Appreciating Donna Summer
by Xaque Gruber
It was never just disco with Donna Summer. A unique trailblazer that defied categorization, she had one of the great voices that mattered. Thankfully the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame realized this with her 2013 induction.
In a career spanning 34 years of albums, Summer (born LaDonna Adrian Gaines in Boston, Massachusetts) effortlessly glided from rock (Hot Stuff), R&B (Finger On The Trigger), pop (On The Radio), dance (Last Dance), the theatrical (MacArthur Park), and beyond. She was also a great songwriter, and was the sole writer of Dim All The Lights. I Feel Love changed the face of club music, predating the synthesizers of new wave and helped birth all electro-pop to come. The musical heiresses to the Bad Girls album are countless (Madonna, Beyonce, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Shakira, etc). She Works Hard For The Money was the first music video by a black female artist put into heavy rotation on MTV. With a new Donna Summer album (sometimes double albums) released once or twice a year from 1975 – 1984, selling a total of 130 million albums worldwide, she worked VERY hard for the money.
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