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Donna Summer

Donna Summer

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Donna Summer: Bad Girls (Casablanca)

Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, August 1979

‘HOT STUFF’ just isn't that terrific a record, no matter what the charts or current critical backlash dogma say, and it doesn't do any good ...

Audio interviews

Casablanca Records' Neil Bogart (1976)

Interview by Jim Esposito, Rock's Backpages audio, 1976

The Casablanca Records mogul gives his record industry background, selling bubblegum, radio censorship, big-sellers Kiss and, extensively, about Donna Summer and her disco/sex smash 'Love To Love You Baby'. Read a transcript of the audio.

File format: mp3; file size: 42.8mb, interview length: 46' 45" sound quality: ***

Donna Summer (1976)

Interview by Jim Esposito, Rock's Backpages audio, 1976

Disco Diva Donna on living and working in Europe; meeting Pete Bellotte and Giorgio Moroder; her family background in Boston and being a rebellious schoolkid, and tells us all about the making of the epochal 'Love To Love You Baby'.

File format: mp3; file size: 66.4mb, interview length: 1h 12' 28" sound quality: ***

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Casablanca Records' Neil Bogart (1976) [transcript]

Audio transcript of interview by Jim Esposito, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 1976

This is a transcript of Jim's 1976 interview with the Casablanca disco mogul. Listen to the audio of this interview.  ...

Donna Summer (1976) [transcript]

Audio transcript of interview by Jim Esposito, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 1976

Jim Esposito speaks to Donna Summer. Listen to the audio of this interview.   ...

Donna Summer: Love To Love You, Baby (Reprise) (GTO 008) ***

Review by Davitt Sigerson, Black Music, February 1976

'Love To Love You Baby'/'Full Of Emptiness'/'Need-A-Man Blues'/'Whispering Waves'/'Pandora's Box'/'Full Of Emptiness' ...

Donna Summer: Long Hot Summer

Interview by David Hancock, Record Mirror, 7 February 1976

AS THE purring of the telephone becomes a definite ring Donna Summer reaches blindly across crumpled sheets to silence the damn thing. ...

Donna Summer: Prima Donna!

Profile and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 17 February 1976

GETTING A record banned by the dear of BBC is as surefire a way of getting a hit as I know of and it's a ...

Banned — Why?: What Turns Censors On…

Report by uncredited writer, Melody Maker, 21 February 1976

It's Donna Summer at the moment, but the Beatles, Stones even Lena Horne have all run into radio censorship. So this week, MM examines that ...

Donna Summer: Love To Love You Baby

Review by Jeffrey Morgan, Creem, March 1976

THIS ALBUM is to the disco scene what 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' is to rock 'n' roll and what 'Autobahn' is to electronic drone. Side One is seventeen ...

The Temptations, Donna Summer, Bobby Womack, Archie Bell & the Drells: Radio City Music Hall, New York City

Live Review by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 6 March 1976

NEW YORK: A four-act show always runs the risk of dragging, even when the organisation is as meticulous as it was last Saturday at the ...

Donna Summer: Love On The Road

Report and Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, 25 March 1976

BEVERLY HILLS – The question was: how do you take a recording-studio orgasm on the road? "I'm sort of eager to find out myself," Donna ...

Donna Summer: Oh, oh Donna

Interview by uncredited writer, Melody Maker, 3 April 1976

DONNA SUMMER had been asked the question before, but that was no reason why I couldn't ask again. ...

Donna Summer: A Love Trilogy (Oasis)

Review by Jeffrey Morgan, Cheap Thrills, May 1976

WHILE WE'RE ON the topic of sexual fantasies, allow me to state for the record that I'm personally into black leather (lots of it; and ...

Donna Summer: "Love to interview you, baby"

Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 8 May 1976

A serious, valid and from the heart feature in the course of which Phil Sutcliffe had 93 orgasms... ...

Donna Summer: The Great Rocking Orgasmic Renaissance of AM Radio

Special Feature by Jim Esposito, Oui, September 1976

(Which Considers The Question: Is Donna Summer Coming Or Going?) ...

Donna Summer: They're Gonna Put Me In The Movies

Interview by David Hancock, National RockStar, 15 January 1977

Donna Summer reveals all to David Hancock ...

Giorgio Moroder: Donna und Blitzen!

Interview by Robin Katz, Record Mirror, 15 October 1977

GIORGIO, Ms Summer's producer, gives the low-down on their sessions in the studio. ...

Donna Summer: Once Upon A Time (Casablanca) *****

Review by Jane Suck, Sounds, 26 November 1977

I LOVE Sharon Tate, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, Donna Summer and ice cubes... oh, sod that for a lark. Who'd have thought that a concept (double) ...

New Musick: Disco

Essay by Davitt Sigerson, Sounds, 3 December 1977

A CLUB; members are photographed, beam-screened at the door, automatically invoiced. Large, low-ceiling, air-conditioned. Bland diffused light. Gunmetal grey walls, carpets, couches. Easily-read digital clocks, ...

Disco Doesn't Have to Mean Dull

Overview by John Swenson, Circus, 16 March 1978

International Technical Geniuses Discover Disco's Possibilities ...

Donna Summer: Universal Amphitheater, Los Angeles CA

Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 19 June 1978

Donna Summer's Debut at Universal ...

Donna Summer: Felt Forum, New York NY

Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 4 November 1978

Safe at the Forum ...

Donna Summer: Bad Girls (Casablanca)

Review by Danny Baker, New Musical Express, 19 May 1979

I'M SITTING here, the music is actionably loud, the bass is hitting right into the back of my neck, squarebashing on the spot, and – ...

Donna Summer: Bad Girls (Casablanca CALD 5007)***½

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 26 May 1979

Open wide (Knoworramean?) ...

Donna Summer: Hot Stuff

Interview by Robin Katz, Smash Hits, 14 June 1979

Robin Katz braves the heat to talk to the cool lady who's helped push disco to the forefront. ...

The Concise NME Guide To Electronic Music & Synthesised Sound PART TWO — Synthesisers

Overview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 12 January 1980

POMP THE trouble with synthesisers is actually playing them, accepting their status as sound-generators and starting from scratch. Mechanical keyboards were included in early synth ...

Donna Summer: The Wanderer

Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, February 1981

THE WANDERER is disco diva Donna's Inferno, a trip that will take us through her cold hell, up against fiendish temptation and out the other ...

Donna Summer: The Wanderer (Geffen) ****½

Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 19 March 1981

A rock & roll road map of Donna Summer's soul ...

Donna Summer: A Disco Queen is Born Again

Interview by Ben Fong-Torres, Austin American-Statesman, 1 November 1981

DONNA SUMMER is a puzzle. She's the Rubik's Cube of pop singers. you might say a multicolored, at least six-sided mystery. She steps onto the ...

Donna Summer: Donna Summer

Review by Paolo Hewitt, Melody Maker, 24 July 1982

IF THERE's one song that Donna Summer should be singing right now it's our current number one, 'Fame'. Tailor made for her, 'Fame' is glossy, ...

Donna Summer: From Sex Goddess to Superwoman

Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 18 December 1982

Donna Summer, once the siren of the G-spot, has grown up to become a wholesome American woman with a religious conscience. Now she's searching for ...

Donna Summer: She Works Hard For The Money/Diana Ross: Ross

Review by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 16 July 1983

DONNA SUMMER has adopted a succession of irresistible role models – the sex Goddess of Moroder's sensual motorik disco, the modern day Cinderella of 'Once ...

Donna Summer: Sermon chanted evening

Interview by Graham K. Smith, Record Mirror, 15 October 1983

DONNA SUMMER is a star. ...

Donna Summer: Cats Without Claws (WE A 250 806-1)

Review by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 15 September 1984

TO BE honest I liked Donna better when she talked dirty to me. They may have been Giorgio Moroder records as much as they were ...

Donna Summer: Cats Without Claws (Warner Bros)

Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 22 September 1984

LOOKING DARKLY into her TV's eyes and chastizing it as media plasma, Donna sings of its ruptured picture: "From the next apartment we hear music/Bleeding ...

Reel American: Keith Forsey's Disco Snarl

Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, November 1985

From Donna Summer to Billy Idol, from Psy-Furs to Simple Minds, the union of style and raunch. ...

Giorgio Moroder: Throbbery With Intent

Retrospective and Interview by David Toop, The Wire, April 1992

David Toop takes the pulse of disco pioneer GIORGIO MORODER ...

Your Booty, My 12-Inch: Disco Revisited

Guide by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, October 1998

YOWSAH, YOWSAH, YOWSAH. Twenty years after the dizzy heights of Discomania, the monster is back in our midst – in movies like Paul Thomas Anderson’s ...

Saturday Night Forever: The Story of Disco by Alan Jones & Jussi Kantonen (Mainstream Publishing PB £9.99)

Book Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, June 1999

Party like it's 1977. In the depressed 1970s, one musical movement dared to say (mirror)balls to despondency. Don't get down, get down! urges Jon Savage. ...

Donna Summer: Too hot to handle

Retrospective and Interview by Craig McLean, Daily Telegraph, 13 June 2008

A devout Christian, Donna Summer was an unlikely queen of disco, particularly one who wore her crown with such raunchy abandon. Now a 59-year-old grandmother, ...

Donna Summer: Crayons

Review by Chris Roberts, The Quietus, 23 June 2008

DONNA SUMMER'S FIRST ALBUM of new material for seventeen years doesn't so much announce that she's still got it as knock the door down, stride ...

Thoughts on Donna Summer

Comment by Mark Shipper, Rock's Backpages, May 2012

BY NOW YOU'VE HEARD about the sad passing of Donna Summer or, as she's always referred to, "Disco Queen Donna Summer" – she hated that ...

Donna Summer: 
Last Dance... and Gone

Memoir by Holly Gleason, Rock's Backpages, 17 May 2012

IN THAT FLOOD of ebony hair, there was always that one gardenia. Floating on top of the satiny waves of almost-porn star mane, it spoke ...

Donna Summer, 1948-2012

Obituary by Daryl Easlea, Record Collector, June 2012

WHEN DONNA SUMMER relocated from the US to Germany to star in the Munich production of Hair, she unwittingly set a course that would result ...

Donna Summer, 1948-2012

Obituary by David Hepworth, The Word, July 2012

AT A TIME when pop music seems to be dominated by solo female artists, it's hard to imagine that they were once a relative rarity. ...

Song from the Future: The Story of Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder's 'I Feel Love'

Retrospective and Interview by Simon Reynolds, Pitchfork, 29 June 2017

Forty years after its release, the ingenious studio gurus behind the robot-funk masterpiece talk about how it came to be. ...

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