After a 17-year break from new songs, the Queen returns
A queen needs her people, or so Donna Summer, the Queen of Disco,
realized a couple years ago when she found herself "just sitting
around the house."
"I was feeling like I wanted to connect with an audience
again," she says. "So I went back on the road and realized I
wanted to sing new songs. How many times can you repeat yourself? Your
fans like to hear their favorites, but artistically you're always looking
for something new or different. I decided it was time."
The result of her onstage epiphany is Crayons, her first
full-length studio album of newly written material since Mistaken
Identity in 1991. Not that the prolific writer ever stopped.
"I have over 100 songs or more," she says, calling from a beach
house in Florida. "I was actually getting ready to record seven years
ago - I had about 40 songs - but then 9/11 happened, and nothing seemed
right after that. It changed everything, so we didn't use any of those
songs on Crayons."
Summer also found the notion of signing with a smaller imprint
appealing, which brought her to Sony's Burgundy Records. "I had been
offered several deals over the years," she says. "But my career
started on a small label, Casablanca, and I am very comfortable with that.
You actually know the people who are working your record and they know
you. It's more like a family."
One of her collaborators on the album is, in a sense, family, and
uniquely qualified to co-write he Queen Is Back, a nod to her disco
divadom. Evan Bogart is the son of Neil Bogart, the late founder of
Casablanca Records and an early mentor of Summer's. "From the very
start, Neil said to me, 'Think in terms of copyright, not songs. You
want a copyright, something that will apply to every generation, every
genre, at any time. Songs need legs and a life.' I thought of him telling
me that when I sat down to write with Evan. He looks so much like his
father, I just wanted to hug him and tell him how much I've missed
him."
Of Crayons' title Summer says, "My goal was to have
every song be different. Your ear doesn't get tired listening to this
record. Every song is a different color in this box. If you are known for
a certain style of music, people think that's all you can do. But every
singer and musician has a need to try other things. It's part of the
creative process. We are all musical explorers."
-Kay West
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