I was really saddened today by the news that pop star Donna Summer has died of cancer at her home in Florida. She was just 63 years of age.
Donna Summer was the undisputed 'Queen of Disco', with her heyday at the top of the charts in the late '70s and early '80s, with such memorable songs as "I Feel Love", "Love to Love You Baby", "Last Dance", "On the Radio", "MacArthur Park", and many others.
She was the total personification of the disco era, an era much reviled by many at the time and since. People so love to pooh-pah disco as 'frivolous' and 'crap', but, to hell with that - disco produced some of the best dance music ever. Ever. And Donna Summer was the personification of that terrific music and those tremendous beats that make you want to just get up and dance, dance, dance. Happy, memorable music.
In this current plastic era with so few distinctive and strong voices in music, hers was a pitch-perfect, beautiful and utterly distinct voice at a time when the radiowaves were replete with amazing female voices. Just a few bars of her incomparable voice (she had mezzo soprano range, let it be known) and that lush gorgeousness would just overwhelm me.
Where Whitney Houston was my mid- to late teens, so Donna Summer was my very young youth - which happened to be amongst the happiest days of my life. No wonder then that Donna Summer's voice always invokes so much happiness in me, and such good memories of a carefree time.
I once knew and loved a man who loved music more than any non-musical person I have ever personally known. He loved many singers and bands, but for him no one compared to Donna Summer. There was just something about her that entranced and bewitched that man like no other when he was no more than a teenager himself. I always understood why, but today I understand even more so.
He died in 1996, and a part of me died with him.
At least now you can listen to your beloved Donna sing to you in heaven, Denis.
R.I.P.
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