Donna Summer (31 December 1948 – 17 May 2012) was an American singer who was regarded as the unquestioned queen of disco. The one and only Donna Summer lit up the late 70s and 80s with flashy, exuberant vocals and automatic earworms. Born LaDonna Adrian Gaines on Dec. 31, 1948, Summer moved to Germany after being cast in a Munich production of Hair. There, she happened to meet Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, and the trio conglomerated to form a dynamic music team. With Moroder, Summer forged together her first album, The Hostage, which reached moderate success in Northern Europe. Summer’s big break, however, would come later with the release of 1975’s sexual “Love to Love You Baby”, which became one of disco’s first mainstream hits and reached #2 on the Billboard Charts.

1977 came around with the concept album I Remember Yesterday, which featured the Top 10 single “I Feel Love”. The next year, Summer hit the silver screen with the movie Thank God It’s Friday, whose soundtrack featured one of her own songs: the iconic “Last Dance.” This would later become one of the disco legends' signature songs. “Dance” would take home an Academy Award for Best Original Song, a Grammy, and a Golden Globe, and it jumped to a peak of #3 on the charts.

Yet Summer’s illustrious career was far from finished – Summer’s first live album Live and More featured the single “MacArthur Park”, a melting ballad that was a cover of the Jimmy Webb ballad of the same name. “Park” became Summer’s first – and perhaps most memorable – No. 1 hit, and cemented her status as a vocalist as well as a performer. With the track, she became the first female in modern rock history to hold the top spot in both the Hot 100 and the Billboard 200. 1979, though, would really be the peak of her career.

Her seventh studio album, Bad Girls, became arguably Summer’s most signature record. Equipped with three number ones (“Bad Girls”, “Hot Stuff”, the Barbra Streisand duet “No More Tears (Enough is Enough)”) and a number two (“Dim All The Lights”), Bad Girls roared to triple-platinum. Summer set a host of Billboard records – one of them being the first woman to have three number-ones in a calendar year – and also took home a Grammy for “Stuff”.

Throughout the rest of her career, Summer continued to clock Top 40 hit after top 40 hit, eventually racking up 12 tracks that went gold, along with a multitude of commercially and chartwise successful albums. Summer passed away on May 17th, 2012 due to her battle with lung cancer, but her legacy for women in the music industry and for disco are unforgettable.

Donna’s daughter, Amanda, sings for the folk duo JOHNNYSWIM. Amanda sings with her husband, Abner, as well.

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