1974–1976: Initial success While working as a model part-time and backing singer in Munich, Summer met producers
Giorgio Moroder and
Pete Bellotte during a recording session for
Three Dog Night at
Musicland Studios. The trio forged a working partnership and Donna was signed to Moroder's Oasis label in 1974. A demo tape of Summer's work with Moroder and Bellotte led to a deal with the European-distributed label Groovy Records. Due to an error on the record cover, Donna Sommer became Donna Summer; the name stuck. Summer's first album,
Lady of the Night, was released in 1974. Unlike the records she would be known for, most of the material on the album had elements of
symphonic rock,
folk and
pop. Though the album itself didn't chart, it spawned two singles, "
The Hostage" and the
title track. Both songs hit the top ten in various European countries including the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Belgium. "The Hostage" was removed from radio playlists in Germany because a high-ranking German politician had recently been kidnapped and held for ransom. One of Summer's first TV appearances was on the Dutch television show ''
Van Oekel's Discohoek'', which led to the commercial breakthrough of "The Hostage", and in which she gracefully played along with the show's scripted absurdity and chaos. '' advertisement, August 20, 1977 After noticing that
disco was rising in Europe during the year
Lady of the Night was issued, Moroder and Belotte began to produce a disco song that had yet to have words, until Summer passed on an idea for a song to Moroder that was to be given to another artist, called "
Love to Love You", inspired by the successful re-release of
Jane Birkin and
Serge Gainsbourg's "
Je t'aime... moi non plus". It was decided then that Summer recorded a
demo of the song with Summer performing the song in a heavily accentuated
Marilyn Monroe type voice. However, upon hearing playback, Moroder changed his mind and decided that the Summer version should be released instead. In 1975, Moroder sent the song to several American record labels, hoping to seek a deal and soon grabbed the attention of
Neil Bogart, president of
Casablanca Records. Upon playing the song at extravagant industry parties, the song was so popular that it was played repeatedly throughout the night. The impresario soon demanded that Moroder produce a longer version for
discothèques. A 16-minute version was soon sent and Bogart tweaked the title, changing it from "Love to Love You" to "Love to Love You Baby". Oasis was soon given a distribution deal with Casablanca in July 1975 and the
album of the same name was released the following month. The single wouldn't receive a full commercial release until November where it was issued in the United States, with the shorter 7" version playing on radio and the 16-minute version playing in discos. The song became Summer's first entry into the
Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at number two on the chart in February 1976 and became her first
gold-certified single. The album would also be certified gold for selling over a million copies alone in the US. The song generated controversy due to Summer's moans and groans, which emulated lovemaking, and some American stations, like those in Europe with the initial release, refused to play it. Almost immediately afterwards, Casablanca ordered a series of albums to follow its success. In 1976, Summer issued two more albums —
A Love Trilogy and
Four Seasons of Love — which, despite it charting lower than
Love to Love You Baby, would also be certified gold in the United States. Summer's immediate single follow-ups after "Love to Love You Baby" — a cover of
Barry Manilow's "
Could It Be Magic", "
Try Me, I Know We Can Make It", "
Spring Affair" and "
Winter Melody", the latter being her first ballad, recorded under the
soul style and her first US release where she was belting, rather than singing in
soprano — failed to reach the top 40 of the
Billboard Hot 100. During this era, Summer appeared on the dance shows,
American Bandstand and
Soul Train.
1977–1979: Breakthrough success In 1977, Summer released the
concept album I Remember Yesterday. The futuristic-sounding "
I Feel Love" returned Summer to the top ten of the
Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number six, while becoming her first and only number-one single in the UK. The single became her second to go gold, while
I Remember Yesterday was also a certified hit and was her first since
Love to Love You Baby to crack the top 20 of the
Billboard 200. This success helped Summer to receive her first
American Music Award nomination for
Favorite Soul/R&B Female Artist. Another concept album,
Once Upon a Time, quickly followed, and much like Summer's previous albums before, it also was certified gold for selling over a million copies.
Once Upon a Time hit number one on the
Billboard National Disco Action chart, while the single "
I Love You" barely cracked the top 40 in the US and reached number 10 in the UK. Many of Summer's most successful singles during this era were in the UK, with Summer charting top 20 hits there such as "
Down Deep Inside" (the theme song from the 1977 film
The Deep), "
I Remember Yesterday" and "
Love's Unkind", which peaked at number three. By 1978, Summer had fully resettled in the United States after having split time between there and Munich, where many of her albums were recorded. She accepted her first film role for the disco-themed ''
Thank God It's Friday and contributed three songs to its soundtrack, including the Paul Jabara-composed "Last Dance". The latter returned Summer to the top ten of the US Billboard'' Hot 100, peaking at number three while reaching number five on the
Hot Soul Singles chart and topping the National Disco Action chart, her second single to do so. "Last Dance" became one of Summer's
signature songs and won the singer her first
Grammy Award for
Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. Jabara won the
Golden Globe and
Academy Award for its composition. This was the first of eight consecutive top five hit records Summer would have over the next two years. On November 11, 1978, Summer scored her first number-one single on the
Billboard Hot 100 with her rendition of the
Jimmy Webb ballad "
MacArthur Park", which topped the chart for three weeks and became her fourth gold-certified single; of Webb's many Hot 100 hits during the 1960s and 1970s, it was his only number one. On that same day, Summer's first
live album,
Live and More, topped the
Billboard 200, her first album to do so. Summer became just the
second solo black female artist to simultaneously have the number-one single and album in the US.
Live and More became her first album to be certified platinum in the US. Before the end of the year, Summer released "
Heaven Knows", a collaborative song with
Brooklyn Dreams lead singer
Joe "Bean" Esposito. It peaked at number four on the Hot 100 in early 1979. On January 9, 1979, Summer performed the ballad "Mimi's Song" on the globally televised
Music for UNICEF Concert special, which aimed at raising funds and awareness for children across the globe. On January 12, Summer won three American Music Awards, all in the disco category, at its
6th annual ceremony.
1979–1980: Bad Girls and fallout with Casablanca '', 1980 At the tail-end of 1978, Summer, Moroder and Belotte began working on her seventh studio album,
Bad Girls. Noting the rise of
punk rock and
heavy metal music, the producers and Summer sought to go for a
rockier edge on some of the songs while other songs leaned into Summer's R&B roots.
Harold Faltermeyer, with whom Moroder had collaborated on the film,
Midnight Express, was brought in to be the
arranger of the album. Released on April 25, 1979,
Bad Girls became an immediate success. The first single, "
Hot Stuff", became Summer's second number one single on the Hot 100, followed by the
title track, the latter of which helped Summer make history as the first female artist of the
rock era to send two songs simultaneously to the top five of the
Billboard Hot 100 and later topped the Hot 100 itself for a five-week run. On June 16, the album became Summer's second number one on the
Billboard 200; on that same date, "Hot Stuff" had returned to number one on the Hot 100. The album would be Summer's longest-running number one album at six weeks. It also became Summer's first to top the
Top Soul LPs chart, with the title track also becoming Summer's first to top the
Hot Soul Singles chart. The album would go on to be certified double-platinum in the United States for sales of over two million copies in the US and sell four million units worldwide. At the time, it was the most successful album by a black female artist in history until the releases of
Tina Turner's
Private Dancer and
Whitney Houston's
self-titled debut in the
1980s. During promotion of the album, Summer collaborated with
Barbra Streisand on the Paul Jabara composition, "
No More Tears (Enough is Enough)", which was featured on Streisand's
Wet album. Around the same time, Summer sought to release "
Dim All the Lights", which was the first solo composition of her career, and had hoped she would earn a number one pop single as a songwriter. However, Casablanca Records president Neil Bogart was reportedly more enthusiastic about the release of "No More Tears". Both songs became hits and appeared in the top five of the
Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously, repeating what Summer had done earlier in the year. which aired on ABC. At this point, Casablanca had wanted Summer to continue releasing singles off the
Bad Girls album but Summer reportedly wanted to venture out of the genre to record her own songs. Summer sought a new recording deal, later signing with
David Geffen's recently formed
Geffen label. Summer later sued Casablanca for $10 million, leading to a countersuit. Summer would end up settling with Casablanca with rights to her song publishings.
1980–1985: She Works Hard for the Money and issues with Geffen By the time that Summer signed with Geffen,
disco music was already experiencing a
significant sociopolitical backlash from the American record-buying public. Some US radio stations, wanting a return to more rock-oriented material, began banning any urban-sounding dance single from the airwaves, which led to many careers that thrived in the disco and soul music eras to fade from the American charts. Summer, who had desired to record different music, took the opportunity to do so on her first Geffen release,
The Wanderer, which featured elements of
rock,
new wave and
inspirational music. Prior to releasing the first single, which was the
title track, Summer's former label Casablanca released "Walk Away" from the
Bad Girls album to compete with it. "Walk Away" is notable for ending Summer's consecutive top five streak on the
Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 36. Despite this, "The Wanderer" became a hit, peaking at number three. However, the album itself was only moderately successful, peaking at number 13 on the
Billboard 200. The album's follow-ups, "
Cold Love" and "
Who Do You Think You're Foolin'" barely reached the top 40. Still,
The Wanderer became Summer's ninth consecutive gold-certified album in the United States. At the
33rd Annual Grammy Awards, Summer won nominations for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance ("Cold Love") and
Best Inspirational Performance ("I Believe in Jesus"). In 1981, Summer, Moroder and Belotte had set to work on the next Geffen release. In the middle of production, David Geffen stopped by the studio to preview the album and was told that while the album was a work in progress that it was close to being done. But Geffen, having heard only a few of the finished tracks and others still in demo form, felt the album "wasn't good enough" and cancelled the project. Later, that album would be released under the title, ''
I'm a Rainbow''. Upon the release of
Donna Summer, the album peaked inside the top 20 and produced the top ten hit, "
Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)" but, much like
The Wanderer before it, its subsequent follow-ups — a cover of the
Jon and Vangelis song "
State of Independence" and "
The Woman in Me" — failed to match it, with "State of Independence" becoming her first single since "
Rumour Has It" to not crack the top 40. Around this time, Geffen had been notified by
Polygram Records, which now owned Casablanca, that Summer still needed to deliver to them one more album to fulfill her contract. The result was the album,
She Works Hard for the Money, produced by
Michael Omartian, and released in 1983 on
Mercury Records. The
title track returned her to the top five of the Hot 100 in three years, peaking at number three, while becoming her second
number one single on the Black Singles chart, where it stayed for three weeks. It received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The video, directed by
Brian Grant, was one of the first times that a black female artist had a video clip spinning on heavy rotation on
MTV doing so on the week of August 10, 1983, remaining on heavy rotation for six weeks. Summer later was nominated for
Best Female Video at the
inaugural MTV Video Music Awards ceremony, losing to
Cyndi Lauper's "
Girls Just Want to Have Fun". Grant later directed Summer's
Costa Mesa HBO concert special,
A Hot Summers Night.
She Works Hard for the Money peaked at number 9 on the
Billboard 200 and would become Summer's eleventh and final album to be certified gold in the United States. Unlike
The Wanderer, the follow-ups on the album — "
Unconditional Love" and "
Love Has a Mind of Its Own" — didn't hit the top 40. The ballad, "
He's a Rebel", won the singer her third Grammy for Best Inspirational Performance. Due to his success on
She Works Hard for the Money, Geffen hired Michael Omartian to produce Summer's next Geffen release,
Cats Without Claws. Though Summer was happy Geffen stayed out of the studio during its recording and thanked him on the album's liner notes, Geffen refused her request to release the track, "Oh Billy Please", for a lead single, choosing to go with her cover of
the Drifters' "
There Goes My Baby" instead.
Cats Without Claws was released on September 11, 1984 and peaked at number 40 on the
Billboard 200, her lowest to chart in her career at the time. It was the first Summer album to not go gold in the United States. "There Goes My Baby" was also only a modest hit, reaching number 21 on the
Billboard Hot 100, her first leading single to not reach the top ten since 1977. The video received heavy rotation on MTV but soon faded from the channel, thus becoming her last video to receive such success. The second single, "Supernatural Love", flopped, peaking at number 75 on the
Billboard Hot 100 with the video receiving only light rotation on MTV, becoming her last video to air on the channel. Summer earned her fourth Grammy in the inspirational category for the song "Forgive Me" on the album. On January 19, 1985, Summer's sang at the nationally televised 50th Presidential Inaugural Gala the day before the
second inauguration of Ronald Reagan.
1986–1989: All Systems Go, Another Place and Time and addressing homophobic rumors In 1986, Harold Faltermeyer wrote the title song for a German ski movie called
Fire and Ice, and thought Summer would be ideal to sing the song. He decided to reach out to Summer and, although she was not interested in singing the song, she was very much interested in working with Faltermeyer again. After a meeting with Geffen, the impresario was on board with the project. Summer's main objective for the album was that it have stronger R&B influences; Faltermeyer who had just finished doing the soundtracks to
Top Gun and
Fletch, was after a tough FM-oriented sound. On completion, Geffen liked what he heard, but his executives did not think there were enough songs that could be deemed singles. They wanted Faltermeyer to produce "
Dinner with Gershwin", but he was already busy with another project, so another producer was found. They also substituted a previous recording called "
Bad Reputation", songs like "
Fascination", fell by the wayside. Geffen had shared the vision of moving Summer into the R&B market as a veteran artist, but these expectations were not met. Faltermeyer, in a 2012 interview with
Daeida Magazine, said, "She was an older artist by then and the label's priority may have been on the youth market. The decision was made afterward by executives who were looking for a radio hit for 1987 and not something that would perhaps last beyond then." Label president Ed Rosenblatt would later admit: "The company never intended to focus on established superstars". The album
All Systems Go became Summer's lowest charting studio album on the
Billboard 200 to date, reaching number 122. The single "Dinner with Gershwin" stalled at 48 in the US, though it became a hit in the UK, reaching number 13; the title track reached 54 in the same country. For Summer's next album,
Geffen Records hired the British hit production team of
Stock Aitken Waterman (or
SAW), who enjoyed success writing and producing for such acts as
Kylie Minogue,
Bananarama, and
Rick Astley, among others. The SAW team described the working experience as a "labor of love", and said it was their favorite album of all that they had recorded. Geffen decided not to release the album
Another Place and Time, and Summer and the label parted ways in 1988. The album was released in Europe in March 1989 on
Warner Bros. Records, which had been Summer's label in Europe since 1982. The single "
This Time I Know It's for Real" became a top ten hit in several countries in Europe, prompting Warner Bros.' sister company,
Atlantic Records, to sign Summer in the US. The single peaked at number 7 on the
Billboard Hot 100, becoming her first top ten single in six years, her fourteenth top ten hit in general, and her last; it also became her twelfth single to be certified gold in the US. Despite this, there was no successful follow-ups in the US and the album also declined to gold in Summer's home country, though in the UK, the album would be certified gold and produced two more hits in the country — "
I Don't Wanna Get Hurt" and "
Love's About to Change My Heart", — reaching numbers 7 and 20, respectively. During the same year of that album's release, Summer and husband Sudano had been in talks to do a new kind of reality-based sitcom. It would be based on their own hectic household. At the time, they lived with their children Amanda, Brooklyn and Mimi, two sets of in-laws, and a maid. The television network started changing the premise of the show, making it less funny. Sudano added, "and because we were an interracial couple, they didn't want us to be married anymore". In 1989, this was "an issue. So with that mentality we just backed out of it." That same year, Summer was interviewed for the gay magazine publication,
The Advocate, and addressed claims made by
Village Voice reporter Jim Feldman that she had made homophobic remarks at an Atlantic City concert back in 1983. According to Feldman, Summer had told the crowd that
AIDS "was God's divine punishment against gays" and that "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." Summer told the publication, "I never said, 'If you are gay, God hates you.' Come on... Be real. I don't understand that. Anybody who really knows me knows I wouldn't say that." On July 26, Summer sent a letter to ACT UP apologizing for the statements, adding that they were "a terrible misunderstanding". She closed the letter with a quote from the Bible (chapter 13 of
1 Corinthians). Two years later, in 1991, Summer sued
New York magazine when it printed an old story about the rumors as fact. Eventually the suit was settled by both parties in 1995.
1990–1999: Mistaken Identity, Family Matters, and Live & More Encore Summer's 1990 Warner compilation,
The Best of Donna Summer went gold following the re-release of "
State of Independence" while a remix of the 1989 track, "
Breakaway", released from the same compilation, became a hit in Latin America. Despite this success, Summer rejected her husband's advice that she should record a second album with Stock Aitken Waterman, insisting that she wanted to make an
R&B record. That year, Summer reunited with
Giorgio Moroder on the song "
Carry On"; six years later, a remixed version won Summer a Grammy Award for
Best Dance Recording. In 1994, Summer released her first holiday album,
Christmas Spirit. Summer returned to the UK top 40 with the song "
Melody of Love (Wanna Be Loved)". That same year, Summer made the first of two appearances on
Family Matters as
Steve Urkel's (
Jaleel White) Aunt Oona, appearing on the show's fifth season episode, "Aunt Oona". Three years later, in 1997, Summer returned as Aunt Oona on the show's eighth season episode, "Pound Foolish". In 1999, Summer was asked to do the
VH1 Divas Live '99 concert special, which featured other music legends such as
Cher,
Tina Turner and
Whitney Houston. However, after meeting up with the show's producers, it was decided Summer would do her own concert special, which later was taped for
VH1 titled
Donna Summer – Live & More Encore. It would become the second highest-viewed show for the network that year after ''VH1 Divas Live '99''. A subsequent
live album of the event was released by
Epic Records and featured two studio songs, "
I Will Go with You (Con te partirò)" and "
Love Is the Healer", both of which reached No. 1 on the US dance charts. On December 11, 2009, Donna Summer appeared at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert for
Barack Obama.
2010–present: Final recordings and posthumous releases On July 29, 2010, Summer gave an interview with Allvoices.com wherein she was asked if she would consider doing an album of
standards. She said, "I actually am, probably in September. I will begin work on a standards album. I will probably do an all-out dance album and a standards album. I'm going to do both and we will release them however we're going to release them. We are not sure which is going first." In August 2010, Summer released the single "
To Paris With Love", co-written with
Bruce Roberts and produced by Peter Stengaard. The single went to No. 1 on the US
Billboard Dance Chart in October 2010. That month, Summer also appeared on the
PBS television special
Hitman Returns: David Foster and Friends. In it, Summer performed with
Seal on a medley of the songs "
Un-Break My Heart", "
Crazy", and "
On the Radio" before closing the show with "
Last Dance". On September 15, 2010, Summer appeared as a guest celebrity, singing alongside contestant
Prince Poppycock, on the television show ''
America's Got Talent''. Also in 2010, Summer recorded a version of the
Dan Fogelberg song "Nether Lands" for a Fogelberg tribute project. According to a comment on Fogelberg's website, the song had great personal significance for Summer. On June 6, 2011, Summer was a guest judge on the show
Platinum Hit, in an episode entitled "Dance Floor Royalty". In July of that same year, Summer was working at Paramount Recording Studios in Los Angeles with her nephew, the rapper and producer O'Mega Red. Together they worked on a track titled "Angel". On December 11, 2012, after four prior nominations, Summer was posthumously announced to be one of the 2013 inductees to the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and was inducted on April 18, 2013, at Los Angeles'
Nokia Theater. "
MacArthur Park" was remixed by
Laidback Luke for the remix collection; it was also remixed by
Ralphi Rosario, which version was released to dance clubs all over America and successfully peaked at No. 1, giving Summer her first posthumous number-one single, and her sixteenth number-one on the charts. In 2021, Summer's estate released a reedited version of her ninth studio album ''
I'm a Rainbow, subtitled Recovered & Recoloured''. The new edition is reduced to 10 tracks (15 on vinyl and streaming releases), with each song remixed by contemporary producers and remixers. Her
self-titled album was re-released in 2022 by Summer's estate subtitled as
40th Anniversary Edition. In 2023, Summer's
She Works Hard For The Money album was re-released with additional mixes to commemorate the album's 40th anniversary. That same year, a documentary revolving around Summer and her career,
Love to Love You, Donna Summer, directed by her daughter,
Brooklyn Sudano and
Roger Ross Williams had its world premiere at the
73rd Berlin International Film Festival in February 2023, and was released in May 2023, on
HBO. In 2025, Summer's
Cats Without Claws was also re-released in celebration of its 40th anniversary, debuting on two U.K. charts. Later that year, music producer and songwriter
Toby Gad released Summer's single "Run," which was recorded in 2008 as part of Summer's final studio album
Crayons but never released. Summer and Gad worked on the single together shortly before her death. The song gave Summer her first posthumous
Billboard hit after it debuted and peaked at number 30 on the
Billboard adult contemporary charts, making it her first entry on the chart since "Sand on My Feet" peaked in the same position in 2008. ==Personal life==