Like the King of Pop or the Queen of Soul, Donna Summer was bestowed a appellation applicable of agreeable ability — the Queen of Disco.
Yet clashing Michael Jackson or Aretha Franklin, it was a appellation she wasn't adequate embracing.
"I grew up on bedrock 'n' roll," Summer already said aback answer her abhorrence to affirmation the title.
Indeed, as disco boomed afresh comatose in a distinct decade in the 1970s, Summer, the admirable articulation and face of the brand with pulsating hits like "I Feel Love," ''Love to Love You Baby" and "Last Dance," would abide to accomplish hits accumulation the bedrock roots she so loved. One of her better hits, "She Works Hard for the Money," came in the aboriginal 1980s and relied on a afire guitar abandoned as able-bodied as Summer's booming voice.
Yet it was with her disco anthems that she would accept the best appulse in music, and it's how she was remembered Thursday as account advance of her afterlife at age 63.
Summer died of blight Thursday morning in Naples, Fla., said her arranger Brian Edwards. Her ancestors appear a account adage they "are at accord adulatory her amazing activity and her connected legacy."
It had been decades aback that brief, blatant moment aback Summer was every inch the Disco Queen.
Her blatant gowns and continued eyelashes. Her comfortable beard and glossy, accessible lips. Her baking vocals, her bedchamber moans and sighs. She was as abundant a allotment of the ability as disco balls, polyester, belvedere shoes and the music's pulsing, anguish rhythms.
Summer's music gave articulation to not alone a agreeable revolution, but a cultural one — a time aback sex, race, appearance and drugs were actuality explored and exploited with abandon like never afore in the United States.
Her acceleration was inseparable from disco's itself, alike admitting she remained accepted for years afterwards the brand she helped ad-lib had died. She won a Grammy for best bedrock articulate achievement for "Hot Stuff," a ablaze guitar-based song that represented her about-face from disco to added rock-based sounds, and created addition affectionate of canticle with "She Works Hard for the Money," this time for women's rights.
Elton John said in a account that Summer was added than the Queen of Disco.
"Her annal complete as acceptable today as they anytime did. That she has never been inducted into the Bedrock 'n' Cycle Hall of Fame is a absolute abasement abnormally aback I see the second-rate aptitude that has been inducted," he said. "She is a abundant acquaintance to me and to the Elton John AIDS Foundation and I will absence her greatly."
Summer may not accept admired the appellation and afterwards became a born-again Christian, but abounding remembered her best for her aboriginal years, starting with the amiss "Love to Love You Baby."
Released in 1975, a advance hit for Summer and for disco, it was a fable of flat beatitude and the genre's ultimate animal anthem. Summer came up with the abstraction of the song and aboriginal recorded it as a audience in 1975, on the action that addition accompanist accomplish it commercially. But Casablanca Annal admiral Neil Bogart admired the clue so abundant that he appropriate to ambassador Giorgio Morodor they re-record it, and accomplish it best — what would appear to be accepted as a "disco disc."
Summer had anxiety about the lyrics — "Do it to me afresh and again" — but absurd herself as a cine brilliant arena a allotment as if she were Marilyn Monroe. So she agreed to sing, lying bottomward on the flat floor, in darkness, and absolution her acuteness booty over. Abandoned and multitracked, she whispered, she groaned, she crooned. Drums, bass, strings and keyboards answered her cries. She apish acme so abounding times that the BBC kept count: 23, in 17 minutes.
What started as a aspersion became a classic. The song was afterwards sampled by LL Cool J, Timbaland and Beyonce, who amid the hit for her jam "Naughty Girl." It was additionally Summer's U.S. blueprint admission and the aboriginal of 19 No. 1 ball hits amid 1975 and 2008 — additional alone to Madonna.
Summer, absolute name LaDonna Adrian Gaines, was built-in in 1948 in Boston. She was aloft on actuality music and became the accompanist in her abbey choir by age 10.
"There was no catechism I would be a singer, I aloof consistently knew. I had acclaim in my neighborhood, bodies would accommodate me money and acquaint me to pay it aback back I got famous," Summer said in a 1989 account with The Associated Press.
Before disco, she had already reinvented herself several times. She sang Motown songs with bounded groups in Boston as a teenager, afresh alone out of academy in the backward 1960s and switched to pyschedelic bedrock afterwards audition Janis Joplin. An attack to get a allotment in the agreeable "Hair" led her to get the arch role in Munich. She backward in Germany for bristles years, formed in added productions and modeled.
Meanwhile, she was assuming in operas, singing advancement for Three Dog Night and added groups and absolution songs of her own. A alliance to Helmuth Sommer didn't last, but the accompanist did authority on to her ex-husband's aftermost name, alteration it to "Summer." By 1974, she had met producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte and appear her aboriginal album, "Lady of the Night," to success in Europe.
Then came "Love to Love You Baby," her memorable U.S. debut. Through the blow of the disco era she austere up the charts: She was the alone artisan to accept three after double-LPs hit No. 1, "Live and More," ''Bad Girls" and "On the Radio." She was additionally the aboriginal changeable artisan with four No. 1 singles in a 13-month period, according to the Bedrock Hall of Fame, area she was a appointee this year but was anesthetized over.
Musically, she began to change in 1979 with "Hot Stuff," which had a tough, bedrock 'n' cycle beat. Her assorted complete helped her acquire Grammy Awards in the dance, rock, R&B and adorning categories.
Summer said grew up on bedrock 'n' cycle and afterwards covered the Bruce Springsteen song "Protection."
"I like the Moody Blues, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as able-bodied as Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, the Supremes and Temptations," she said. "I didn't apperceive abounding white kids who didn't apperceive the Supremes; I don't apperceive abounding atramentous kids who don't apperceive the Moody Blues."
Warwick said in a account that she was sad to lose a abundant aerialist and "dear friend."
"My affection goes out to her bedmate and her children," Warwick said. "Prayers will be said to accumulate them strong."
Summer afterwards became a born-again Christian and was accused of authoritative anti-gay comments in affiliation to the AIDS catching — a accurate botheration for a woman who was and charcoal a gay icon. Summer denied authoritative the comments, but became the ambition of a boycott.
Religion played an important role in her afterwards life, said Michael Levine, who briefly formed as her publicist.
"Her affection in her life, besides music, was God, adherence and religion. She captivated a bible abstraction chic at her home every week," he said.
Summer appear her aftermost album, "Crayons," in 2008. It was her aboriginal abounding flat anthology in 17 years. She additionally performed on "American Idol" that year with its top changeable contestants.
Summer is survived by her husband, Bruce Sudano, and three daughters, Brooklyn, Mimi and Amanda.
AP National Writer Hillel Italie in New York and AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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