Accompanied by a full orchestra, Donna Summer performed “Come With Me,” “Could It Be Magic (a hit by Barry Manilow),” “The Man I Love,” “I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good,” & “Some Of These Days". Great DONNA.
I get chills. My body hair stands straight up listening to these live vocals. Donna was simply electrifying. Simply in control of her voice. And laid it down effortlessly. I’m so lucky to have lived in this era. Miss you Donna Summer. Like you there was never another and never will.
Donna has never gotten the respect she deserves as a first rate vocalist. She is too easily dismissed as a "disco" diva" in a pejorative way. This is such a rare treat to see her in her prime performing and singing live. Donna never made any live TV performances here in the UK during her most successful period and we really had no idea just how talented she really was. This is a brave selection of songs to showcase her talent- an obscure album track and the old standards rather than focussing on her hits and latest album. She shows just how versatile and serious an artist she was.
To really know her, you have to hear her voice LIVE and IN PERSON. It moves through you. It reaches in and takes your breath away as it reaches into your soul and pulls up emotions you've had stuffed inside. Her voice only got better and better, and she did things vocally that no one was doing at the time. Some of this character she is showing here is part of an act that Neil Bogart helped create with Love to Love You Baby, because she was really the funny one, a comedian. She really was hilariously funny, she loved to laugh. One time, I had said something to her that didn't come out right, and I was kind of embarrassed but she understood, and we both laughed, but she started to walk away, but when she was standing next to me, she said something in response to what I had said, and my face either turned red from blushing or it went pale like no oxygen was reaching my face or my brain, my jaw dropped, and I looked at her in disbelief because I couldn't believe she said what she said, and then I did one of those laughs where you go from shock to bursting with laughter, that stars off with a kind of "raspberry" - Bppppppth - LOL LOL. She wanted to shock me, and thereby crack me up and make me laugh so I wouldn't be embarrassed with what I had said... so she made me embarrassed from what SHE said. It wasn't "nasty", mind you. But, it was something that only a married woman could say to a friend without it sounding dirty. I'm laughing just thinking about it, but I won't tell what she said. After a show one evening, I was headed backstage and she met up with me and asked what I thought of the show, and then she noticed I had tears in my eyes, and she said, "Oh, never mind" and she tried to walk away, but I stopped her and told her I wanted to ask her a question, and she said sure... I asked her if she was surprised that she was able to sustain that last note she held out in the last song. She looked up and off to the left, with her head tilted slightly. And, then she said, "Ut, ugh. Mmmmm. No." And then she turned on her heels and walked off toward the dressing rooms and the hospitality suite as I stood there in utter shock, and then amusement at how she answered my question. Because, she held out this high note for so long, then signaled the band to reprise the last line, and then she held that note out even longer and I nearly fell out of my chair. It was incredible, and the audience went wild. The unbelievable power she had in her voice, such powerful lungs which is why I was so saddened that she passed from lung cancer that showed up suddenly and took her within months. But, rest assured that where she is, she sings.... She doesn't sing her hit songs, but she sings. And her voice is so powerful she could drown out Heaven's choir, and her voice can bend the universe. She is at peace, she is filled with joy and love, and you better believe she sings. So, when I die, my dying words will be: "Don't be sad for me, for tomorrow I shall hear my friend and my Diva, Donna Summer, sing LIVE and in PERSON in Paradise."
Donna could sing anything perfectly! Funny that just about a month after she sang “The Man I Love,” and “I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good” on 02/26/1977, she met Bruce Sudano. They hit it off immediately and they married in 1980. GOD was listening and sent her a TRUE SOUL MATE! Thrty-two years together as husband and wife.
I remember it was a Saturday afternoon when I was 17 years old and this came on. I was mesmerized and forever inducted into the Donna Summer devotee group. I'm so thrilled Cristian you posted this.
The last few songs have that 1940s big band sound, the type where they would hire a female lead singer, like you see in the old movies. Donna's voice is incredible! She should always be in conversations about the greatest female vocalists.
...oh, my GOD...BEAUTIFUL Black Goddess of LOVE...I want you to COME..... (3:13) ....those EYES...alluring, sensuous.....NEVER crass or dirty....A real Woman, with real TALENT.....RIP.... (7:52)
Keenly - I am starting to become close to a disco music expert. While Barry Manilow did that "Could It Be Magic" in a style of a power soft-rock ballad, Donna Summer pushed that song further with a "discofied" version of Barry Manilow's song. That is how I know the disco craze became so, so infectious in the 1970s.
Neil Bogart, President of Casablanca Records, really pushed her to sing in a high, breathy voice, like she did on her first US hit "Love To Love You Baby", in order to sell the sexy, sultry image he created for her. But thankfully when she sang live she used her natural full voice and really sang the songs the way she wanted. She got tired of the disco trend early on, but took full advantage of it to reach great heights. There was so much more to her and unfortunately Casablanca kept her pigeonholed as the Queen Of Disco, when they could have allowed her to cover a much wider range of music styles. Check out her singing "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" and other covers here on you tube to see what I mean. She could practically sing anything.
well, that is where the title "the reluctant Queen" came from...I am a fan of Donna Summer and I agree with you, but after she left Casablanca, she hardly ever managed to have such a huge success, and she made some both musically and style wise bad choices. I mean, I think, she did very right to get rid of the Disco Queen image(although she did it a bit clumpsy), since she felt, she suffered from it, but after that, I think she never created a new star persona, a new and successful style to promote her huge talent and her music. Maybe, she could have tried harder to change her image with Neil Bogart in Casablanca, so there wouldn't have been such an abrupt cut in her career.Anyway, I am not judging her choices, I do not judge anyone's choices, I just reflect on it and imagine what if...the last thing I would like to say, is that later after the Casablanca years, sometimes she appeared to the audience with such a conservative image, which did not do any justice neither to her as an artist nor to the revolution she brought in the dance and pop music back in the 70's.
@@triadafillos1 The natural progression for Donna, upon leaving Casablanca, would have immediately been to incorporate 3 styles into a series of at least 3 albums in a row- Rock, Hi-NRG, and at least one duet with whoever was the top male vocalist at the time. That would have gotten her through the ever changing trends in the early 80's. Then she should have been able to create her own sound to carry her through the rest of the 80's. David Geffen seemed to have it in his head that The German Trio (Moroder/Bellotte/Summer) were going to be bringing their past magic with them to his label, when it should have been the time to separate her from the other two and put her with other producers instead. She would have made a fortune as Queen of Hi-NRG- that category of music was just waiting for her and it would have been a natural progression for her instead of an extension of disco. Many people don't realize that her last album with Geffen wasn't "All Systems Go". The last album she had completed was "Another Place And Time". Geffen was so disappointed with that album, he let her out of her contract and it was sold to Atlantic Records. That wonderful gem of an album is the closest we'll ever get to her doing Hi-NRG music. This shows that Geffen never knew what to do with her. When she recorded that album with Stock/Aitken/Waterman, they recorded enough material for a 2nd album. Unfortunately, it seems now that they missed that opportunity to release that material as a follow up album. Another missed opportunity was when they released the Anniversary 3-CD set of "Another Place And Time"- they should have put the extra material with that set. THAT would have been the perfect time to do that. Oh well. She left us with enough musical memories to carry us into our old age and perhaps that should be sufficient.
@@supachaloopa3611 I agree with you! But still, I think, she probably took some decisions without the record company executives. I have somewhere read she had rejected the smash "What a feeling", Moroder had presumably presented to her and she did not want to sing it, so it went to Irene Carra, and it made her to an instant star. Who knows, despite a he talent, maybe Donna did not always make the right choices for her career. But, I agree, thank God and the whole Universe, she left us a pretty wide variety of music to listen to
@@triadafillos1 The " Flashdance " soundtrack album has always had a huge amount of rumors surrounding it. Giorgio and Irene paired up to write material and " Flashdance " is what they came up with, along with 7 other songs for Irene's 2nd solo album, the 10 track LP called " What A Feelin' ", that followed that soundtrack also in 1983. Donna sings on the " Flashdance " soundtrack, a song called "Romeo", so I never believed the rumor she was supposed to sing all 3 songs on that soundtrack. If I remember right, one of the the rumours was Giorgio wanted her to sing " Flashdance (What A Feelin') ", " Romeo ", and " Imagination ". But instead got sound-a-likes Irene Cara and Laura Branigan to do the other 2 songs, because Donna was just about to release the LP and song " She Works Hard For The Money" and Donna was counting on that being a hit. The reason why the rumors don't make any sense is that Irene Cara would not have written a song with Giorgio ( a top producer at the time), just to have it go to another singer. But I'm not an expert on Donna, so I could have it all wrong.
@@supachaloopa3611 I think you are right on this, I remember so went the story I once read about it. But I mean, Donna Summer stated several times, she did not like the Donna Summer L.P, the one she did with Quincy Jones, for me her best album past disco era, maybe her best of her entire career, so perfect arranged with so many different music genres, with great ballads and a super contemporary pop dance sound. Subsequently she did not promote the singles of the album that much, for me also a sign of a wrong instinct or wrong decisions
¡Que espectacular interpretación en cada canción! Donna Summer, nuestra Bella Dama De La Canción, presenta un estilo único en su clase, al ajustar diferentes tonos y tiempos a los clásicos del pasado, como a sus propios éxitos modernos. Me encantó cada modulación y vocalización con las que cautivó al público presente. Donna Summer es sinónimo de: humildad, empatia, superación, éxito, carisma, clase, innovación, gran talento, sonidos y arreglos con alta calidad, diversidad y etc. Yo la llamo: "La chica de las mil voces". Donna Summer en única e incomparable. Se nos fue muy temprano .William Rodríguez-Zayas desde mi lindo Puerto Rico 🇵🇷, LA Isla Del Encanto. La Isla Del Cordero De DIOS. !Muchas bendiciones para todos! Amén
¿Cómo no lo vi antes? Es uno de los mejores videos, tomando en cuenta el año en que se realizó, tiene una calidad de audio insuperable. Donna, bellísima y sensual, su voz nítida, poderosa, en todo su esplendor. GRACIAS POR COMPARTIRLO.
Grandiosa LA VERDADERA REYNA DE LA "MÚSICA DISCO " GRAN VOZ,EXTRAORDINARIA MANERA DE INTERPRETAR...TE QUISE CONOCER PERO NO SE ME DIO ESCUCHARTE EN VIVO..,.ERES QUIEN ME MOTIVO A SER TU FAN, Y POR TO COMENZO MI GUSTO POR LA MUSICA Y EL BAILE.. MAESTRA TE EXTRAÑAMOS MUCHO...GRACIAS POR TODO LO QUE NOS DEJASTE....REYNA DE REYNAS GRACIAS DONNA SUMMER.....LA MEJOR!!! TE EXTRAÑAMOS MUCHO TUS ADMIRADORES !!!!