat­ing her extra­or­di­nary life and her con­tin­ued legacy.”

It had been decades since that brief, flashy moment when Sum­mer was every inch the Disco Queen.

Her glit­tery gowns and long eye­lashes. Her lux­u­ri­ous hair and glossy, open lips. Her sul­try vocals, her bed­room moans and sighs. She was as much a part of the cul­ture as disco balls, poly­ester, plat­form shoes and the music’s puls­ing, pound­ing rhythms.

Summer’s music gave voice to not only a musi­cal rev­o­lu­tion, but a cul­tural one — a time when sex, race, fash­ion and drugs were being explored and exploited with free­dom like never before in the United States.

Her rise was insep­a­ra­ble from disco’s itself, even though she remained pop­u­lar for years after the genre she helped invent had died. She won a Grammy for best rock vocal per­for­mance for “Hot Stuff,” a fiery guitar-based song that rep­re­sented her shift from disco to more rock-based sounds, and cre­ated another kind of anthem with “She Works Hard for the Money,” this time for women’s rights.

Elton John said in a state­ment that Sum­mer was more than the Queen of Disco.

“Her records sound as good today as they ever did. That she has never been inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame is a total dis­grace espe­cially when I see the second-rate tal­ent that has been inducted,” he said. “She is a great friend to me and to the Elton John AIDS Foun­da­tion and I will miss her greatly.”

Sum­mer may not have liked the title and later became a born-again Chris­t­ian, but many remem­bered her best for her early years, start­ing with the sin­ful “Love to Love You Baby.”

Released in 1975, a break­through hit for Sum­mer and for disco, it was a leg­end of stu­dio ecstasy and the genre’s ulti­mate sex­ual anthem. Sum­mer came up with the idea of the song and first recorded it as a demo in 1975, on the con­di­tion that another singer per­form it com­mer­cially. But Casablanca Records pres­i­dent Neil Bog­art liked the track so much that he sug­gested to pro­ducer Gior­gio Morodor they re-record it, and make it longer — what would come to be known as a “disco disc.”

Sum­mer had reser­va­tions about the lyrics — “Do it to me again and again” — but imag­ined her­self as a movie star play­ing a part as if she were Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe. So she agreed to sing, lying down on the stu­dio floor, in dark­ness, and let­ting her imag­i­na­tion take over. Solo and mul­ti­tracked, she whis­pered, she groaned, she crooned. Drums, bass, strings and key­boards answered her cries. She sim­u­lated cli­max so many times that the BBC kept count: 23, in 17 minutes.

What started as a scan­dal became a clas­sic. The song was later sam­pled by LL Cool J, Tim­ba­land and Bey­once, who inter­po­lated the hit for her jam “Naughty Girl.” It was also Summer’s U.S. chart debut and the first of 19 No. 1 dance hits between 1975 and 2008 — sec­ond only to Madonna.

Sum­mer, real name LaDonna Adrian Gaines, was born in 1948 in Boston. She was raised on gospel music and became the soloist in her church choir by age 10.

“There was no ques­tion I would be a singer, I just always knew. I had credit in my neigh­bor­hood, peo­ple would lend me money and tell me to pay it back when I got famous,” Sum­mer said in a 1989 inter­view with The Asso­ci­ated Press.

Before disco, she had already rein­vented her­self sev­eral times. She sang Motown songs with local groups in Boston as a teenager, then dropped out of school in the late 1960s and switched to pyschedelic rock after hear­ing Janis Joplin. An attempt to get a part in the musi­cal “Hair” led her to get the prin­ci­pal role in Munich. She stayed in Ger­many for five years, worked in other pro­duc­tions and modeled.

Mean­while, she was per­form­ing in operas, singing backup for Three Dog Night and other groups and releas­ing songs of her own. A mar­riage to Hel­muth Som­mer didn’t last, but the singer did hold on to her ex-husband’s last name, chang­ing it to “Sum­mer.” By 1974, she had met pro­duc­ers Gior­gio Moroder and Pete Bel­lotte and released her first album, “Lady of the Night,” to suc­cess in Europe.

Then came “Love to Love You Baby,” her mem­o­rable U.S. debut. Through the rest of the disco era she burned up the charts: She was the only artist to have three con­sec­u­tive double-LPs hit No. 1, “Live and More,” ”Bad Girls” and “On the Radio.” She was also the first female artist with four No. 1 sin­gles in a 13-month period, accord­ing to the Rock Hall of Fame, where she was a nom­i­nee this year but was passed over.

Musi­cally, she began to change in 1979 with “Hot Stuff,” which had a tough, rock ‘n’ roll beat. Her diverse sound helped her earn Grammy Awards in the dance, rock, R&B and inspi­ra­tional categories.

Sum­mer said grew up on rock ‘n’ roll and later cov­ered the Bruce Spring­steen song “Protection.”

“I like the Moody Blues, the Bea­t­les and the Rolling Stones as well as Aretha Franklin, Dionne War­wick, the Supremes and Temp­ta­tions,” she said. “I didn’t know many white kids who didn’t know the Supremes; I don’t know many black kids who don’t know the Moody Blues.”

War­wick said in a state­ment that she was sad to lose a great per­former and “dear friend.”

“My heart goes out to her hus­band and her chil­dren,” War­wick said. “Prayers will be said to keep them strong.”

Sum­mer later became a born-again Chris­t­ian and was accused of mak­ing anti-gay com­ments in rela­tion to the AIDS epi­demic — a par­tic­u­lar prob­lem for a woman who was and remains a gay icon. Sum­mer denied mak­ing the com­ments, but became the tar­get of a boycott.

Reli­gion played an impor­tant role in her later life, said Michael Levine, who briefly worked as her publicist.

“Her pas­sion in her life, besides music, was God, spir­i­tu­al­ity and reli­gion. She held a bible study class at her home every week,” he said.

Sum­mer released her last album, “Crayons,” in 2008. It was her first full stu­dio album in 17 years. She also per­formed on “Amer­i­can Idol” that year with its top female contestants.

Sum­mer is sur­vived by her hus­band, Bruce Sudano, and three daugh­ters, Brook­lyn, Mimi and Amanda.

Posted by AP News on May 17 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.