And We Danced

In 1975, when Donna Summer replaced Gloria Gaynor at the top of the fledgling Disco chart, few anticipated her coming reign as Queen of Disco and the powerful, inventive music she would unleash over the next 5 years. Her hit Love to Love You Baby was a percolating 17-minute epic of erotic moans, pulsating electronic beats, and sheer ecstasy on the dance floor. Teaming with producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, Donna Summer was on her way to dominating the world of Disco both commercially and artistically.

Donna Summer was born Donna Gaines in Boston, Massachusetts. She moved to Germany in the early 1970’s and joined a traveling production of Hair. She met and married Helmut Sommer in Munich and adopted his last name with a slight change in spelling. While in Europe, she met Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. Together, the 3 created Love to Love You Baby which reached the top of the Disco chart in the U.S. in the fall of 1975 and later reached number 2 on the Pop chart in early 1976.

In 1976, Donna Summer began a pattern of prolific releases that included two full-length albums in both 1976 and 1977. All four topped the Disco chart, and each would carry Disco music a few steps forward artistically. Love Trilogy, from 1976, split the title song into 3 parts of Try Me, I Know, and We Can Make It with individual lyrical themes of Try me just one time, I know we can make it, and We can make it if we try welded together in the end to form Try Me, I Know We Can Make It. Donna followed up in the fall of 1976 with the Four Seasons of Love album that included extended Dance suites for each season - winter, spring, summer and fall.

I Remember Yesterday from the spring of 1977 begins with the Swing-Disco nostalgia of I Remember Yesterday and closes with one of the most influential Disco recordings of all time, I Feel Love. Intense pulsating disco beats and Donna’s smooth erotic vocals drew a blueprint for Eurodisco and much of House and Techno to follow. 1977 closed with Once Upon a Time…, Donna’s double album of a Cinderella story.

Dance floors in the summer of 1978 were dominated by music from the film Thank God Its Friday. The soundtrack featured Donna Summer’s Last Dance as a centerpiece. The song demonstrated a new level of lyrical sophistication and ultimately resulted in an Academy Award for Best Song. In late 1978, Donna released the album that made her a superstar with Pop audiences. Live And More was a double album with live recordings of her past hits and one side of new studio material. Consolidating her Disco audience, she reached out to a broader Pop audience with the brilliance or over-the-top kitsch (depending on your point of view) of her re-recording of Richard Harris’ MacArthur Park. The song utilized what was swiftly becoming a formula for Donna Summer’s large disco productions, a slow, swirling introduction kicking into swift Disco beats. Live And More became her first number one Pop album and MacArthur Park her first number one Pop hit single.

Donna Summer’s third consecutive double album, released in the spring of 1979, was her masterpiece Bad Girls. The first single from Bad Girls, Hot Stuff, boldly mixed in Rock guitars to create a new Disco/Rock fusion. Filled with tales of ladies of the night and their customers, Bad Girls topped the Pop album chart and the Disco chart while Donna Summer asserted dominance of the Pop singles chart as well. Only Anita Ward’s Ring My Bell prevented Donna from immediately following Hot Stuff into the number one Pop slot with Bad Girls. In addition to the hit singles Hot Stuff, Bad Girls, and Dim All the Lights, the Bad Girls album also featured the pumping Dance classic Sunset People. The triumphant year of 1979 closed out with the double album greatest hits collection, On the Radio and Donna again topping the Pop and Disco charts. This time the hit was a superstar duet with Barbra Streisand, No More Tears (Enough Is Enough). Incredibly, Donna Summer had released 4 double albums within 2 years, 3 of them hitting number one on the Pop album chart.

After such dizzying success, the 1980’s began ominously for Donna Summer when The Wanderer, the leadoff track from her album The Wanderer, failed to climb higher than number 6 on the Disco chart and number 3 on the Pop chart. Her shift to overt Rock pleased critics but alienated much of her audience. Donna recorded one more album with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, Im a Rainbow, but it was shelved and not released until 1996.

Donna’s next released album, Donna Summer, did not appear until 1982. It was produced by Quincy Jones and the first track Love Is In Control (Finger on the Trigger) returned her to the top 3 of the Dance chart and the top 10 of the Pop chart with an agressive R&B peformance. However, followup singles were disappointing and Donna Summer headed into a commercial decline. The 1983 album She Works Hard for the Money made a brief splash in the clubs and on the charts, but Donna’s dominance of the Dance music world was over.

Although she no longer dominates the Dance charts, Donna remains a frequently charting Dance music artist. 1987’s Dinner With Gershwin broke into the Dance top 20. Donna’s work with British pop producers Stock, Aitken and Waterman on the Another Place and Time album in 1989 returned her to the top 5 on the Dance chart with two singles, This Time I Know It’s For Real and Love’s About To Change My Heart.

Multiple greatest hits and anthology collections kept Donna’s music in the public eye through much of the early 1990’s culminating in 1995 with Melody Of Love, her first number one Dance hit since the 1970’s, from her Endless Summer anthology. She embarked on a triumphant tour lasting nearly two years and then reunited with Giorgio Moroder.. They collaborated on 1997’s Carry On, the winner of the first Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording. After touring again in 1998, Donna Summer released the album VH-1 Presents Live and More Encore!. The album included new live recordings of past hits and two new studio recordings. Donna demonstrated she was in fine voice and topped the Dance charts with both new songs, the beautiful I Will Go With You (Con Te Partiro) and Love Is the Healer. Donna’s trademark vocals were at-home again in clubs. As the new milennium began, Donna returned once again to the top 3 on the Dance chart with Power Of One from the soundtrack to Pokemon - The Movie. Donna Summer remains one of the most distinctive and talented voices in clubs around the world.