Print
Email
Share
6 - 10
6. Grammy History Maker… For Rock
“Hot Stuff” actually landed Summer a few firsts. She was also the first female artist to hold a number one single and a number one album simultaneously on two different occasions. The first occasion occurred in November 1978 with Live & More and “MacArthur Park”. Seven months later in June 1979, Bad Girls and “Hot Stuff” repeated the feat.
As expected, Bad Girls was a favorite during the awards season of early 1980. Summer garnered five Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year. Her other nominations represented four different genres: pop, R&B, disco, and rock. Donna Summer left the Shrine Auditorium as a history-maker: she became the first-ever recipient of the Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female Grammy Award. “Hot Stuff” had earned her the honor, and rightly so. Jeff “Skunk” Baxter had ignited the song with a guitar solo that complemented Summer’s raw vocal attack, years before Eddie Van Halen emblazoned Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”. Written by Pete Bellotte, Harold Faltermeyer, and Keith Forsey—and immortalized by Donna Summer—“Hot Stuff” defined the word “pioneer”.
7. She’s a Wanderer
Few artists have so valiantly shifted direction at the pinnacle of their commercial success as Donna Summer. After On the Radio: Greatest Hits Vols. I and II (1979) secured Summer her—get ready—third consecutive number one, Platinum-selling album, she departed Casablanca Records and embarked on a new journey as the first artist signed to Geffen. Still collaborating with Moroder and Bellotte, Summer recorded the most daring of her numerous concept albums, The Wanderer (1980).
Portraying 10 different characters distinguished by 10 different vocal styles, Summer painted from a rock music palette that depicted 10 different—but cohesive—stories. Her self-penned “Running For Cover” was a harrowing, soul-stirring tale embellished by Steve Lukather’s guitar solo. “Cold Love” featured what Dave Marsh described in Rolling Stone as “slashing, Who-styled power chords… which Summer punches across like the ultimate Anglo-rock singer”. The latter song even brought Summer back to the Grammy’s rock category in 1981. Summer may have wandered around on The Wanderer, but she nourished her rock and roll heart. (Note: read PopMatters’ in-depth analysis of The Wanderer here.)
Bad Girls and The Wanderer further established Summer as an artist who transcended disco. I’m a Rainbow (1981) was slated to continue that trajectory but Geffen Records shelved the double album. Had it been released, listeners would have heard staunch synth-rockers like “Leave Me Alone” and “Highway Runner”, though the latter ultimately appeared on the Fast Times at Ridgemont High soundtrack in 1982.
Instead Geffen matched Summer with Quincy Jones. Ironically, the legendary producer’s work on Donna Summer (1982) involved handling one of the hardest-rocking songs Summer ever recorded. Written by Bruce Springsteen, “Protection” had been intended as a duet between the two artists. Instead, Summer sang the song solo. Inspired by Springsteen’s demo, she tore into “Protection” with a husky rasp in the verses that then opened up to her distinctive, full-bodied tone in the chorus. Appropriately, “Protection” later earned Donna Summer her third Grammy nomination for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female. Oh, and Summer’s self-titled LP also prepared Quincy Jones for his next project: Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
9. Respecting Rock’s Roots
With the release of Crayons in 2008, Donna Summer coalesced many of the different styles that have defined her career and crafted an album that was specifically tailored to her multi-faceted singing and songwriting talents. Reggae and rock intertwined with club beats, which shared company with ballads and Brazilian-influenced rhythms. One of the most remarkable recordings on the album was a song Summer wrote with Nathan DiGesare and Jakob Petren, “Slide Over Backwards”. Brushed with steel guitar and harmonica, the track typified the blues and country roots of rock and roll. Summer summoned the swamps of New Orleans, assuming the role of a character named Hattie Mae Blanche DuBois. Introducing the song with a gospel-inflected cry, Summer fully embodied Hattie Mae’s story of a hard-knock life. Many years had passed since the singer last called upon the coarser textures of her voice but “Slide Over Backwards” illustrated that she’d lost none of her rock edge. It follows a long line of songs like “Nightlife”, “Sometimes Like Butterflies”, and “Love Will Always Find You” wherein Summer disappears into character behind a rough-hewn vocal facade. I wonder what Donna Summer’s going to do next…
Perceptions about what constitutes rock and roll inevitably stir debate each year the RRHOF announces the nominees. Of course, rock and roll is a certain style of music that’s based on a combination of rhythm and blues and country. In another sense, rock and roll is a cultural framework through which popular music of the last 60 years has developed and splintered into different forms—funk, disco, punk, hip hop. Substitute “Rock and Roll” with “Popular Music” and it becomes clearer why ABBA, Jimmy Cliff, and the Stooges were among the Class of 2010, despite the vast musical differences between them.
The RRHOF committee certainly needs no convincing of Donna Summer’s obvious eligibility, but her fascinating career is instructive. She was the first solo female artist of the rock era to score three consecutive number one pop hits in less than a year. Her string of Gold and Platinum albums and singles demonstrated that an artist could cross over from the clubs to the pop charts and keep rock critics engaged with each LP. Without Donna Summer, 2008 RRHOF inductee Madonna would have had no career arc to follow.
However, even based on the strictest definition of rock and roll, Donna Summer is a pioneer in ways that her pop progeny are not. She participated in rock at a time when the music was a revolutionary cultural force. She won the admiration of her peers by staying original, progressing along a chameleonic path, and proving that dance music and rock need not be mutually exclusive. More than anything, though, Donna Summer exemplifies that true music innovators and rock icons are never bound by one category. Their work simply echoes through time.
