Donna summers biography singer

American singer (1948–2012)

Musical artist

Donna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012), known professionally as Donna Summer, was an American singer and songwriter. She gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s and became known as the "Queen of Disco", while her music gained a global following.

Influenced by the counterculture of the 1960s, Summer became the lead singer of a psychedelic rock band named Crow and moved to New York City. In 1968, she joined a German adaptation of the musical Hair in Munich, where she spent several years living, acting, and singing. There, she met music producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, and they went on to record influential disco hits together such as "Love to Love You Baby" and "I Feel Love", marking Summer's breakthrough into international music markets. Summer returned to the United States in 1976, and more hits such as "Last Dance", "MacArthur Park", "Heaven Knows", "Hot Stuff", "Bad Girls", "Dim All the Lights", "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" with Barbra Streisand, and "On the Radio" followed.

A hitmaker on the Billboard Hot 100 for two decades, Summer recorded 32 chart singles on the chart, with 14 top ten singles and four number ones. Her first top ten hit, "Love to Love You Baby", peaked at number two in 1976, while her last top ten single, "This Time I Know It's for Real", reached number seven in 1989, spanning thirteen years. Summer also made chart history in 1979 by being the first female solo recording artist to record three number one singles in the same calendar year ("Hot Stuff", "Bad Girls" and "No More Tears (Enough is Enough")"). Summer sent a song to the top 40 for nine consecutive years (1976-1984). Summer's last Hot 100 hit, "I Will Go with You (Con te partirò)", charted in 1999. Summer was mostly successful on the magazine's Hot Dance Club S

Donna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012), known by her stage nameDonna Summer, was an Americansinger-songwriter. She was an African AmericanChristian who was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. She became famous during the disco era in the 1970s and became a pop icon. She died of lung cancer in Englewood, Florida. In 1982 she released a single with Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and Stevie Wonder called "State of Independence". She became known for songs like "Hot Stuff", "Last Dance", and "She Works Hard for the Money".

In 1974, Summer married Helmuth Sommer (which led to her stage name Summer) but divorced him two years later. She married Bruce Sudano in 1990 and had two children with him.

Discography

Studio albums

References

Other websites

(1948-2012)

Who Was Donna Summer?

Singer-songwriter Donna Summer, known as the "Queen of Disco," was born on December 31, 1948, in Boston, Massachusetts. She died on May 17, 2012 at age 63, after a years-long battle with cancer.

Early Life

Donna Summer was born Donna Adrian Gaines on December 31, 1948, in Boston, Massachusetts. Her father, Andrew Gaines, was a butcher and her mother, Mary Gaines, was a schoolteacher. From nearly the moment she learned how to talk, Donna sang ceaselessly. "From the time she was little, that's all she really did," her mother recalled. "She literally lived to sing ... She used to go through the house singing, singing. She sang for breakfast and for lunch and for supper."

Summer's debut performance came one Sunday when she was 10 years old, when a singer scheduled to perform at her church did not show up. The priest, who knew from her parents Summer's fondness for singing, invited her to perform instead—expecting, at the least, an amusing spectacle. But to everyone's surprise, the voice that bellowed out of Donna Summer's tiny body that Sunday morning was overwhelmingly powerful and beautiful.

"You couldn't see her if you were beyond the third row," her father remembered. "But you could hear her." Summer recalled, "I started crying, everybody else started crying. It was quite an amazing moment in my life & and at some point after I heard my voice come out I felt like God said to me, 'Donna, you're going to be very, very famous.' And I just knew from that day on I was going to be famous."

Summer attended Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Boston, where she starred in the school musicals and was very popular. She was also something of a troublemaker as a teenager, sneaking out to parties to circumvent her parents' strictly enforced curfew. In 1967, at the age of 18, only weeks before her high school graduation, Summer auditioned for and was cast in a

LaDonna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012), known professionally as Donna Summer, was an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s and became known as the "Queen of Disco", while her music gained a global following.

Summer was one of seven children raised by devout Christian parents. She sang in church, and in her teens joined a funk group called The Crow, so named because Donna was the only black member of the group. At eighteen, Gaines left home and school to audition for a role in the cast of the Broadway musical, Hair (1968). Unsuccessful in getting the part in the Broadway show (Melba Moore got the role), she was offered the European Tour when the show moved to Germany, where Summer also performed in the German versions of several musicals including Godspell and Show Boat. She settled in Munich and also performed with the Viennese Folk Opera and the pop band Munich Machine.

In 1971, Gaines released a single in Europe entitled "Sally Go 'Round The Roses", her first solo recording. The single was unsuccessful, however, and she had to wait until 1974 to launch a solo career. Gaines married Austrian actor Helmuth Sommer ("Summer" is an Anglicization of his last name) in 1972 and gave birth to daughter Mimi the following year. Summer did various musical jobs in studios and theaters for several years, including the pop group FamilyTree from 1974-75.

After her divorce from Sommer, she married her second husband, American musician Bruce Sudano, in 1980. They have two daughters named Brooklyn and Amanda. Sudano was a member of the '70s groups Alive N Kickin' and The Brooklyn Dreams.

While singing back-up for groups such as Three Dog Night, she met producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. With these producers, Summer signed a contract in the Netherlands and issued her first album, Lady of the Night, which included the European hit, "The Hos