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Donna Summer performed at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in 2009 in Hollywood, Fla.
It started with sex.
Donna Summer's breakthrough record, 1975's "Love to Love You Baby," titillated and amused the world with her deep- breathing approximation of an epic orgasm, a sound that served as both the song's musical hook and its talking point.
Yet, even on that record, Summer was far from a cheap gimmick. Her voice had a muscularity and a purity that made it the perfect vehicle for the driving disco rhythms idealized by her great producer Giorgio Moroder.
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In Summer's long string of hits, both with Moroder and without him, she established a daringly forthright sound. Her vocal style indulged no fancy runs and required no showy melismas. Instead she sang every note straight on the melody, trusting the power of her tone alone to tell the story. That tone told a tale full of confidence, awareness and, yes, sex too.
While Summer rose to power in the eroticized world of disco and dance-club culture, her voice had a gospel power and a pop clarity. In truth, she could sing anything and often did during her long career.
Her earliest exposure came in musical theater, performing in the German version of "Hair" in the late '60s. She also performed in the Euro versions of "The Me Nobody Knows," "Godspell" and "Showboat." In addition, she sang with the Viennese Folk Opera in Munich.
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Her fine diction and sense of musical economy made her ideal for a wide range of styles. But it was a seeming novelty record in '75 that put her at the forefront of what then ranked as the cutting-edge world of disco.
She concocted the "Love to Love You" refrain while Moroder matched it to a throbbing, and very new, electronic sound that would ignite a revolution. By the bicentennial year of 1976, the outrageous song became a sensation in this country and in many others.
The subsequent long string of singles Summer sang had finely realized melodies on their side, from the grace of "Last Dance" to the strut of "Hot Stuff." But they wouldn't have had nearly their commercial potency, or emotional resonance, without her declarative style. She sang each note emphatically, luxuriating in the rhythmic sharpness of the diction and the directness of the language.
In the two-part structure of "Last Dance," she rang every bit of urgency from the lyric, peaking into loneliness while grasping for a final chance at fleshy connection. In the smash "Enough Is Enough," she had the force and moxie to go head-to-head with Barbra Streisand, matching her shout for shout in the single's wildly escalating chorus.
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Summer proved she could make it without Moroder in later hits produced by Quincy Jones (the valiant "State of Independence") or Michael Omartian (the socially conscious "She Works Hard for the Money," whose video became a parallel smash).
Together, her enviable list of hits from the late '70s and early '80 helped define an era, while also transcending it. Unlike so many disco dollies out to milk an old hit for decades, Summer's main calling card remained her voice itself. In both the pile-driving vitality of her instrument, and her taste in applying it, she showed how a spare, clean style can create a sensation.
