Edwin J Bernard

SUMMER OF LOVE
July 01, 1987

First published in Record Mirror, 1987.

Donna Summer, the diva of gay disco who became the target for a backlash following remarks about AIDS being punishment from God, answers her critics in the best way possible - with a hit record. Devil's advocate: Edwin J Bernard

Remember grooving to the electro-coo of 'I Feel Love'? Falling in lurve to 'I Love You'? Exhausting yourself at the disco to the full 17minutes 34 seconds version of 'MacArthur Park'? Well, the diva who almost single-handedly created disco music is back, hoping her seven year stretch of bad luck is over.

Until the watershed year of 1980, Donna Summer had everything going for her. With a string of 17 hits in less than four years, she was the queen of the charts as well as the discos. As the new decade heralded the supposed death of discos - the music that Donna, together with producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, had done so much to popularise and define - things began to go wrong. Moving from disco-defined Casablanca to the rock-orientated Geffen label, Donna changed musical direction and became a Born-Again Christian, much to the chagrin of her fans, who mostly still loved disco and thought Christ had nothing to do with music.

Apart from a brief respite in 1983, when Donna teamed up with golden-touch producer Quincy Jones, her career took a downward slide; then, in 1984, it was reported that Donna had claimed that AIDS was a punishment from God. Her many gay fans took this as a sign that she'd completely lost her bottle and mass burnings of Summer's records took place all over the world. Certainly that report didn't do much for her last album, 'Cats Without Claws', which bombed.

Three years later, Donna is making a comeback, although I'm much too polite to call it that to her face. There's the new single, 'Dinner With Gershwin'; an album, 'All Systems Go', and a tour (Manchester and London at the end of November). I'm almost ready to accept her back, but there's a few things to clear up first. A deep breath and here goes. Tell me about your alleged anti-AIDS statement, Donna.

"That statement was not the truth," she states categorically. "It was a misquote taken totally out of context. I'm here to spread love and not to judge people."

So what did you say?

"What I was trying to say was, look, I've done a lot of crazy things in my time and God changed my life and helped me. The message that I was trying to bring, that has been taken out of context and totally perverted, was that, whoever we are, wherever we are, God is still there and he does love us and he will forgive us only if we ask."

Do you think it is the pop star's place to say such things?

"I'm not trying to force it down your throat and I'm not trying to make you change," she says. "So I don't want people to get angry at me because I followed a need to correct things in my life that were out of whack."

Do you think you've been forgiven yet?

"I hope people are forgiving, but if they don't want to buy my records this isn't a ploy to have them buy them."

Donna tells me she feels persecuted for becoming a Christian, and certainly it did nothing for her pop credibility stakes. But, she argues, she didn't do it for credibility, she did it for herself.

"When I reaffirmed my faith in God, it was the beginning of the worst seven years of my life. You know, if I hadn't had God at that time, I probably would have committed suicide because I wouldn't have had anything to hold onto to get me through it."

Well, that makes the rest of the conversation seem a little superfluous, doesn't it? But we got round to talking about her new album, which was partly recorded back in Munich where all her old disco classics were created. Behind the glass this time, though, was Harold 'Axel F' Faltermeyer, for whom Donna provided the first break during the recording of the 'Bad Girls' album.

"I'd have worked with Giorgio, except he was busy," says Donna tactfully, "but me and Harold go back 19 years, when I was 19 and he was 17. He was playing the organ at this club in Munich and I started singing, and that's how we met."

Donna's turned into something of a vocal chameleon. On the title track she's a dead ringer for Pat Benatar. On another she's just like Joni Mitchell. And on the single, 'Dinner With Gershwin', the only track on the album you could really class as dance music, she's singing deep and low like Jody Watley on 'Still A Thrill'.

"Each song has a character," says Donna, "and I try to sing a song with a voice that fits that character."

Donna may have a struggle keeping up with the likes of Madonna and Whitney Houston, but she can be content in knowing that she opened the doors for both of them. Not that her career is over. Far from it. At 38, she still has a lot of energy and ambition.

"I'm a disgustingly optimistic person," she says. "It makes people sick sometimes."

Labels: 1987, music, popular culture, record mirror