Monday, June 30, 2003
The following article on Donna was rescued from my oldest floppy disks of "Forever True" backups. It used to be posted on the early "Articles & Interviews" section. Does anyone remember it? It's a translation (made by myself) of an original article from a brazilian music magazine.
SHINING STAR
ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE EXTINCT "POP" MAGAZINE (EDITORA ABRIL, PUBLISHER) IN 1979
When she started, in 1975, most demanding critics had not taken her seriously.
To them, that Donna Summer fever would be ephemeral.
Four years and six LPs later, acclaimed by critics in general and by the public from all over the world, Miss Summer proves that she's not only the queen of "discothéque", but a mature singer, fetching for new horizons. In the article on following page, critic Ezequiel Neves tell us how was it the ascension of this star who used to listen to Mahalia Jackson and Janis Joplin during her adolescence in order to learn how to sing.
"Sensual Goddess, queen of Disco... One day, I realised that I just wanted to be myself."
"I do not want to stay in the past like Aretha Franklin and Barbra Streisand did. My biggest desire now is to go ahead, even if Disco era should end". At first sight, that could sound as a very pretensious statement. But everything changes, since it was said by Donna Summer. At the moment, Miss Summer couldn't be more sincere. After all, her latest double album, Bad Girls, top of success now in the United States, needed only two weeks to reach the first place in the charts. More: whereas the great majority of pop music stars used to released only an album per year, this stunning black lady was daring enough to release three double LPs in the short period of eighteen months. Such accomplishment wasn't reached even by the Beatles in their golden days (around 1964/65).
"My Story? It's the same of Cinderella's... "
30 years old, ten of them as an actress and singer, Miss Summer, that is, Donna Gaines, can now dream of waking up under millions of dollars that fall on her head as rain." Well, I simply break into laughter when people say that my personal story fits into a fairy tale like Cinderella...My father worked as a butcher, I had a hard childhood in Boston. I can still remember that I used to spend my little money buying records of Mahalia Jackson and Janis Joplin. I used to dream of becoming a singer, but, by that time, I thought that it was only a dream. Today, I haver to pinch me all the time just to check if I am awake still dreaming..." Exactly as Cinderella, Donna Summer has her Magic Prince too. He's called Giorgio Moroder, a music producer celebrity from Munich, Germany. They met each other in 75 (Note: that wasn't the real year. As we all now, they met each other one or two years before), when La Summer was casted in the "Showboat" musical comedy. "For months, I'd been looking for a singer to sing my compositions", remembers Giorgio. " When I listened to Donna singing, I was certain that my quest had finally ended. She was the right one to sing "Love you the Love You Baby."
" Instead of being a singer, I had changed myself into a "sensual robot..."
When "Love you the Love You Baby" was released in the United States, critics fell in love with her. Everybody wanted to know who was that sensual goddess that was driving listeners and dancers crazy. Those howlings of pleasure were enough to make Donna Summer the undisputed queen of disco. New hits followed up: A Love Tri/ogy, Four Seasons of Love, 1 Remember Yesterday and the theme of the film "The Deep". Despite all the success, Donna Summer felt unsatisfied. "I felt myself like a doll, nothing more. Giorgio imposed me his songs to sing and all I had to do was to repeat the same vocal clichés. Instead of being a singer, I had changed myself into a ridiculous "sensual robot".
Everything changed when double LP "Once Upon the Time" was released. That album was about Cinderella's (Summer herself) story during disco days. Released in November, 77, the album caused a biggest astonishment, since all lyrics was co-signed by the singer. In addition, La Summer revealed herself a complete interpreter, even better than singers Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Roberta Flack and competent Martha Reeves. In her next LP, she went even far. Recorded live, Live and More included all her hits plus wonderful new versions of American classics penned by Duke Ellington, Gershwin and Shelton Brooks. Before recording the brilliant Bad Girls album, La Summer also won an Oscar for Giorgio Moroder for the song Last Dance, included on the soundtrack to the movie "Thank God It's Friday"(note: well, it was Paul Jabara the actual winner as the composer of the song). "I'm totally aware that disco is sort of transitorial", she said to New York Times newspaper. "But I'm not worried about it, because I'm not stuck on any kind of style. I can sing disco, rhythm and blues, ballads and even rock. Bad Girls, by the way, is a rock album. Just listen to it and you'll see. In fact, I think that disco can only survive if it incorporate rock's richness of sound." By that one can conclude that Miss Summer, besides being the most solid vocal that recently appeared in the show business, is also a very wise singer.
DISCOGRAPHY:
LPs released in Brazil:
Love you the Love You Baby;
The Trilogy of Love;
Four Seasons of Love;
I Remember Yesterday;
Once Upon the Time;
Live and More;
Bad Girls
Singles:
Love you the Love You Baby;
I Feel Love;
Last Dance;
MacArthur Park;
Heaven Knows
Hot Stuff.
Address;
Miss Donna Summer –
C/O Casablanca Record and Film Works, Inc.;
8255 Sunset Boulevard –
Los Angeles. California 90046 - USA
I thought Donna's hair and makeup looked great in the pictures, but I wasn't sure about the dress. It did make her look big in some pictures, but I couldn't tell if it was her, the dress, or just the way it photographed. I think part of it has to do with the way the dress photographed, but full-sized it might be easier to tell.
As for the boobs - I know from personal experience that when you put on weight, they get bigger too. The right suooprt will make them look perfectly "perked and rounded".
I just want to know why VH1 can't latch onto an event like that and broadcast it for us!
Sunday, June 29, 2003
WHITE TIE & TIARA PARTY
Barry Manilow had sung a short set including 'Copacabana', which had everyone on their feet including Kylie Minogue, Lisa Marie Presley, Victoria Beckham and Elizabeth Hurley. Donna Summer then came on to a huge round of applause as the pianist played the intro to Macarthur Park. Her voice was incredible and as strong as ever. She then sung Bad Girls, Hot Stuff and Last Dance. We were all up in our seats and calling out for more. Donna then asked Elton to join her on her last song - as Barbra wasn't there. Then they did a once-in-a-lifetime duet of No more tears(enough is enough). The crowd didn't want her to stop and so Barry Manilow took to the piano for 'Could it be Magic'. After the first chorus with just Barry & the piano the band picked up the tempo and then Elton & Donna joined in with the dance version of the song. It was quite a night.....
I wish I could have seen that!
Friday, June 27, 2003
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Love Machine (1975)
I've found this article about "Love Machine" in my ooooold archives. So, what's the real story about this album. Could this only be a "fake" thing? Hmm, truth or lie, this is really exciting!
"This unreleased album has attained the status of the holy grail amongst the many devotees of Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder's disco music. Recorded late in 1975 (shortly after Summer's first international hit 'Love To Love You') in Musicland Studios, Munich in a matter of weeks, the album drew heavily on Moroder's fascination with synthesizers and Summer's growing reputation for risque lyrics. The six tracks were written by Giorgio Moroder and Peter Bellotte with input from Summer, who was herself becoming increasingly involved with the songwriting after the unexpected success of 'Love To Love You Baby'. The album was produced by Moroder & Bellotte and synthesizers were programmed by Robby Wedel. The only other musician to appear credited on the album was Keith Forsey for 'electronic drums and percussion'.
The intended album sleeve, featuring a barely clad Summer skipping gaily between the printed circuitry of a monstrous machine, proudly stated that 'only the human voice and electronic musical instruments were used in this recording'. Sadly, the album was never to see light of day. Moroder's record label in the US, Casablanca Records, decided that the songs were too 'downbeat' and not 'commercially suitable'. This view was prompted, no doubt, by the poor critical response to Moroder's own synthesized 'Einzelganger' album for Casablanca a few months previously. The 'robot sex' theme contained in several of the songs was also subject to criticism and it was felt that it might not go down well with some of the large US retail outlets, who had previously balked at 'Love To Love You'.
Such rejection for Summer was not unusual - her 1974 pre-disco album 'Lady Of the Night' was not released in the US and, nearly ten years after that, her 'Rainbow' double album was also abandoned. (This now seems ironic given the huge success of Summer's 'I Feel Love' one year later, but even this massively successful song was nearly omitted from Summer's 1977 'I Remember Yesterday' album by Casablanca. On that occasion Moroder vociferously complained and pointed to the chart success of synthesizer hits such as 'Magic Fly' by Space and 'Oxygene' by Jean-Michel Jarre. Needless to say, on this occasion Moroder's view prevailed and 'I Feel Love' went on to become both a commercial and critical hit.)
Upon cancellation of the intended album Moroder set to work on a direct sequel to 'Love To Love You Baby' and within a few weeks he, Bellotte and Summer had written 'A Love Trilogy' which was much more to the liking of Casablanca, particularly with its soft-disco cover of Manilow's 'Could It Be Magic'.
Surprisingly, nobody at Casablanca noticed that one of the other tracks from this replacement album was entitled 'Wasted' - a thinly-veiled reference to both the rejected 'the Love Machine' and the hedonistic drug culture now in control at Casablanca.
Although 'The Love Machine' was never officially released, some advance pre-pressings were accidentally distributed - mainly to radio stations in Europe. Aside from these few hundred discs - which are now worth considerable sums of money - no further copies were produced.
Sadly, as with 'Einzelganger' Moroder now has little interest in seeing the album re-released. Fortunately (for disco aficionados) few of the album's songs were completely lost as some were later recycled on other Moroder/Bellotte-produced albums of the period.
Abridged from the American Music Almanac © 1985"
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Oh well, I decided to post the RS review because it's 99% pro Donna. I of course disagree with the bad things said about the marvellous Bad Girl's Side 3. For a long time, that was my all-time favourite side of any Donna Summer LP. In fact, it was "On My Honour" the very song Donna sang exclusively for me in a private show... (okay, it was in a dream, but looked sooo real).
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Bad Girls - A Seventies
Masterpiece!
Here's a great review of this unforgettable piece of art (from Rolling Stone Magazine). Anyway, I must disagree with the things said about the ballads. The whole side 3 showcases a little known side of Donna: she's an amazing composer and a wonderful performer of slow songs.
Had it been trimmed from two discs to one, Donna Summer's Bad Girls could have been an end-of-the-decade, Seventies masterpiece, seizing and encapsulating this moment in pop history. Even with side three's ultraschlock ballads and side two's erratic rockdisco cuts, it still ranks as the only great disco album other than Saturday Night Fever. Indeed, Bad Girls picks up where the John Travolta movie's sentimentalized, everybody's-a-star pop philosophy left off. If everyone's a star, it follows that everyone's also a commercial product, right? If that's true, where do you draw the line between being a self-created object of erotic fantasy and a hooker?
The notion that the world's a brothel is hardly new to pop music. Bette Midler gets a lot of laughs from imitating a bawd, and, on Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, Joni Mitchell paralleled imperialism to prostitution. Donna Summer, however, doesn't exploit the sexual jungle for humor or "art," but for sheer raunchy exuberance. In a move as naive as it is audacious, the singer herself writhes on the auction block, playing as hot-to-trot a streetwalker as ever sashayed down Broadway. Though the concept isn't developed as consistently as it might have been—the hooker-slanted tunes are interspersed with conventional love songs — Bad Girls amounts to a virtual paean to commercial sex.
Summer's vocals are wonderfully right for the part, and she stretches her chameleonlike voice to new limits, adding the role of rock & roll singer to her already established sex-kitten and Las Vegas-schlockmistress poses. The breakthrough cut is "Hot Stuff," a sizzling plea for action, whose slightly retarded, toughened disco rhythm and stinging Jeff Baxter guitar solo suggest Foreigner-style rock, without rutting the energy in metallic sludge. Summer's characteristic coyness is replaced by a hard-boiled, street-cookie directness that makes Linda Ronstadt seem positively demure.
The energy and fun are magnificently sustained on sides one and four. "Bad Girls," with its nifty "beep-beep, toot-toot" chant/hook, cheerfully evokes the trashflash vitality of tawdry disco dolls cruising down the main drag on Saturday night. The streamlined pop swing of "Love Will Always Find You" and "Walk Away" smoothly integrates Maria Muldaur-like nostalgia into the pop-disco mainstream. Summer's never sounded this playful and sophisticated. "Dim All the Lights" flaunts a saucy, Latin-flavored proposition, while "Our Love" is the apotheosis of every Sixties girl-group tear-jerker, updated for disco. Wailing in front of discofied African drums, Donna Summer sounds like the Shirelles reincarnated as a mightily love-struck Bionic Woman. In "Lucky," the pulpy saga of a one-nighter, the singer meows in front of a plunging, suction-cup synthesizer whose salacious slavering practically defines lasciviousness.
The closest thing to a social comment on Bad Girls comes in "Sunset People," a sweeping, high-rise view of Hollywood. Against an icy refrain of "doin' it right — night after night," the song telescopes the nightmarish glamour world of the Sunset Strip—with its teenage prostitutes, billboards, foreign cars and star worship — into an evocation of pleasureseeking as cold as it is tantalizing. If there's a moral here, it's in the music's ominous suggestion of the boredom beyond glitter and in the lyrics' telegraphed equation of the disco ethos with Hollywood and hooking. "Sunset People" just might be the disco culture's "A Day in the Life."
In one of the photos on the LP's inner sleeve, Donna Summer's co-producer, Giorgio Moroder, poses as her pimp. That's as good a metaphor as any for their musical interaction. Moroder's technique simultaneously mocks and exalts the star, who becomes both a goddess and a sideshow attraction in a futuristic technosex amusement park. Though this record's production contains nothing as startlingly novel as the sequenced bass synthesizer of "I Feel Love," the best tracks strike a perfect blend of German Eurodisco and American rock and soul that ultimately transcends the disco environment. Bad Girls' aural style is a lot sparer than the mechanized swirls of "Mac-Arthur Park Suite" and Once upon a Time....The new album's sound effects — e.g., the backward tape loops that sound like speeding cars in "Sunset People"— seem integral to the material.
Bad Girls' only serious lapse is side three, which consists of four sappy ballads, all of them cowritten by Summer. Working with lyrics that are embarrassingly mawkish, the singer overemotes in a painfully flat, syrupy sob, while the Eurodisco-pop synthesis that works so beautifully elsewhere collapses completely in these lengthy, unstructured weepers.
Such gross miscalculation shouldn't really come as a surprise, however, since Summer is truly a left-field phenomenon. Like Marilyn Monroe, whom she consciously emulates, Donna Summer is a gigantic but primitive talent whose reckless abandon and astonishing innocence (dumbness?) are two sides of the same coin. How else could she give herself so totally to the role of sex symbol? Summer is the Fifties' child-woman sexual ideal "liberated" into a Seventies, multiorgasmic Cosmopolitan clone — an inflatable sex machine as insatiable as she is helpless. But like Monroe, Summer also remains a true naif. She's more a monstrous reflection than a cynical projection of our collective libido. I guess the souls of our archetypes don't change, only their manners.
Two records ago, on Once upon a Time..., Donna Summer turned Cinderella into a disco fable. On Bad Girls, Cinderella has grown up to be a whore, and Prince Charming a john. Nowadays there's a ball every night down at the discothèque, and Happily Ever After is just another low-priced "zipless fuck." (RS 295)
Monday, June 23, 2003
Courtesy of Emerson:
Donna Summer Honey Cake
Mix the following ingredients in a blender:
02 cups of milk (300ml)
01 cup of raw sugar (150gr)
01 cup of honey
01 teaspoon of powder cinnamon
01 teaspoon of powder cloves
02 eggs
01 cup of instant chocolate
Blend the following ingredients in an electric mixer:
02 cups of wheat flour
01 teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate
01 soupspoon baking powder
04 soupspoons of margarine
Add the ingredients mixed in the blender to the ones stirred in the electric mixer and beat them until they are fully blended. Pour batter into prepared cake pan. Bake in preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes. After baking melt a bar of chocolate and cover the cake with it.
hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
Sunday, June 22, 2003
I begin to write these lines as MacArthur Park starts to play in my CD set. It's my favourite one. Right in front of me I can see a picture of you. In fact, it's the cover of the laser disc "A Hot Summer Night With Donna". I'm not totally sure, but I guess that picture was taken during the performance of that very song.
Actually, there are lots and lots of icons related to my Diva in my house.Yes, I have to admit: I am that thing people used to call a fan.
The only purpose of having all these memorabilia is kind of bring you closer to me, to my life.
Sometimes I wonder how can a man feel such affection for someone that he haven't at least ever talked to? But this feeling has been going on and on for over 20 years.
Some may say it would be a kind of lack of maternal love or even any other psychological explanation. Well, I really don't care about explanations, even though I'm an adult, as they say.
But when I'm listening to my so beloved Donna, I feel like I was a child. There's a deep intense pleasure inside that only children can feel. And I thank you, Donna, for that.
If I'm sad or somebody has brought me down, I just listen to your records and I'm ready for everything.
In the golden disco era, I used to worship you as you were a goddess or a queen. But, as time went by, I was able to realise that you were much more than just a diva or any other kind of showbiz product. All the things you have done for people who need help showed me your kindness and made me learn that "my" Donna is a real fantastic HUMAN BEING!
After nearly two decades I was lucky enough to see you live twice. It was back in 1992 and 1995 when you finally came to Brazil (where I live). Those were two nights of a completely dream come true.
By the first time (1992), you had just released the album "Mistaken Identity" and recorded the song "Friends Unknown". God knows what I felt when I put my eyes on those lyrics. Then I realised that you were grateful to us, your fans, for having stood beside you all over the years.
Well, Donna, I have to say: I am truly grateful too. Grateful for you who was there all the time. Maybe, you'll never know just how much you've stood by me.
Good times, bad times. I was aware when you were suffering and I sympathized with you. Maybe the positive vibrations I (and millions of fans) had in mind for you took some effect since you wonderfully overcame the problems. Just like you did to me all those years, and, of course, you never knew.
Things were even more wonderful in the last time I attended to your concert, in 1995, since I was in the first line. I could never expect to be so close to you.
Upon leaving the theather, I found myself reflecting over all those moments I had just lived. Yes, definitely, that so distant star called Donna Summer came real close to my soul. In a way that will never be disconnected.
In the end, I was able to come to the conclusion that, in my life, THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A YOU, DONNA.