Donna Summer's Journey

Thu. October 9, 2003 12:00 AM

New York City - Dance music’s greatest diva, Donna Summer, and its greatest producer, Giorgio Moroder, have reunited on a Summer-headlining album for the first time in 22 years with two new recordings – bonuses on the two-CD set The Journey: The Very Best Of Donna Summer (UTV / Mercury / UMe), released September 30, 2003. (buy CD) “That’s The Way” and “Dream-A-Lot’s Theme” are the pair’s first collaborations on a Summer album since 1981’s I’m A Rainbow. 1992’s one-off “Carry On” won the first Grammy for Best Dance Recording when issued in the U.S. in 1997.

Just as Summer’s autobiography Ordinary Girl: The Journey reaches bookstores on October 14, 2003, The Journey: The Very Best Of Donna Summer also looks back at her extraordinary career. The 18 classic selections, each digitally remastered, include all 14 of her Top 10 pop hits (12 produced by Moroder, often collaborations with Pete Bellotte; the majority co-written by Summer). Spanning 1975-1999 and a handful of labels, the collection boasts two platinum and six gold singles. A bonus disc features extended 12” mixes of “I Feel Love,” “Hot Stuff,” “She Works Hard For The Money” and “This Time I Know It’s For Real.”

Summer broke through in 1975 with “Love To Love You Baby,” which went gold, creating history for a 17-minute song. Her cover of Barry Manilow’s “Could It Be Magic,” “I Feel Love” and “I Love You” followed before she crystallized the disco phenomenon with 1978’s gold “Last Dance” from Thank God It’s Friday, the film in which she appeared. The song also won an Oscar as well as a Grammy (Best R&B Female Vocal Performance); her first of five Grammys in four different categories.


She continued her gold streak with Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park” and scored with “Heaven Knows” before 1979’s Bad Girls spun off the #1 platinums “Hot Stuff” (Grammy winner for Best Rock Female Vocal Performance) and “Bad Girls,” and gold “Dim All The Lights.” Summer became the first woman with three solo #1s in one year with “Hot Stuff,” “Bad Girls” and “MacArthur Park.” Ending the decade were the #1 gold “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough),” a duet with Barbra Streisand, and the gold “On The Radio,” which titled her greatest hits package, her third consecutive #1 double album, marking her as the only artist in history with that distinction.

Summer opened the ‘80s by becoming the first artist signed to Geffen Records, debuting with “The Wanderer.” In 1982 she teamed with Quincy Jones for “Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)” and a cover of the Jon Anderson-Vangelis track “State Of Independence.” 1983’s “She Works Hard For The Money” produced by Michael Omartian preceded a hiatus broken by 1989’s “This Time I Know It’s For Real” produced by British dance pop juggernaut Stock Aitken Waterman. Her most recent hit single, “I Will Go With You (Con Te Partiro),” debuted at a 1999 VH-1 concert before an adoring audience of both baby boomers and their offspring.

With the new songs on The Journey: The Very Best Of Donna Summer, the journey for one of pop’s greatest singer continues.

In Ordinary Girl: The Journey (Villard Books, a division of Random House), Summer candidly recounts her journey from singing in a Boston church to her unexpected reign as Queen of Disco as well as the tragedy and spiritual rebirth that followed. In addition to the numerous professional and personal highs, Ordinary Girl also recounts Summer’s triumphs over adversity: a difficult Boston childhood that consisted of low self-esteem, and two near-death experiences; life in Europe in the late Sixties where she became a victim of domestic violence and nearly died from an infection of the heart; feeling disconnected from the Disco Diva persona of the Seventies which led to a suicide attempt at the height of her fame; and the personal tragedies that led to her spiritual awakening. From Boston to Munich to New York to Los Angeles and a cast of characters that includes Barbra Streisand, Sophia Loren, David Geffen, Giorgio Moroder, and Sylvester Stallone, Ordinary Girl recounts Donna Summer’s extraordinary journey from childhood to pop culture immortality.
 

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