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Donna Summer, RIP

Xeni Jardin at 9:29 am Thu, May 17, 2012

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One of the greats is gone. Donna Summer died of cancer this morning in Florida, according to reports. The Queen of Disco was 63.

Summer was born and raised in Boston, and first sang in her church's gospel choir. She went on to perform in the touring production of "Hair," and met producer/songwriter and electronic music pioneer Giorgio Moroder in 1974.

About "I Feel Love," the synth-driven club anthem she recorded with Moroder in 1977, Brian Eno said at the time: "This is it, look no further. This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next 15 years.”

The singer who went on to win five Grammys ascended to diva status in the seventies with hits like “Love to Love You Baby,” “Last Dance,” “Hot Stuff,” “MacArthur Park,” and “Bad Girls.”

Two must-listens today: This Fresh Air interview with Summer, and this Tavis Smiley interview on NPR, both in 2003 when she was promoting her memoir, Ordinary Girl: The Journey.

Donna Summer with Giorgio Moroder in the mid-1970s, via soundonsound.


(Thanks, @drdawkins09)

Read more in Music at Boing Boing

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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  • Walt Guyll

     I dismissed her work out of hand until a girlfriend moved in with an lp of Summer’s On The Radio. I ended up playing it more than she did.
    Thanks, Donna, for the great music.

  • cubby96

    One of my first musical memories was singing along to hot stuff.  I must have been 5 or 6 years old and it was getting a lot of radio play.  I thought it was about food.  My parents and their friends thought it was a hoot.

    • Bonnie Ash

      I was older when Hot Stuff was airing.  I knew what it was about though.  After a  frantic dial in contest, I won a copy of the album it was on and was thrilled.  Not yet driving, I had to ask my mom to take me to the radio station to pick it.  My uber-conservative mom told me off, expressing dismay at my liking SLUT music. I never got that album.  Now as a mom, I’m okay when my daughter listens to Lily Allen, giggling at the F-I know I won’t be published with it- word.  My son loves Geo. Carlin.  As for Disco, we play it on family trips- Donna Summer’s Bad Girls included.

    • gracchus

      My little sisters pretty much wore out the Bad Girls LP, and “Last Dance” was the (obvious) closing number for school and summer camp dances for the first part of my adolesence. So yeah, part of the soundtrack of my young life.Listening to her voice right now with all the lights dimmed. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

  • nixiebunny

    I just treated our local Tuesday Night Bike Ride to “Love to Love You Baby” (the 17 minute LP version) the other day. I had no idea this was coming.

  • Manny

    I’d like to hang an RIP for Chuck Brown here. He was the godfather of go-go, Washington DC’s sound. Take Me Out To The Go-Go is streaming him today.

    http://www.tmottgogo.com/?p=78696

    • http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin

      Manny, I covered that in a separate post yesterday.

      http://boingboing.net/2012/05/16/chuck-brown-godfather-of-go.html 

      • Manny

        I figured that there were more people who’d click through to read about Donna Summer, and I wanted to point them to TMOTTGoGo so they could learn more about the music. Got to represent Chocolate City, yo.

        • http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin

          One can never have too much Go-Go.

  • UrbanUndead

    Eff you, May 2012. My man MCA had a beard like a billy goat, Maurice, and now Donna Summer. RIP

  • Wreckrob8

    I listened to a lot of disco in my teens and especially Donna Summer. I remember my Mum pretending not to understand. Didn’t they all do that? But why mix Donna Summer and Beaker? Teenage sexual confusion and Beaker? Beaker is my favourite muppet and always makes me laugh.

  • cstatman

    Drunk as hell at SXSW in ~ 96?    watching a young band and screaming at the TOP of my lungs  “you suck.  You SUUUUCKKK!  Play some Donna Summer!”   they struggled through their set, and last song, they giggled, and played “on the Radio”   the crowd went insane, and they got signed that night.        And invited me to every show they played in Austin for years.    yay the power of Donna.  MSRIP   (fuck cancer)

  • Pirate Jenny

    The “On the Radio” greatest hits double album was the first record I remember ever picking out for myself at Tower Records, at the age of nine. My parents either were blissfully unaware of what many of the songs were about, or figured that I was (which was true). I loved the electronic music almost as much as her voice. I didn’t know she was ill; this makes me so very sad.

  • http://twitter.com/patrick_larson PatrickLarson.com

    I feel sorry for the guy in white. Damn! What was he thinking?

    • franko

      dude, that’s giorgio moroder. you just *gotta* have respect for him!

    • http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/ tristan eldritch

      That’s Giorgio Moroder – he can wear what he wants cause he’s a Nietzschean Ubermensch, completely beyond (Sartorial) Good and Evil.

  • TheBehinder

    An amazing singer and a great loss. ‘I feel love’ was still being remixed as little as 5 years ago, an i daresay it will be played in clubs in one form another for decades more.

  • http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/ tristan eldritch

    Very saddened by this, as I was by the recent passing of Donald Dunn – two major presences in my musical tastes when I was growing up.  “Love to Love You” is one of the purest expressions of the Permissive Era, and one of the most irresistible slices of disco sleaze ever.  “I Feel Love” – Eno was so on the money with that quote at the time, one of the most important club records ever, destined to rip the roof off joints forever.  RIP.

  • Agile Cyborg

    I love Donna when she sings to me on Music Unlimited… i have a shitload of party lights and booze. I live on a beautiful piece of property and I like to get drunk… I play this wonderful ethereal creature’s voice and I swim and cavort to flashing lights…  My heart is made light. I’ll bet Donna put 20 years on my heart due to my stress free livin’…

  • Ed Hagopian

    Blueman Group did her right as well:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2ytn66X4ZI 

    • http://twitter.com/BonzoDog1 BonzoDog1

      Thanks for that link. A great Blue Man/Venus Hum tribute to Donna Summer and an (early) Friday Freakout for me.

  • anharmyenone

    A woman for all seasons. Time for a marathon.

  • http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/ tristan eldritch

    One of the best mixes of I Feel Love, by the late, great Patrick Cowley:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSTf0B-9laQ

  • http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/ tristan eldritch

    One of the best mixes of I Feel Love, by the late, great Patrick Cowley:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSTf0B-9laQ

    • FreakCitySF

      So glad someone mentioned Patrick Cowley he worked with Giorgio. One of my other favorites of Patrick Cowley, 
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew9eLazb_Jw

  • IndexMe

    Bleah. “This video contains content by UMG, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.”