Must Haves. Music Edition. Donna Summer.

BACKGROUND HISTORY

Active1960s - 2010s

BornDecember 31, 1948 in Boston, MA

DiedMay 17, 2012 in Naples, FL

Genre

R&B

Styles

Club/Dance

Disco

Dance-Pop

Contemporary R&B

House

HITS

Hot Stuff, On the Radio, I Feel Love, Last Dance, She works hard for the money

ALBUMS

Lady of the Night (1975), A Love Trilogy (1976) I remember yesterday (1977), Four Seasons of Love (1976), Once Upon a Time... (1977) Bad Girls (1979), The Wanderer, Donna Summer (1982), She Works Hard for the Money (1983), All Systems Go (1987), Mistaken Identity (1991)

CULTURAL IMPACT

Donna Summer's title as "Queen of Disco" wasn't just a marketing ploy. She was a talented vocalist trained as a powerful gospel belter, but she distinguished herself with her songwriting ability, magnetic stage presence, and astute choice of studio collaborators, all of which resulted in sustained success. She topped the Billboard club chart 11 times in the 1970s alone, with high-quality, often high-concept material that included the rapturous "Love to Love You Baby" (1975), the innovative "I Feel Love" (1977), a radically transformed "MacArthur Park" (1978), and one of her five Grammy-winning recordings, "Hot Stuff" (1979).

With audacious musicality and uninhibited eroticism, these crossover hits embodied the disco era. Summer was an important part of the evolution of dance music after her subgenre was declared dead. She became an MTV star with the feminist anthem "She Works Hard for the Money" (1983), and she continued to top the club chart with disco-rooted house singles until 2010, 35 years after her breakthrough. Summer died of cancer in 2012, and the following year, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.