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| Donna Summer |
What a sad week again. So sad it prompted me to publish a special post. Another Queen died this week. The Queen of Disco Donna Summer. She easily earned the title of Queen because she was at the top of her career during the disco era. Her songs were the backdrop of my pre-teen and teenage years and I, like so many other people listened a great deal. There must be hundreds of words to describe Donna Summer, but her singing voice, performances and beauty speak for themselves. Summer was born and raised in Boston, MA and like so many other singers she started singing at the age of ten in church. She performed throughout her high school years and a week before graduation she left for New York with the band Crow. After the band breakup Summer stayed in New York and auditioned for the musical, Hair. Donna Summer agreed to take the role in the Munich production of the show, and moved to Germany where she learned to speak German fluently. The move to Germany would begin the first steps to Donna Summer becoming the Queen of Disco. She was introduced to producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte and in 1975 released the hit “Love to Love You Baby“. Neil Bogart of Casablanca Records requested a longer version to play in discotheques and the rest was history. Throughout the rest of the seventies it seemed that Donna Summer had nothing but major hits as disco continued in popularity. However, disco music began to decrease in popularity in the 1980’s. As for Summer, she continued to perform and record musical styles other than disco. The early 1980’s still proved fruitful for Donna Summer. In fact, she was very much in demand up until her death. So many hated to hear the news of her death, but could celebrate a remarkable career filled with great music. Yes, we really did lose the Queen of Disco in death this week. We can and will always be able to listen to a phenomenal library of songs from a great voice.