Printer Friendly - Donna Summer has died
Posted by Reginald Tresilian 2012-05-17 11:52:10
Donna Summer has died
Posted by beautywickedlover 2012-05-17 11:54:53
Such sad news! She was a very talented woman! 
Donna Summer has died
Posted by tazber 2012-05-17 11:55:32
RIP
So sad.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by StockardFan 2012-05-17 11:55:41
I didn't even know she was ill. How sad.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by madbrian 2012-05-17 12:05:57
What a talent. Forget about the 'Queen of Disco' moniker, she would have been a star in any musical era. So sad.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by MrMidwest 2012-05-17 12:08:56
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Eris0303 2012-05-17 12:11:02
RIP to Aunt Oona from Altoona
Donna Summer has died
Posted by PalJoey 2012-05-17 12:11:35
And with her goes another piece of my youth. She was never my "diva," I saw her live only once when she was older, but whenever I was with a group of friends dancing at a Pier Dance, or with since-departed friends at a disco when discos played disco, or at Tea in the Pines or in Ptown--or when I was traveling and in a strange city in a bar or dance club, or when I was exercising and developed a sudden urge for the extended mix of "MacArthur Park," her music would make me feel happy, make me feel connected to other people who felt happy from her music, and we would dance and dance to "The Last Dance," knowing that if it really was the last dance, at least it was a fun one.
Here's the whole 17:52 extended mix. No one will ever have the recipe again.
http://youtu.be/VF_o7aSjl_E
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Elphaba 2012-05-17 12:15:11
PalJoey I could not have said it better. I am beyond sad. She got me through so many tough times in my 20's.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by JoeKv99 2012-05-17 12:18:41
Happily this means we'll hear all that wonderful music blasted the next couple of months- everywhere. Maybe bars will go back to playing "Last Dance" at closing time.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Jane2 2012-05-17 12:21:50
Oh no. HUGE fan here. I hope we DO start hearing lots of her music. She personified disco for me, and the disco era was the best time I had in my life.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by best12bars 2012-05-17 12:22:54
I saw her on New Year's Eve in 1995 at Universal Amphitheater. She was fantastic. Her voice hadn't aged a bit.
She was a rare talent.
I remember hearing a story (and no, I'm not trying to diss Streisand by telling this) from a close friend of Paul Jabara, who had just written Enough Is Enough.
Streisand and Summer got together with him to sing through the song and decide (particularly Streisand) whether or not they wanted to record it. It was a first sing-through, and neither lady had seen or heard the music before. He handed them both the charts and played through it at the piano.
When they started to sing it, according to Jabara, Donna was flawless. She was ready to go into the studio right then. She could sight-read perfectly and retain everything he told her about the song. Streisand, on the other hand, could barely make her way through it. She wasn't a good "first impression," in other words. That has nothing to do with how she eventually performed it on the recording.
But I enjoyed hearing how impressive Donna was musically. She had a gift and knew how to use it well.
RIP
Donna Summer has died
Posted by doodlenyc 2012-05-17 12:23:06
Such a fan of her voice...RIP.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by StageManager2 2012-05-17 12:25:06
Her "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" was one of my favorite renditions.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Brian07663NJ 2012-05-17 12:26:14
SO upset to hear this news. I attended her concert in Atlantic City right after the Crayons album was released in 2008. I wasn't a big fan prior to going in but I came out considering her to be one of my most favorite concerts ever! She was a real Diva. Very sad...
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Borstalboy 2012-05-17 12:34:10
Very sad, but DAMN what a career!
The Italian-synth sound she and Giorgio Moroder pioneered was one of the most influential musical movements of the seventies. Without it, 80's pop simply wouldn't have happened. You can hear it in everything from Flock of Seagulls to Madonna to New Order. It may have been even more influential than punk. Brian Eno, David Bowie, and John Lennon were all fans of Donna Summer.
In case you haven't noticed the Italian synth sound has made a roaring comeback in the last couple of years, with Britney, Annie, and the DRIVE soundtrack.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Borstalboy 2012-05-17 12:40:12
Donna Summer has died
Posted by PalJoey 2012-05-17 12:40:31
Donna Summer Dance Party on the Off-Topic Board!
===
"I Feel Love":
http://youtu.be/E40Zaso-49k
"On the Radio":
http://youtu.be/8oHIgynH6UQ
"Love to Love You Baby":
http://youtu.be/V5AztWseIdU
"She Works Hard for the Money":
http://youtu.be/1TKQcWEXSKU
"Hot Stuff":
http://youtu.be/Ja5P62me094
"Bad Girls":
http://youtu.be/fgRcUtpxh70
"This Time I Know It's for Real":
http://youtu.be/SDbw9AVMsOM
"Could It Be Magic":
http://youtu.be/hG3RSIHhoSo
And it's the "Last Dance":
http://youtu.be/Q-cP5-t1lzA
Donna Summer has died
Posted by JoeKv99 2012-05-17 12:58:49
"Love to Love You Baby" more than any other song was the bridge that brought disco, 12" singles and the extended remixes home. The song was so popular in clubs that Casablanca demanded a longer version (DJs had been playing it over and over and over) and so produced a 12" single that was over 17 minutes long. It was the first single to top the new "Dance Club play" chart and sold a half million copies.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Kristie-K2 2012-05-17 12:59:51
Loved her...My heart just broke!!!
Donna Summer has died
Posted by taboo123 2012-05-17 13:07:10
She always was trying to get her life story workshopped for Broadway and now I'm sure,.. it's bound to happen.
With decades of music hits- it's a no brainer.
remember when she went anti-gay?
Then had a change of heart years later?
I'm sure they will pick it up on the West End.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Reginald Tresilian 2012-05-17 13:20:19
BWW's headline "Recently Deceased Donna Summer Sings EVITA" is . . . startling.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by wexy 2012-05-17 13:23:06
Sad news RIP
Donna Summer has died
Posted by songanddanceman2 2012-05-17 13:26:36
So sad, RIP xxx
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Gothampc 2012-05-17 13:34:34
One of the greats! Nobody could sit still when her music was playing. She takes with her a bit of a very fascinating era.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by ErikJ972 2012-05-17 13:53:48
Wow this took me off guard and I'm absolutely gutted. On The Radio was the first album I ever bought, with money I was given for my birthday. I used to sit in my room for hours and listen to it while staring at that glorious fold out album cover. I also used to make my GI Joe action figures put on Donna Summer concerts. How gay is that?
I always thought she had the one of the best voices in the business. And she never lost it. My one regret will be I never had the chance to see her live.
I do hope this means will be hearing a lot of her music this summer.
RIP Donna
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-17 14:22:35
Many on here know how hard this has hit me--I am glad she was so close with her family. Nobody in the pop world had meant more to me than Donna Summer--an outstanding singer, probably the best vocalist ever recorded, who always treated her songs as mini dramas and didn't oversing them or do other diva tricks. And an amazine woman--controversy aside when I met her, she was the nicest, most giving celebrity I'd ever met. I was lucky to have been in the same hotel she was after her Vancouver show a few years back and she was getting ice (!) as I was, and we had a quick but great talk--I think I gushed and said she should work with Moroder again--and then back in our room we went to the balcony and you could hear her and her sisters singing and laughing outside.
I am gutted. A great talent, a great lady. Once Upon a Time and Bad Girls alone will be remembered as two of the greatest concept albums of all time.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-17 14:23:53
I mean WOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHjgZwRNR9c this is disco?
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-17 14:27:47
And as for the inevitable gay "rumour" that came up when she was at her most born again period which will come up now http://www.donna-tribute.com/articles/99/rumor.html She sang at Paul Jabara's funeral, she was not filled with hate and it's frustrating how people like Shirley Bassey can say worse things about gays and be adored for it.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by TheatreDiva90016 2012-05-17 14:39:30
"Many on here know how hard this has hit me-"
We do now.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-17 14:44:55
Thanks Diva :) Sorry I irritate you so f ucking much that you have to always get something in.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by PalJoey 2012-05-17 14:57:35
Neil Patrick Harris tweeted this video of Beaker of the Muppets lip-syncing to "Hot Girls":
http://youtu.be/hj9FezVge1k
Donna Summer has died
Posted by best12bars 2012-05-17 15:01:21
I don't mean to call them out on this and expose them ... but don't all Muppets lip-sync?
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Roscoe 2012-05-17 15:13:01
I very much enjoyed her benefit concert for GMHC all those years ago. RIP.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by artscallion 2012-05-17 15:56:56
The Seasons of Love album.
Spring Affair
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlh-FInvoZ0&feature=related
Summer Fever
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-tTq1KhCrE&feature=related
Autumn Changes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzetbXUeV7c
Winter Melody
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8wecwyTXU0
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Wishing Only Wounds 2012-05-17 16:13:32
Rest in Peace... what a talent.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-17 16:13:50
Such a great concept album
Lucky--one of the best one night stand album cuts ever http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyKQBuHuwd4
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Jane2 2012-05-17 16:55:05
And I loved the way she looked. I used to wish I looked like her!
Donna Summer has died
Posted by PalJoey 2012-05-17 16:57:08
So did a lot of us.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by NYadgal 2012-05-17 17:08:27
Heartbroken. I didn't know she was sick.
Her music is the soundtrack to SO many memories of the formative years of my young adult life: high school in the 70's, college and moving to NY in the early 80s. Going to clubs and discos was at the center of our social lives, and we all danced (the hustle!) the night away to her songs. (Remember those wraps, and dips, The Pretzel and line dances? I learned every move!)
Somehow I could go out every night with my boyfriend and friends, and we'd dance until the sun came up - always ending the night with the very sexy 'Last Dance'. And then head to work, only to make plans to go out again that next night.
Happy, happy times. Those songs bring it all back.
RIP, Miss Summer.
Thank you.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Jane2 2012-05-17 17:13:02
"So did a lot of us."
Now that you mentioned it, I think I remember Donna as being a popular drag act. And those guys got the look down pat!
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Phyllis Rogers Stone 2012-05-17 17:32:20
I guess it's morbid curiosity, but I wonder what kind of cancer she had. Every report just says "cancer."
Donna Summer has died
Posted by NYadgal 2012-05-17 17:35:54
I just read a report that said it was lung cancer.
There has also been a report that she felt it may have been connected to inhaling particles following the 9/11 destruction of the Twin Towers.
(apparently she was very private about it, and kept her condition a secret)
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Addison D. 2012-05-17 17:50:41
Yes--she maintained that her illness was a result of the 9/11 'dust storm'.
And, yes--oh, yes. Nights and mornings on the dance floor with Donna Summer. Is there any stronger trigger to bring me back than hearing a chord from one of her tracks?
And how do these crazy kids today know when it's time to go home without 'Last Dance'?
Rest in Peace, Donna. Thanks for the music.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by tazber 2012-05-17 17:51:22
I don't think anyone has mentioned it, but I also adore her version of Time To Say Goodbye (which she called I Will Go With You).
That whole live album was the soundtrack to my life the summer it came out.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-17 18:44:52
I always get in trouble for saying this, but her version of Conte Partiro is the only version I can take--it helps that it was one of the first songs I heard when I was 18 and snuck into my first gay bar (and danced with a dragqueen who was performing it during the dance break!).
Donna Summer has died
Posted by TheatreDiva90016 2012-05-17 18:45:28
^^^^^^^^^
That version ROCKED!
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-17 18:49:29
She toured her last album Crayons (which actually is pretty good despite some attempts to get her to sound like Rhianna) which is when I met her--one of the most gracious celebrities I've met.
She reportedly has an album of standards and one of new dance songs in the bag, and her unreleased Sony album from 2000 (which was done by Metro who did Cher's Believe material at the time) so i suspect songs will trickle down for a while, though nothing compares to her work with Moroder in the 70s--as a dance music fan it's stunning in hindsight how they would move between radio hits and club cuts, or the progress even from I Feel Love to six months later with Now I Need You/Working The Midnight Shift which I heard, much to my thrill, in a bar in Rome a few years back).
Donna Summer has died
Posted by best12bars 2012-05-17 18:49:37
^ Yes, it did!
I loved it, too. Many memories ...
She really was the voice of a generation.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-17 19:42:34
I hope this (as awful as it says) causes a re-evalutation of her work, including her many strengths as a songwriter (though hearing the demo, I think her musical should largely stay burried). I really do think she had the talent of Whitney, or other more current divas, yet she never over sang a song.
And I can't believe TheatreDiva and I agree on something 
Donna Summer has died
Posted by taboo123 2012-05-18 02:43:13
Can someone clear this up?
When she went 'Born again Christian'.. didn't she go on an anti-gay tirade and said AIDS was a punishment for homosexuals?
Then she tried to back peddle and go on a tour for gay pride- but it didn't work and it failed miserably?
or something of that nature?
I'm on the fence about her.
talented or not- if this was true- it's even sadder that the 'queen of disco' -DISCO-....was anti gays.
it's perplexing
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-18 02:51:50
This is an obviously biased article, but I linked to it above and I guess it's relevent http://www.donna-tribute.com/articles/99/rumor.htmlhttp://www.donna-tribute.com/articles/99/rumor.html
Personally, I have conflicting feelings. I feel she probably did say something--there's almost always truth to such rumours--I also really believe she regretted it (she has done the most inane interviews for a long time), and she had been with an especially gay friendly church in Nashvilled since then (as well as performing at Paul Jabara's funeral, though that could be taken either way). As I've said, other gay icons like Shirley Bassey have said, IMHO, worse things in print--which Donna never did--but have had their comments forgotten. Yet, because of the horribleness of the era Donna became an issue with the gay community (and one that's valid). I have had a weridly number of nights where older gay guys have got mad at me for requesting a Summer track. And I stand by her reaction http://www.donna-tribute.com/articles/99/rumor.htmlhttp://www.donna-tribute.com/articles/99/rumor.html
(and end rant)
Donna Summer has died
Posted by PalJoey 2012-05-18 07:56:09
Here's the real deal. She got messed up on drugs--like a lot of people did back then. And when she got clean, she fell into the hands of some people who were very born-again.
A lot of born-again people back then--both black and white--parroted the old Adam-and-Steve stuff. They still do. Other disco queens like Gloria Gaynor said similar things.
So did a lot of our families. We got angry at Donna because SHE of all people...
Well, "she of all people" was just one more addict trying to get off the drugs.
Whether or not she actually said the things attributed to her is probably partially true and partially untrue.
But when she was got sober--and OUT of the clutches of the born-again bigots--she understood how hurtful those prejudices were and she apologized for them.
She then proceeded to do years and years of fundraisers for gay and AIDS charities, never able to completely escape from accusations of homophobia.
But those of us who have made mistakes in our own lives, said hurtful things and lived to regret it, those of us who have loved her music, we chose to believe she had been fUcked up by the drugs first and the drug of religion second, and we chose to forgive.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by madbrian 2012-05-18 08:06:54
If our president gets to evolve regarding his opinions, I think Donna Summer deserves the same latitude.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by PalJoey 2012-05-18 09:27:36
This sent chills down my spine: the finale to a 1980 ABC TV special, never released on VHS or DVD.
http://youtu.be/E3nmWmu3Ong
Donna Summer has died
Posted by PalJoey 2012-05-18 09:33:13
Also from that special, a 1930's medley, including "My Man" and "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good" and "Some of These Days":
http://youtu.be/BFXbuxbbgYo
Donna Summer has died
Posted by blueroses 2012-05-18 10:09:44
An amazing vocalist and one of my favorite recording artists. I LOVED her. My parents had the On The Radio album and my sister and I were obsessed! That glorious fold out with Donna all glammed up was unforgettable. We used to listen to this as kids (along with the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack) and "play disco" in the living room. RIP to a stunning talent.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by doodlenyc 2012-05-18 10:18:56
I remember the backlash against her among the gay community, and her later apologies. Since those came at a time when her career was stalling, it could be interpreted as backpedalling, but I'm not sure. Many people during the 80s and 90s evolved their feelings regarding the LGBT community, why not her?
Her voice was undeniable though...it soared like noone elses.
What is this about Shirley Bassey? What did she say that was so much worse?
Donna Summer has died
Posted by MrMidwest 2012-05-18 11:18:01
Donna Summer has died
Posted by tazber 2012-05-18 13:47:57
Question about which albums to get:
I have Endless Summer and the VH1 live album.
So I basically have her radio hits.
Which of her catalog albums has the best deep cuts worth having?
I was thinking about downloading Bad Girls.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by WhizzerMarvin TrinaJasonMendel 2012-05-18 15:15:28
tazber- You should get two albums: Once Upon a Time and the Bad Girls Deluxe Edition.
Once Upon a Time is a concept album of the Cinderella story (except now she's "working the midnight shift") and the music is fantastic.
The deluxe edition of Bad Girls is wonderfully remastered and has a bonus disc of all the 12" versions of the hits. If you only know the edited version of MacArthur Park you don't really know it!
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-18 15:28:25
Those are definitely the two ones to get--and prove that she was that rarity in the disco world; an album artist.
Doodle Shirley Bassey told newspaper reporters in the early seventies how the thought of two men kissing or doing anything else made her physically ill, and a story about even though she was friends of the cast she had to leave a screening of Sunday Bloody Sunday to vomit in the bathroom.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-18 15:47:51
Some nice and some random celeb reactions http://www.toofab.com/2012/05/17/donna-summer-dead-celebrity-reactions/
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Reginald Tresilian 2012-05-18 16:13:54
Wasn't Bassey's first marriage (which I believe didn't end particularly well) to a gay man? That might have something to do with the virulence of her comments decades ago.
It seems as though later she came to value her status as a gay icon.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-18 16:23:47
I actually never thought about that, but you are probably right. And certainly she does now value her gay fans (she wouldn't have a career otherwise). I just personally find it annoying how Donna Summer's comments (which again have never even been documented, unlike Bassey) always pop up, and not things others have said, though I know it's partly a question of the era they were said in.
BTW fans should track down the demo We're Going to Win, Donna Summer did, a "we'll overcome AIDS" ballad Paul Jabara wrote for her but David Geffen of all people decided if she released it it would ruin her career (he was also the one who told her not to record Jabara's It's Raining Men which was initially written for her and Barbra as a re-teaming of Enough is Enough). Geffen felt to change with the times, Donna should try to act more "black" (she was often criticized for appealing more to white fans).
Donna Summer has died
Posted by FindingNamo 2012-05-18 17:26:26
Okay, this is going to be long because, as the kids say, I just can't. I have not said anything in any of the Donna Summer threads because it's horrible when somebody dies so young and I didn't want to take anything away from that or from anybody's grief, but as the story of her AIDS commentary continues to evolve all the way to Eric saying "which again have never even been documented," I just finally have to throw the history, etched in stone in my memory, as I recall it.
It was the very early-'80s. It was the most awful of times, it was the worst of times. The AIDS epidemic was growing exponentially on a weekly basis, and everybody was scared crapless.
Elton John, of all the queens on the planet earth, married a woman, that's how scared he was about his own homosexually active past. People from all social strata were doing anything possible to distance themselves from their own homosexual activity and associations with the gay community.
Donna Summer's first wave of success had ended as the disco sucks era took over. She was a mainstream disco artist, like the Bee-Gees, she was associated with a fad that was now no longer in fashion. She had her drug issues, and her work with Giorgio Moroder (without whom she would have been nothing) was over.
Ronald Reagan was the new president and he and his party seized the moment to ignite the culture wars in an concentrated effort to snuff out the liberation movements of the '60s and '70s including the ideas of free love and cocaine fueled disco decadence.
"Dance music," the untainted new mainstream term for "disco" had not taken hold yet. People like Donna Summer and The Village People were looking for ways to stay in the game without looking like has-beens of an embarrassing era. The poor Village People tried being "New Romantics" to jump on the synth-dance movement breaking in England at the time, along with their gay archetype costumes. It didn't work.
All this was going on when Miss Summer became a born-again Christian, which PalJoey remembers as the outcome of a struggle with drugs. It was after that that she did a show in Atlantic City, which had only recently had its first casinos open up. And one of the gay pop music writers of the Village Voice (I think it was Ed-something, who I am pretty sure became an editor at Billboard) covered the show. Because he was a gay man who loved Donna Summer.
In full disclosure mode, I was a gay punk rocker at the time and NOBODY hated gay disco more than gay punk rockers. We couldn't understand the very concept of having to dress up in expensive clothes and beg to be allowed to pay our way in to a club to dance to recordings of studio musicians playing behind mostly faceless, unnamed women singing. This is not to say that Donna Summer's records were not secret aural pleasures of mine. The Moroder era was remarkable with the synth work.
Summer had been away from the public for a little while by the time of the Atlantic City show, perhaps she had been to rehab and found the lord and all that. During the show, and I have no memory of what prompted Summer to say this (perhaps glancing at the crowd and how many men were there without women?), she said, "The Bible says God made Adam & Eve not Adam & Steve, but I still love you." This shocked the Voice writer, since the people who turned up for the comeback were mostly the only people who cared, gay male disco fans.
Later in the show, she threw in a little more testifying because basically that's what newly-minted born again Christians do, and she said that if people were interested in hearing more about how the lord saved her, she would be back out onstage after the show to talk about it.
It was in this smaller group that the Voice writer heard her talk about how God punishes sin and that AIDS was gay men's sin. You have to remember the times. Try to imagine a time before cellphones, where people went through life without telephones, still and movie cameras and voice recorders in their pockets. I don't even know if the Voice reporter had a photographer with him, or if he was sent by the paper to cover the show or if he was there as a paying fan. But a credentialed reporter writing in a newsweekly WAS the documentation. That's why you will not find a handheld phone camera video of Donna making the statement in 1981.
I remember reading this article, because I read the Voice every single week, and for those first eight years or so I read every single article I encountered that mentioned AIDS at all.
There was some backlash in the Voice at the time. There were a couple of letters to the editor of the "I find that hard to believe" and "Maybe that wasn't what she meant to say" variety, with the article writer saying, no, that's what she said, and he was there to hear it. He had no reason to be making this up. She wasn't some horrible person who deserved deflating. She was widely considered a dinosaur. He was there as a fan. He documented the experience. Not just during a throw away line onstage, but a "come down and chat and hear my biblical wisdom" small group discussion afterwards.
There was no response from Summer or her camp officially, because, who cares? This was the new zeitgeist. She said nothing that was out of line with the new Reagan era.
She did have gay friends who sort of attempted to explain the whole situation. Caftan-wearing producer Allan Carr (Grease, Can't Stop the Music) said in one interview that he was sure she did say those things, because she was a very naive woman and easily took on the opinions of those around her. Okay, he called her a naive girl. He explained that if there were a preacher who had made an impression on her, who had given her a framework (no matter how homophobic) that could help her make sense of her turbulent world, she more than likely latched onto it.
You have to remember, her career had not yet gotten its second post-disco wind. When she DID finally get that wind, she was embarrassed about her work on "Love to Love You" and "Bad Girls," and claimed she didn't really know what she was doing when Moroder had her simulate all those orgasms, which did lend credence to Carr's assertions that Summer's sails were blown by the prevailing winds and that she was naive. But extremely ambitious.
The career got the second wind, she was on the Geffen label after leaving the Casablanca label (known for disco and KISS) and was repositioned as a pop singer, not a disco diva. Eventually, she did the benefit for GMHC and THAT'S when there was some push back and Summer said she never said any such thing and besides nobody can prove it (which may not have been the smartest thing to say). You know all those historical references to the beginning of the AIDS epidemic where the focus is on the rare, brave people who didn't abandon people with AIDS? Well, the reason it was so rare was because so many people DID abandon people with AIDS and by extension gay men. Donna Summer was one of those people. She was not alone.
Look, we all tell ourselves all sorts of things to help us get past stupid things we've said and done. Denial is a VERY strong defense mechanism. Summer may have very well come to believe that she never said any such thing. But the writer was there. I don't find it surprising that the woman who smoked for 30 years was sure the lung cancer was from 9/11 dust. It just makes it easier to go on when "I didn't do anything!" allows you to not really think about your complicity.
I don't meant to take anything away from how much she meant to so many people. She did have a beautiful voice and she worked with people who crafted her work into masterful pop creations. I had a chance a couple of times in the past several years to see her live, but I couldn't get over the AIDS stuff. With her death, I find a sense of forgiveness. I can forgive the awful things somebody has said, but without them explicitly apologizing for it, I won't forget.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-18 18:27:18
That's more than fair, and the Voice article is archived online (at least I've read it online, naturally I can't seem to find it right now). By documented, I meant they had never been recorded or even directly quoted. I think it's also true that she was often hopelessly naive--her interviews are notoriously unreliable (listen to all the different versions she has told about recording Love to Love You Baby which tend to change depending on her thoughts of the song--from the 70s when she loved it, to the long era she was embarassed by it, to the last few years when she seemed to own up to it and started singing it live again). I want to be clear that I personally believe she must have said something--it didn't come out of nowhere. I also seem to remember the Village Voice reporting (and this is strictly my incredibly biased reading) seemed to even then greatly exagerate what was said and I do think--completely understandably--it got embellished from there by the gay fans and took a life of its own. I don't buy that she actually said that AIDS was a punishment from God, particularly as she was singing at friend's funerals, etc, at the time--I do think she definitely passed judgement on gay people.
(I do find it bizarre that Gay Prides still invite Gloria Gaynor to sing though after comments she has said to the press, and her admitting that the reason she does gay events is because she believes her voice will teach people the wrongs of their lifestyle--though of course money is the main factor, but that's neither here nor there).
One thing, she didn't stop working with Moroder to get out of disco. She did The Wanderer album, her first Geffen album, which is very much an early version of new wave in 1980 which was also post her born again conversion (the one weak spot on the album is the closure I Believe in Jesus which has some remarkably lame lyrics based on Mary Had a Little Lamb). The album got outstanding reviews--Rolling Stone picked it as their record of the year (which, for a magazine like Rolling Stone to say about the Queen of Disco wasw remarkable in and of itself). The album was a very minor success, but Geffen was displeased (he had signed Donna to what was then the biggest contract ever to be made in the recording industry).
Her and Moroder were at work on a big double album, similar to her 70s work but with a more current sound when Geffen very expensively pulled the plug and paired her with Quincy Jones (who was reportedly a huge jerk to her, shouting at her about her weight and talent, etc). The album eventually came out in the 90s in its unfinished form as I'm a Rainbow. Moroder wrote Flashdance for her, in 1983, but Geffen refused to allow her to sing it (ironically Casablanca leased one of the songs from Rainbow, Romeo, for the Flashdance soundtrack). And much to Geffen's annoyance, due to contractual issues, Donna owed Polygram who then owned Casablanca, one more album so he gave them She Works Hard for the Money, which of course gave her her biggest 80s hit (the album itself is largely IMHO embarassing and her most Christian with a number of songs thinly coded Jesus songs like He's a Rebel).
One of the producers of her 2001 unreleased "comeback" album have just leaked one of their songs for her, for anyone interested. Adoni http://soundcloud.com/2222music/donna-summer-adoni
Donna Summer has died
Posted by FindingNamo 2012-05-18 23:17:25
I beg to differ on so, so, sooooooo many of your points, Eric. Your timeline is compressed and ahistorical.
Are you claiming you read the article, in 1981, in the Village Voice? It sounds to me like you are talking about an after-the-fact article discussing the controversy years later. I have looked for the original article, but the Voice digitized archive is incomplete and many of the fiche-like pages are creased, resulting in pages missing of the issues the archive does have.
"it got embellished from there by the gay fans and took a life of its own..."
This is your fantasy, this is made up in your head, and this is what you want to believe. It did not get embellished by gay fans and it took on no life of its own at all. Most of the disco gays couldn't have cared less. They loved that diva and nothing was going to change their feelings.
You have to understand how terribly the beginning of the epidemic affected people in epicenter cities. EVERYBODY wanted to find the way they were different from the unlucky bastards being felled by the new gay cancer. Many of us actually DID believe we were being punished supernaturally. It was impossible to be raised in this culture without taking in all sorts of things that become buttons waiting to be pushed by the likes of Jerry Falwell and Anita Bryant and Ronald Reagan. Throw in a mysterious deadly disease and, hell, if you feel bad enough and scared enough, you might have actually believed Donna Summer had a point. THAT is what it was like to be alive in that moment.
In the mainstream media, nobody was defending gay people anywhere so there was no life of its own for the Summer story to take on. There was no such thing as "Entertainment Media" on TV every night. The Village Voice was a scruffy practically underground weekly but one thing it consistently did was report on the gay community, because it was the Village Voice. Most people never even knew about the story, except Voice readers and people who knew about it when it happened. Nothing much was discussed about it until she did the GMHC benefit, but that was a few years later, which was a significant amount of time in the timeline of AIDS.
Donna Summer had not sung at any funerals of friends who had died of AIDS before the Atlantic City concert. As the years went by, I do believe Summer probably did sing at the funerals of friends, or at least show up at them. I mean, she said she did but using your standards there's no documentation so I will just have to take her word for it.
You obviously have some Donna Summer investment in this, what with you throwing up Gloria Gaynor's quotes as *worse* than Summer's (as if that mitigates what Summer said) and imagining the quotes of Summer's being embellished. I am telling you what the two quotes were. The source, the documentation, is the original article, written by the man who was there, corroborated by other gay men who joined the small group at the stage.
I don't have an investment in beatifying or crucifying Summer. I do, however, have an investment in trying to remind people of the truth of the early years of the AIDS crisis, which was THE most profound catastrophe of my lifetime (and let it be the worst, please god).
And just so you know, The Wanderer album was not a "very much an early version of new wave." No. It was not. New Wave was going for three years before that album came out. But she had nothing to do with it. It's like calling Linda Ronstadt's execrable Elvis Costello covers "new wave." They were not. There may have been some sonic trappings that were appropriated for Linda, and for Donna on The Wanderer, but Donna Summer had nothing to do with new wave, in exactly the same way The Village People did not suddenly "become" new romantic when they released their "Renaissance" album.
I'm not really interested in debating this with you. I am telling you what happened because I was observing it all very closely. I was a Village Voice subscriber for ten years and had it delivered to my home from the age of 15. I read it all, it all meant a LOT to me. I put out a punk rock fanzine starting in 1979, worked in a record store until 1985. While I appreciate you attempting this sort of musical overview, it has little to do with the important part of the long post I wrote, and much of what you wrote is inaccurate. It was history that I lived.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by PalJoey 2012-05-19 00:01:10
The currently available Village Voice article does not actually REPORT her using those words.
It simply says there were reports of her using those words.
http://www.donna-tribute.com/articles/80/advocate2.htm
So 30 years of controversy has been based on hearsay. Has anyone who ever heard her used those words come forward?
Donna Summer has died
Posted by NYadgal 2012-05-19 00:02:31
Fascinating.
Thank you for sharing all of that, Namo.
I'm going to re-read and think about all of your words and the context and perspective you've shared... thank you for the important education.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by FindingNamo 2012-05-19 00:11:56
It was a terrible time. Donna Summer didn't do as well during it as a few heroes did. Heroes are by definition exceptional.
She had an exceptional voice. She appeared on some exceptional records. Those two things brought a lot of pleasure and joy to the world.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by TheatreDiva90016 2012-05-19 00:31:06
Namo and PJ need to get together and write a book about this time period.
Every time you two post, it brings back everything so vividly.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by FindingNamo 2012-05-19 00:46:10
Oh gosh, I dunno. Okay, we'll do it!
Donna Summer has died
Posted by TheatreDiva90016 2012-05-19 01:00:00
Armistead Maupin can write the forward.
I'd buy it.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-19 01:39:19
So would I.
Namo, I really do appreciate you going through this in such detail. I was wrong, it wasn't the Voice I read, but a similar article in Outweek's archives. I'll have to go through them again, but they're something of a nightmare to navigate (all on .pdf files). I understand that you lived in the era. I also thought I was pretty clear that I admitted my biases and am well aware of them and where I was coming from--I don't deny anything you say or think you are making things up or have an agenda, and I apologize that I gave off that impression. While obviously there is simply no way for me to have experienced what that era was like, I have read a lot of memoirs, and novels of the time or about the time, and I think I have some concept. Me throwing in Gloria Gaynor really is neither here nor there, and I realze how it looked--my point (which was a poor one) was that she continues to sing at gay events despite being so open with her feelings and I did find it hypocritical that she hasn't been called out on it more, that said, you're right, it's not relevent to the discussion and has nothing to do with Donna Summer.
I would say that The Wanderer does use elements of New Wave even if it's pretty divorced from its punk roots. I'm sorry that me going on about the musical aspect in your post and not the rest made it seem like I was insensitive to the more important issue. Honestly it was because I didn't really have anything to say or argue with the rest of your post, I thought you did well enough and as you say, I wasn't there.
Meanwhile, I found this kinda amusing (the Hall itself admitting they made a mistake) http://www.billboard.com/news/rock-hall-regrets-donna-summer-snub-1007096352.story#/news/rock-hall-regrets-donna-summer-snub-1007096352.story
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-19 02:17:35
Two well written pieces that focus on Donna's music and its influence. From The Atlantic http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/05/donna-summers-heavy-breathing-blueprint-for-pop/257391/http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/05/donna-summers-heavy-breathing-blueprint-for-pop/257391/
and from The Guardian, whose author says that Donna's disco was as radical as punk http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/05/donna-summers-heavy-breathing-blueprint-for-pop/257391/http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/05/donna-summers-heavy-breathing-blueprint-for-pop/257391/
And a personal piece by a friend of mine (who went to a Donna concert with me) who runs a disco blog: http://discodelivery.blogspot.ca/2012/05/donna-summer-1948-2012.html
OK, I promise I'll cool it with the links, now
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Bettyboy72 2012-05-19 03:53:43
The death of Donna Summer has hit me harder than all the other recent deaths in music, including Whitney Houston. I think it is because Donna's music really was embedded into my subconscious from the time I was a small boy in the 70s. The radio was always on Donna's songs played constantly. I grew up listening to them and to this day, they have a sense memory quality to them. They take me back to a time and place.
They also are incredible pop songs with hooks that caught you instantly. As a boy I used to dance to them and even choreograph to them.
Then there's the voice. It's unmistakable and unique and soaring, as another poster stated. Donna's catalogue seems more impressive than Whitney's even though I don't think she sold as well as Whitney.
I will miss her greatly.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by TheatreDiva90016 2012-05-19 06:52:22
Eric,
Do you just randomly Google information and then post it here as your truth?
Because, unless you lived through it and know it from first hand experience, you have no business talking about it like you were there.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by After Eight 2012-05-19 07:35:40
"While obviously there is simply no way for me to have experienced what that era was like, I have read a lot of memoirs, and novels of the time or about the time, and I think I have some concept."
Books are great, but they are not the equal of first-hand experience.
Novels are fiction.
"Some concept" is not enough to confer the authority to act like an authority.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by PalJoey 2012-05-19 10:19:54
Okay, Namo, we could debate this forever, and I kind of wish the gay press HAD debated it more thoroughly back then. Instead it became accepted truth overnight that Donna Summer had betrayed us.
But I always felt that Donna had been unfairly lynched by anonymous group of gay white men who were probably on drugs themselves--they were at a Donna Summer concert, after all--and afterward exaggerated the badly expressed religious words of an unthinking black woman because they and their friends were getting sick and dying and we all needed a villain to be be angry at. It was what Lillian Hellman once termed a "scoundrel time," when even good people behaved badly.
So we made an Anita Bryant out of Donna Summer and strung her up on a tree to warn other black female singers to keep their religiosity to themselves. We were scoundrels to do that.
Let's look at the words that were actually reported as having been said at the concert: "God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve but I still love you." Badly chosen, yes of course, but the first part of her sentence doesn't NECESSARILY cancel out the second.
She could very easily have meant to say (I think very probably have meant to say), "PEOPLE SAY that God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve but I DON'T CARE WHAT THEY SAY BECAUSE I LOVE YOU." (My paraphrases in caps.) I don't think she was ever smart enough to express that properly. (I don't think I am either.) But it was never clear to me from what I read that she actually believed that statement herself.
Then backstage, with the anonymous gaggle of probably-drug-addled white boys waiting for their diva, she goes on with more of the religious mumbo-jumbo she's been fed by the African-American born-again types who were trying to get her off the drugs--stupid, callous, unfeeling stuff but stuff a lot of black religious folk believed to be true at the time--and for a long time afterward.
(White religious folk believed it too, but they weren't the ones with sway over Donna Summer at the time. So let's remember this was always about white men judging black religion.)
And now let's get to the part that was not reported--the part that was just remembered by the probably-drug-addled white-boy lynch mob:
What if what she said backstage was NOT that AIDS was God's punishment for "being gay" but that AIDS was "God's punishment for having promiscuous sex"? A lot of freaked-out people believed that at the time--including a lot of freaked-out gay people who had been promiscuous. Including you and me--or, well, me at least, for a year or two or three.
Those boys would have been pretty dismayed to hear their diva talking shIt like that.
Add now let's add in the fact that MAYBE one or two of those queens backstage were not disco bunnies but punk-rock gays like you, who hated disco and had been dragged there...and add in the fact that most of the white guys writing for the gay press back then were of your too-cool-for-school I-Hate-Disco mindset.
What resulted was a perfect storm of anger. Indignant editorials. Disco and Donna denounced at gay bars. Jokes and exaggeration from drag queens at fundraisers. Records burned. From those anonymous reports onward, Donna Summer could not defend herself against the accusations. She was forever the enemy.
It was a scoundrel time.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by NYadgal 2012-05-19 10:43:59
Please write a book.
I regret not having printed out all of your posts/essays on BWW over the last 8 years.
This is why I won't leave BWW. The insight and information that people like you and Namo share makes the experience of being here truly thought-provoking and enriching. Thank you.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by FindingNamo 2012-05-19 11:10:30
I love you, PalJoey, so much, I love you, I love you, I love you. You take me right back to working on a radical gay and lesbian collective (a few years after the record store) where one white person could shut down another white person's discussion of something by finding the racist angle! It's like a sense memory I haven't had in years. Luckily, I've had therapy since.
Again, I don't really want to derail or deny the grief and good memories people are having about LaDonna, so I don't want to drag this out much longer. You're right, she could very well have been saying "I'm not like one of those awful people who has come to power, I am going to stand by you and not drift in the general repressive direction of this whole nation." Just as what she might have been saying during the years when she was distancing herself from "Love to Love You, Baby" that she loved the song to death and she was very proud of it.
I have to say, I think in both my lengthy posts I made it clear about the scoundrel time. I tried hard to show that most people were NOT heroes, that Donna was more typical than not and that that is what helped make the times so awful.
And I have to say that you going right to "Donna Summer was lynched by drugged out white gays" is just a titch extreme. In fact, somebody back on the radical collective might have pointed out that part of your analysis sounding like a self-loathing gay man projecting on to others!
The story didn't get much traction, there was no lynching, high-, low- or medium-tech or otherwise. The original article talked about her coming back out onstage after changing after the show. Nobody was going backstage for a sitting. This was her chance to proselytize. I just don't make the same assumptions as you, that even if these gay guys who adored the diva were drugged out to the gills, they went back there to "get her." I recall the writer looking for clarification and hoping what she said onstage wasn't what it sounded like. I kind of remember a sense of heartbreak when she said "AIDS is your sin."
Donna Summer has died
Posted by PalJoey 2012-05-19 11:47:17
And I have to say that you going right to "Donna Summer was lynched by drugged out white gays" is just a titch extreme
A titch? Moi? I thought I was in full High Dudgeon.
I didn't say they actually went there to "get her." I think the "getting" was opportunistic, after hearing her say things under the sway of the drug of religion.
We were all so angry and scared and we needed an enemy. What could be better than to sacrifice a diva, especially since she was the diva of the kind of music that the straights and the punk-rockers told us we shouldn't be loving at all.
And from that article and those anonymous people, it spread like a virus, throughout the community, until you couldn't say the name "Donna Summer" without a handful of people saying "That UNGRATEFUL homophobic bitch?"
She never deserved that. She still doesn't. Donna Summer was never the enemy.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by FindingNamo 2012-05-19 12:09:04
Possible title for the book: "PalJoey and Namo's Recent Gay Hisssstory."
The thing is this, though. No gay punk rockers ever had the power to tell gay disco fans they shouldn't listen to Donna Summer. Most gay disco fans dismissed punk rock out of hand, and that was that. The world views were diametrically opposed and the disco world, until 1980, had total mainstream cultural approval. Then it ran out of steam. But the aspirational upper-middle class trappings of the red velvet rope disco scene were the groundwork for the entire "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" era, ushered in by the Studio 54 scene and Robin Leach and the Reagans. Fancy polyester, the right look, the right coke.
If a gay punk rocker wanted to go to a gay bar or club or tavern or bathhouse, ie, wanted to get laid, there was no venue that did NOT play disco and Donna and all the rest. So, we heard whenever we went to such places. (And of course, got a LOT of the songs stuck in our heads).
So this image of the poor, tiny rebel band of disco bunnies cowering in the corner while the culture at large ignored their culture doesn't really square, historically.
But seriously, again, I am not here to crap on the dead diva. I just had to step in before Eric got all the way to "the ENTIRE thing was made up, it never happened, Donna sewed the entire NAMES Project Quilt by hand."
Donna Summer has died
Posted by PalJoey 2012-05-19 12:31:12
I kinda like "Hissy Fits" for the title.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by FindingNamo 2012-05-19 12:34:02
I like that too. And Randy Rainbow can lip-synch the audio version.
And now, everybody, back to your joyful memories of Donna's music.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by PalJoey 2012-05-19 13:05:22
Let's let the Diva have the last word:
"I want you to look at me and I want you to really hear me when I say this: I never said that."
http://youtu.be/bcAGC0SXD7w
Donna Summer has died
Posted by TheatreDiva90016 2012-05-19 13:48:39
""Some concept" is not enough to confer the authority to act like an authority"
That would be my problem with most of his posts.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by CarlosAlberto 2012-05-19 15:33:51
Wow. I just opened this thread to read some nice messages from board members in honor of Donna Summer. I didn't expect the very insightful, well written reminisces of that scary time when the AIDS crisis first hit and scared everyone, myself included.
I had just started high school and I knew I was gay. I was very much looking forward to falling in love with another guy and having my first sexual experience...and then AIDS hit.
There I was a 14 year old homosexual left with the concept that my sexuality was wrong and death would be the heavy price to pay.
I went into my closet and closed the door behind me and locked it.
It was a sad, scary and confusing time.
We know better now and that closet door was opened 18 years ago when I could no longer bear to live a life of lies and self denial.
Reading PJ and Namo's accounts brought all that back and I learned some new things in the process. So thank you guys for sharing.
I also am saddened by Donna Summer's untimely passing. She has always been one of my favorite recording artists. I also was confused and conflicted by the whole anti-gay statements attributed to her at the time but she has since apologized for anything she may have sad or hurt the gay community. She's apologized numerous times. I forgave her a long time ago.
Without forgiveness we don't move forward. No one's perfect. We've all have done or said things in our past that we are not proud of and am sure we would not like being held against us.
R.I.P. Donna Summer, I still "love to love you". 
Donna Summer has died
Posted by tazber 2012-05-19 17:40:36
Just want to say that I am very moved and immensely enlightened by PJ's and Namo's posts.
Thank you both for so eloquently sharing some very personal memories. Those few posts brought more perspective of that time period to me than a dozen books and/or movies about that era.
As far as Donna Summer, I have gleaned that she was a confused and impressionable (and fragile) woman. She seemed to be looking for the same kind of acceptance that her gay fans were. My feeling, based on your recollections, is that in her heart she bore no ill will or negative judgements toward homosexuals despite what she may have been programmed to say.
Either way, she passed too soon.
Also, the book idea that is being bandied about here - I'm not sure if it is a joke, but a compendium of honest and heartfelt essays about gay life in the 80s would certainly be welcome. It feels like people want to push that entire decade under the rug and only have discussions about how far we have come from the 90s on.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by FindingNamo 2012-05-19 18:39:14
Stay tuned for David France's documentary "How to Survive a Plague."
Donna Summer has died
Posted by TheatreDiva90016 2012-05-19 19:01:07
I get the credit for the book idea!
Donna Summer has died
Posted by FindingNamo 2012-05-19 19:36:45
TheatreDiva presents The Gershwin's Hissy Fits, by PalJoey and FindingNamo
Donna Summer has died
Posted by TheatreDiva90016 2012-05-19 20:24:20
Who wants to mock up a show curtian..... I mean, book cover?
Donna Summer has died
Posted by PalJoey 2012-05-19 23:31:38
Diva--you can contribute a chapter. We'll call it "Sissy Fits"
Donna Summer has died
Posted by TheatreDiva90016 2012-05-20 00:34:17
LOL
Dish With Diva...
Donna Summer has died
Posted by JerseyGirl2 2012-05-20 05:26:55
Seriously, I would buy such a book. I am enthralled every time PJ or Namo writes about the AIDS epidemic and those horrid times. I got chills reading through this article, because as a person born in 76 and raised in Tennessee, I knew about it, but I never experienced it. AIDS impacted me personally when a good friend told me he was HIV+ 12 years ago. I lost him two years ago. It's so important that the reality of what happened is preserved.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-20 06:03:11
I would too. JerseyGirl, I'm really sorry for the loss to this world and to you of your friend.
When I said I've read novels and books about that era and the experience, I was aware (but thanks AfterEight for the note) that the novels are fiction, but to read The Farewell Symphony or Grief is to at least somewhat see what that era must have been like--and was for the authors. So while it is fiction, I don't think those books can be discounted and they also are pretty shocking, and moving reads. (It's about the era after, but I really think Paul Russell's The Coming Storm, which was the first really modern gay novel I read, deals with some of that era's affect in an interesting way, although I don't think as personally).
The idea was always semi-abstract to me too, my mother's best friend's partner killed himself when I was eight because he didn't want to get more sick after having brain cancer. So, while I on some level knew I would be accepted by my parents if I came out (my parents were actually set up by his boyfriend) I also felt pretty scared about it all and why I tried to be straight until I was 19 years old, ridiculously. I didn't mean to trivialize any of what has happened, and how far it almost all too conveniently seemed to set back some people's ideology about how one should accept gays (not just as villains but also as tragic, sexless martyrs to their condition).
Donna Summer has died
Posted by JerseyGirl2 2012-05-20 06:57:01
Are there any books out there now that you would recommend that are as real as your own recounts?
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-20 07:24:48
I would be curious too. I feel like I've read the major titles, but probably not most of the other ones (I only discovered Holleran had a recent novel when I was telling a friend to read Dancer From The Dance to get what I was told by a great friend is a pretty accurate description of late 70s gay disco culture... I have a feeling I'll regret saying that).
I would recommend to anyone who hasn't read it, Eminent Outlaws, Christopher Bram's very recent book about the gay authors and playwrights who came of importance post WWII and during the AIDS movement as well as how the lack of gay lit now is a problem. http://www.amazon.com/Eminent-Outlaws-Writers-Changed-America/dp/0446563137 I think it is especially great how it covers the critic scare about "all these gay playwrights" of the late 60s. It's rather gossipy, which makes it an easy read, but I think it really is a great book. (The only other thing I've read of Bram's was his first book, Surprising Myself, which I loved as a teen, and I think is worth reading too, but deals with the 70s).
Bra, covers half the book during the era, hanging out with Kramer and White and the weird threesome in the GORGEOUS poetry of James Merrill, who I whose poety I would have never known to read otherwise. Obviously, it is only a bystander's guide to what happened, but I think it helps give some view to the various authors of really, the best.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-20 10:18:12
And this is when I wish I had one of the proper BWW accounts, that allowed me to edit or delete my post. I regret getting so defensive in my posts, particularly my last one.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by TheatreDiva90016 2012-05-20 12:01:03
No, see the problem here is that you can read all of the books or online articles you want about something, but it doesn't make you an expert on it. The fact is that you are too young to have lived through it. You are just rattling off someone's else thoughts and experiences.
And going back to change what you posted only erases your mistakes. it doesn't change the fact that you are talking about something that you know nothing about.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by Bettyboy72 2012-05-20 12:40:18
Can we please just get back to celebrating the legacy of Donna Summer. :)
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-20 14:02:18
I didn't go back to change anything--I can't even do that with my account. But we can agree I am no expert on *anything* and that's why I appreciate this forum, and I am sorry that I have given the impression I always think I am. There's no other way to learn so much about any subject and it's amazing to get such a deeper perspective (particularly thanks to Namo and PJ) on a subject, and I am sorry for ever implying I was talking about something I knew nothing about.
Donna Summer has died
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-20 14:39:00
Bettyboy, you're completely right. This is a cute Motown medley Donna did on TV with Brooklyn Dreams--judging from the clip she was already attached to her future husband Bruce Sudano. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3prQSice-4&feature=related
The Donna Summer Debacle
Posted by RainbowJude 2012-05-20 15:00:31
I don't see that you have anything to apologise for, Eric. If anyone should be doing any apologising here, it's TheatreDiva90016, but that would require him to get what I'd call an old gay man's chip off of his shoulder - and there's no way that's going to happen.
Yes, the young gays of today should be grateful to the old gays and the battles they fought so that we can live the lives we live today. I certainly am, and going by what Eric has written in this thread, so is he. It's not like the world today is without it's own battles for the LGBT community, but heaven forbid that any of these be mentioned in the same breath as the battles of old. If that's the basis for the fight in which we're going to trap ourselves, then they were all moot, old and new.
No, Eric and I and everyone else born since 1978 can't have the same experiences you had, but we can empathise with them in the same way that all of us can emphathise with what happened in the Holocaust without having experienced it ourselves, and, yes, that empathy can be extended through not only non-fictional accounts of the past, but also through literature that illuminates it. That's one of the things that art, in whatever form it takes, is able to achieve.
That's all that Eric's been trying to say in his most recent posts, but all of the pearl-clutching and posturing that's been going on in this thread has completely obscured that. Of course, that was the point all along, wasn't it, TheatreDiva90016? It hasn't been at all about proving some point about how the gays of today stand on the shoulders of the gays of the past without gratitude or that empathy from the younger generations towards the older generations is impossible. Watching these posts appear has been like being an audince to some kind of personal vendetta being played out against someone whose only crime was to be here and articulate his feelings at a time when he was obviously vulnerable due to the manner in which he experienced the death of someone who is an icon in his life.
I hope that you can see that, Eric, and take what has been said from whence it comes. It's clear to me and many others here, I am sure, that you don't just copy and paste what you find on Google in your posts and that you are a deep thinker and that you feel things very deeply, no matter how much some people here might try to negate that. It is they that are being churlish, not you.
What a mess of a thread this has become, from a topic that should have been about celebrating the talent of a woman who meant a great deal to many people, including many gay people, despite whatever personal views she may have held, views that in any case were subject to change over time and part of a complex process that she had to work through on her own terms. I hope that somehow we can steer this back in that direction once again. In fact, I'm going to post a link that attempts to achieve just that.
The Donna Summer Debacle
Posted by JerseyGirl2 2012-05-20 15:15:38
Damn, Rainbow... I didn't get ANY of that from anything that was posted. It was discussion about Donna Summer and the comments she made. Her words were being weighed against what was happening at the time within the community. Eric was commenting based on what he knew from what he had read. The others were commenting on what they experienced. Sure, some of the men who experienced the horrors firsthand are rather protective of the facts, as they should be. I saw no mention of how today's gays stand on the shoulder of older gays without gratitude. You can't add a whole post of bull$hit and then complain that the topic has gotten off track.
The Donna Summer Debacle
Posted by TheatreDiva90016 2012-05-20 15:37:10
Nice way to twist what we said all out of whack, Rainbow...
JG said, "Eric was commenting based on what he knew from what he had read. The others were commenting on what they experienced." I was only saying that Eric shouldn't be speaking as though he lived through it, because he didn't. He was reading things online and wrote his posts based on that, even though they came across as first hand knowledge.
The Donna Summer Debacle
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-20 17:06:02
JG is right--and I really didn't realize what I said sounded like I was implying I lived through it or knew as much as people who had.
The Donna Summer Debacle
Posted by TheatreDiva90016 2012-05-20 17:40:00
It obvious most of your posts are based on things you have read on line and not actually experienced in real life.
The Donna Summer Debacle
Posted by Gaveston2 2012-05-20 17:49:10
Eric never misrepresented the source of his knowledge about the 70s and 80s. I don't understand why he is being attacked here.
I lived in Manhattan from 1977 through 1985, yet Eric knows far more about Donna Summer and disco in general than I. I didn't frequent Studio 54 and wasn't really paying attention to disco, so merely living through an era is no guarantee of expertise on all aspects of the period.
(And for the record, the details of a novel may be fictional, but when it comes to portraying an era through which the author lived, a novel tends to be a legitimate representation of the author's recollection.)
But if I may be allowed to fact-check the much anticipated history by PJ and Namo, the acronym "AIDS" wasn't coined until 1982. So Donna Summer certainly wasn't using it in Atlantic City in 1981. That doesn't mean the essence of her reported remarks isn't correct.
However, as I recall it, in 1981, we were all still talking about the "gay cancer" or "gay pneumonia" and the assumption by many (including many doctors) was that some unique disease was striking gay men alone. Everything from promiscuity to poppers was blamed. That doesn't excuse all the remarks attributed to Summer, but one can understand why the religious might have thought a disease that only struck gay men had some sort of divine significance.
Finally, no matter what Summer may have said, she began apologizing profusely for it (and/or denying that she believed it) by 1985. That's 27 years of apologies before her death.
Isn't it time to forgive her?
The Donna Summer Debacle
Posted by Mister Matt 2012-05-20 17:56:41
A lot of people recently spoke as experts on the personal life of Judy Garland, especially her behavior behind closed doors in the last 2 weeks of her life and were HIGHLY offended if ANYONE challenged them on the subject. I never got the idea that Eric was speaking as though he lived through it. I mean, I already knew he wasn't old enough, but he also seemed pretty explicit about where he got the information.
It obvious most of your posts are based on things you have read on line and not actually experienced in real life.
When speaking of the lives of celebrities, that is true of 90% of the posts on BWW. Why is this instance such a huge issue? I truly don't understand what all the fuss is about.
The Donna Summer Debacle
Posted by TheatreDiva90016 2012-05-20 18:09:34
It's obvious Eric is just ringing up his post count.
The Donna Summer Debacle
Posted by Mister Matt 2012-05-20 18:26:18
Well, I guess it's obvious we're all just ringing up post counts when we post things we wish to discuss and respond to others directly.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by NYadgal 2012-05-20 18:37:12
aaaaand, back on topic:
RIP, Donna Summer...
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by Addison D. 2012-05-20 18:59:33
Did everybody see the NYT article?
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by NYadgal 2012-05-20 19:05:56
The Mudd Club. Wow. Haven't thought about that place in decades!
Thanks for sharing that.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by FindingNamo 2012-05-20 19:53:05
Memory is such a tricky thing, I'm pretty sure Bette had long since stopped performing at the Continental Baths by the time "Love to Love You, Baby" was released. But that's where she remembers hearing it.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by Addison D. 2012-05-20 20:06:29
Right??? Continental closed in '74 or '75. 'Love to Love You' was '75. BathHouse Bette had definitely moved on by then.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by After Eight 2012-05-20 21:28:05
"But we can agree I am no expert on *anything* and that's why I appreciate this forum, and I am sorry that I have given the impression I always think I am."
You might think about a) why you give that impression, and b) what you can do to change that impression. That is, if you really believe that you don't know everything.
You impress people enough with the knowledge you do have. Certainly I am impressed, amazed even. (Your taste is another matter). But you don't have to raise your hand to answer every question the teacher asks, even if you know every answer (which you don't).
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by PalJoey 2012-05-20 21:44:58
Let's all feel some love.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by Gaveston2 2012-05-20 21:51:00
Before I feel the love, joey, I have to comment on After Eight's apparent attempt to make "being a jerk" his life's work.
Here's EricMontreal22 on Donna Summer:
"Nobody in the pop world had meant more to me than Donna Summer--an outstanding singer, probably the best vocalist ever recorded...."
Whether I agree with his rating of Miss Summer, Eric admitted his bias in favor of the woman. Is it any wonder Eric defends her or posts quite a bit in a thread devoted to her death? Jeeze, Louise! No wonder younger gay men pretend we old farts are invisible. Who can blame them? They've probably all had encounters with After Eight!
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by Gaveston2 2012-05-20 21:53:14
Having gotten the above off my chest, I am happy to politely commemorate Miss Summer now. I must thank everyone for all the links here. Since I wasn't a fan of disco, I didn't pay a lot of attention to Summer during her career.
I have to admit I'm surprised to realize how many of the hits I heard on 70s' dance floors were hers. She really was the voice of that era.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by Addison D. 2012-05-20 22:11:56
While not on-topic, I feel compelled to point out that we Old Gay Farts do not behave in any one way, nor do our Younger Gay Brethren.
Let each of us take responsibility for our own behavior, neither hiding behind nor making broad generational stereotypes.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by Gaveston2 2012-05-20 22:15:15
^^^I forgot to mention that apparently we Old Farts also lose our senses of humor. But I guess that's obvious from this thread.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by CarlosAlberto 2012-05-20 22:25:15
Shhh! Donna's up in heaven and sprinkling us with sparkly stars...
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by Addison D. 2012-05-20 22:43:01
Aaahhhh....yes. In the immortal words of Joel Schumacher:
"Sweat and Speedos and Donna Summer and gorgeous beauty and being wrecked out of our brains. Thats what it was all about.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by Gaveston2 2012-05-20 23:47:53
^^^How apt! Exactly as I remember it.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by Phyllis Rogers Stone 2012-05-21 00:09:55
I'm glad to know that the aging process (and the surgical steps to combat the aging process) is reversed in heaven!
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by Addison D. 2012-05-21 00:19:06
The Mormons, I think, tell us that in heaven, we get our bodies back in their 'best, original state'.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by Gaveston2 2012-05-21 00:43:48
But the Zoroastrians taught that we will live forever in our bodies as they are when we die. This, I suppose, was the original motivation behind the dictum to "die young and leave a good-looking corpse".
(In fact, Zoroastrian culture, like most ancient cultures, honored the elderly and wasn't obsessed with youth. Idiots.)
ETA: Just to be clear, the "idiots" above is a joking reference to the ancient Zoroastrians for their "foolish" reverence toward the elderly. It isn't addressed to readers of this post.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by CarlosAlberto 2012-05-21 03:14:47
Not only my favorite Donna Summer album but my favorite album cover as well. Four Seasons of Love is my second favorite followed by A Love Trilogy and Live and More with that glorious, soaring MacArthur Park Suite
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by CarlosAlberto 2012-05-21 03:14:57
Double post.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by Jane2 2012-05-21 08:22:52
"Sweat and Speedos and Donna Summer and gorgeous beauty and being wrecked out of our brains. Thats what it was all about.
I was part of that scene, and that's how I remember it too!
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by TheatreDiva90016 2012-05-21 08:55:54
Man, she was so beautiful.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by Mister Matt 2012-05-21 11:11:47
While I was also too young to participate in the scene during the rise of Donna Summer, the first 45 single I ever bought for myself was On the Radio. I was only 9 years old and in love with her voice and the song. Just a few months later, my brother gave me my first album for my birthday...ABBA's Voulez Vous. I was pretty transparent.
I also remember some TV special where Steve Allen did a dramatic reading of the lyrics to Hot Stuff and I thought it was absolutely HILARIOUS. Anyone else remember that?
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by SonofMammaMiaSam 2012-05-21 11:42:25
I remember it well. I just tried to post the link I found, but it's saying that it's been removed from Youtube.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-21 16:32:53
Those Francesco Scavullo shots that Casablanca used to get for Donna Summer really were stunning--they don't take promo photos like that anymore.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-21 21:37:13
A really nice read from someone who came out as Donna Summer hit her peak http://popdust.com/2012/05/18/donna-summer-me-and-the-first-days-of-disco/
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by MrMidwest 2012-05-22 12:59:27
OutQ radio on xm has been replaying a wonderful (and pretty gay) interview with Donna from when her Crayons album came out. I'm not sure if it's online anywhere.
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-05-23 05:35:40
Thanks for the link--I somehow never grew up with Family Matters, even though at some point I think I watched the rest of the TGIF lineup. Pretty random!
One last link (well, for now), this is the best take on her music I've read, from Alfred Soto Resident Advisor, an electronic music webzine I like. It also has a nice re-appraisal of her 80s work (although I think to imply that her work then was as often as strong as her 70s peak is overstating things). And yes, they're pretty fair about how awful her "autobiography" is (when you open a memoir to find that the print is larger than your nephew's picture books, you know it's not a good sign).
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1611
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by PalJoey 2012-06-13 15:47:30
Donna's 1989 apology letter has resurfaced after all these years:
RIP Donna Summer
Posted by EricMontreal22 2012-06-13 16:03:43
Ha, I was wondering whether to post that. I did like that the former ACT UP member who tracked down the letter pointed out on his blog that it was probably not the best idea of Donna to use the bible to apologize to "the gays", as lovely a quote as it is. Sigh.
