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Donna Summer: She could sing anything,
anywhere, with anyone, at any time.
[MAY 12] Happy Mother's Day to
all the mothers out there!
[MAY 12] First things first -
don't forget on May 17 to mark the 1 year anniversary of Donna's passing,
we're going to buy Sand On My Feet (and hopefully make it chart!) and
we try to do some random act of charity or kindness. That way we honor the
musical legacy and the humanitarian legacy. You can get Sand On My
Feet at Amazon,
Amazon
UK , iTunes
and other MP3 sellers. :-)
[MAY 12] And I know you haven't
forgotten that The Rock Hall Of Fame Ceremony airs Saturday May 18 on HBO at
9 PM. The bad news is that the ceremony took about 5 hours so it had to be
cut down for broadcast. The good news is I saw Jennifer Hudson plugging the
show on Rachel Ray the other day, so that means they aren't cutting Donna
out.
[MAY 12] The June issue of
Essence Magazine features a Cancer Society advertisement featuring Donna.
Sadness alert: it features a classic photo of her holding a bunch of AMA
awards. And over it they have printed a "to do" list with
things like "become a mom" and "win 5 Grammy awards"
crossed off, and other things like "attend grandchildren's college
graduations" left uncrossed off. And the list is followed by her name
and 1948-2012. It's part of their Life List campaign. I couldn't find an
online link to show you yet, so I'll try to get a picture of it one of these
days.
[MAY 12] in release news, Playlist: The Very
Best Of Donna Summer is coming out May 21. [Amazon,
Amazon
UK] The track list is up now and it's the live part of Live &
More Encore.
[MAY 12] Oh, I don't think I
mentioned that Donna has an official
Instagram page now. It's run by the same guy who does Facebook, Twitter
and Pinterest. :-) He's doing a great job too. (I especially
love it when he follows people on Twitter and they freak out because they
think Donna is following them from the afterlife. LOL)
[MAY 12] That brings us to
YouTube. First up is MacArthur
Park and Last
Dance from The Today Show concerts, Donna covering
Rod Stewart, the State
Of Independence video, and State
Of Independence from a TV appearance. And finally, also from The
Today Show concerts, Bad
Girls and
Love To Love You. That was the FIRST time she had performed Love
To Love You in any way shape or form in many years. (My jaw STILL hurts
from when it dropped to the floor when I heard that bassline kick in!
LOL) I will be back on Friday (May 17) with some sort of an update to mark
the anniversary. I will also bring you the online version of Pages From The
Heart that day.
[MAY 10] A fan over on Facebook
came up with a great idea - on May 17, let's all buy another copy of Sand
On My Feet in Donna's honor. Hopefully if enough of us get behind
it, we can get it on the sales charts. :-) Why Sand On My
Feet? Well aside from it being a really nice song that fits this time of
year, there is only one version of it. So our efforts won't be dispersed
among several different releases. :-) You can grab the song on Amazon,
Amazon
UK and iTunes.
And I would still like everybody to do something nice for someone else on
May 17 - maybe buy a friend a copy of Sand On My Feet? ;-)
[MAY 5] Happy Cinco de Mayo
everyone! First things first - my MS Walk was today, and because you guys
came through for me in a big way, I ditched my team t-shirt in favor of my
Donna Summer gear. The photo below is me with my team Captain, Courtney who
says: "Thanks to all the Donna Summer fans who made walk MS a big success!"
Thanks to all who contributed and I will be getting back to you a bit
sooner than I did last year.
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In case you can't tell, I'm wearing my Crayons
street team shirt, my Crayons hoodie, and the button
on my had is one I had made in Donna's memory. And for the record
the camera in my phone is really bad. In person I'm really
svelte and much younger. ;-) |
[MAY 5] In other news, I just
need to put some final touches on the Pages from the Heart book before I
send it out. And I will make the website page available on or shortly before
May 17. Thanks to all who wrote something. I think it will be nice for
the family to have something tangible to show our appreciation for all the
years they put up with our craziness. (I never could figure out why they
didn't sell tour straightjackets ever... ;-) )
[MAY 5] AND with May 17 right
around the corner, I would like to suggest once more that on that day we all
make an effort to perform a random act of charity or kindness on that day to
honor Donna's memory. What you do is strictly up to your own
imaginations and abilities. You could donate money, you could donate time,
you could say a prayer for someone, or you could just refrain from
strangling that coworker who seems to deserve it so much! LOL Whatever
works for you.
[MAY 5] Johnnyswim fans - they
appeared on the Today Show the other day! Go Amanda and
Abner! :-) The performance is online on the Today
website, but I strongly suspect that it is region locked. (A Google
search may show you how to work around that.... maybe. ;-) )
[MAY 5] That brings us to
YouTube. We have Last
Dance live from 2011, She
Works Hard For The Money and Dinner
With Gershwin from the Late Show (1987), a remix of You're
So Beautiful, and for you videogame fans out there - I
Feel Love from Let's Dance 3.
[MAY 1] Happy May Day everyone!
It's a new month, so it's time for a new Summer Fever Pick. This time, it's Bad
Girls. (And that's a great one to showcase our Rock & Roll Hall
Of Famer! :-) )
[APR 28] Let's start off today
with a request. There are some people in Germany working on a documentary
about Donna and they are looking for fan footage from the Berlin 2009
concert. This is the real deal - something Donna herself knew about and
approved of before she passed, so if you have something you are willing to
share let me know and I'll
hook the right people up with you. :-)
[APR 28] If you are on Facebook
or the forum then you know a couple of "new" photos of Donna have
surfaced. I also have another older "new" photo that came to my
email recently. First up the Facebook leaks:
The person who originally had them said they are from the Ordinary
Girl book photo shoot. And I have to agree. One shot has the same
wig and in another you can see that it is the same outfit.
[APR 28] The other
"new" picture is from Germany and you can thank Guenter Lauke -
the guy behind Family
Tree. He was also working with Donna on something about her years in
Germany. Sigh.
[APR 28] In the world of
covers, one of the American Idol Top 4 covered Donna's version
of MacArthur
Park.
[APR 28] Brooklyn Sudano fans,
she was on ABC's Body Of Proof recently. The episode is called
Disappearing Act and you can watch it online on ABC's
website. (Well US viewers can, I'm not sure about other countries. It
wouldn't surprise me if the episode was region-locked.)
[APR 28] And that brings us to
YouTube. I gave you all the RHOF clips in the lat updates, so let's go with Papa
Can You Hear Me from the Oscars, a Madonna vs. Donna mashup called I'm
A Fire/Burning Up, the Melody
Of Love video, and another Madonna/Donna mashup called Secret/Spring
Affair.
[APR 23] OK, for those of you
who missed Facebook or the forum, we have more RHOF videos out there.
On YouTube look for Bruce's
complete speech, Kelly
Rowland's complete speech, and another copy of the
film they used right before the speeches. And I just saw that Bad
Girls and Last
Dance (as performed by Jennifer Hudson) are up too. Put it all
together and you got the whole thing. :-)
[APR 21] Here's a quick
addition to yesterday's update. Part of Bruce's speech has hit YouTube.
It's the part where he thanks people - including the fan base. :-)
[APR 20] Before I get started -
kudos to the people of Boston both for the way you handled yourselves in the
wake of the Boston Marathon, and for catching the guys so quickly! The
lesson here is: Don't screw with Boston!
[APR 20] So lets call this the
weekly update, but who knows? I may have to come back again. :-)
So, um... nothing at all happened this week. Nope, can't think of a single
thing worth writing about..... ;-) I am teasing of course.
Let's go back to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. Where to start?
Pictures maybe? A search for Donna Summer at Getty
Images or Wire
Image will get you plenty to start with. A search for Sudano ay Getty
Images or Wire
Image will get you even more. And if you search at Getty
Images or Wire
Image for Jennifer Hudson, you will see a whole bunch of her
performing at the ceremony (some with the huge photo of Donna in the
background!) And of course a search for Kelly Rowland at Getty
or WireImage
will show you a whole bunch from the induction speech. Thank you
ladies for doing such a nice job in Donna's honor. :-)
[APR 20] Oh it just occurred to
me that some of you don't know who is who in the family pictures, and it
doesn't help that some of the captions I have seen have been wrong. If
you look at any pictures of the four of them on stage when Bruce made
the speech, the family members are (from left to right): Brooklyn Sudano,
Bruce Sudano, Mimi Sommer, and Amanda Sudano.
[APR 20] I know you want video,
but that's a bit hard to come by at the moment. (The Rush fans seem to be
the most active YouTubers at the moment. I think they just may be as
vociferous as we are! LOL) Right now there is a montage
of performance clips from the ceremony, and a copy of the
film they showed for Donna's induction. I know other things have been
recorded by people - they just haven't found their way to the net yet.
[APR 20] I did see a bit of
Bruce's speech (eagerly awaiting a chance to see the whole thing! LOL)
so I thought I'd share this part of what he said: And for those of you who have never seen a Donna Summer
concert, well she was just something else. But she would take a crowd all the way up, and
then she would take them all the way down to the intimacy of a really poignant
moment. And then the next minute you'd be laughing hysterically because she was just such a funny girl.
And then she would rock you. Then she'd take you to an inspirational moment - sing a gospel
song. And then she'd just take you all the way out, and you'd leave that concert....
Sorry that's where my clip ended so I can't finish the sentence. But I agree
wholeheartedly with every word. :-)
[APR 20] And of course we have
media coverage of the event. Let's just get some of those links up here for
you.
Yahoo's
article
K-Earth
101 (quotes from both speeches, but I wish they would have spelled
Bruce's name right)
Boston
Globe (thanks for taking the time even though you had WAY more
serious things going on over there)
Cleveland.com
(part of a profile on all the inductees)
Cleveland.com
(you can replay the live chat that was going on during the ceremony - this
is the chat I followed on the night)
Boston.com
Today
Show Entertainment Blog
Spin.com's
20 Coolest Tributes to the Class of 2013
Mercury.com's
11 Best Moments from the RHOF ceremony
A
Writer In The World Blog (about Donna's worthiness of the RHOF)
WKSU ( a
sampling of the class of 2013)
[APR 20] Oh I almost forgot.
Christina Aguilera was scheduled to perform at the RHOF ceremony, but as you
all know by now she was "mysteriously" a no-show. Perez
Hilton cracked the mystery - Christina was sick with a nasty upper
respiratory bug. (All mysteries should be so easy to solve!) If
Christina Aguilera finds this - I hope you are feeling better. :-)
[APR 20] And just a reminder -
an edited version of the ceremony will air on HBO on May 18. (The ceremony
went on for 5 hours, they pretty much HAVE to edit it.)
[APR 20] In other news,
American Idol paid homage to Donna in their recent episode. They opened the
show with the top 5 performing a medley
of Donna songs.
[APR 20] Those of you who were
at the Crayons concerts may remember that when Donna performed
Sand On My Feet, the photo on the screen behind her was one she had taken
herself from the window of her Florida home. Well that home has now been
sold. You can see a photo of the home with this
article and more photos
here. (Beautiful property!)
[APR 20] There is a movie
called Food Fight that uses a song called You Got Me
Believing written by Donna and Bruce. The song is performed by the
Brooklyn Dreams. The movie is available on DVD in some countries already [Amazon
UK] and is coming out soon in others. (The US release date is May
7 according to Amazon.)
The film has some rather interesting reviews, so you might want to take a
look at those. You can see the movie online
here. Go to about 81:45 for the song.
[APR 20] And I think that
brings us to YouTube. Let's go with a Rock Hall Of Fame theme this week.
First up is Gallery
Talk - a companion to the RHOF exhibit in Cleveland. Then we have a piece
on the class of 2013, a piece on the ceremony with a nice piece of
Kelly
Rowland's speech (that's at about :30), and another VERY
short piece on the RHOF.
[APR 18 again] It's official -
Donna was just inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame minutes
ago. Let me give you what I have pieced together from social media, a
live chat and a love blog. For those of you who follow me on Facebook - this
is just the same stuff I posted there. Let's start with the
ceremony. Kelly Rowland did the actually induction followed by emotional
speech by Bruce. Then Jennifer Hudson rocked the house with Bad Girls
and Last Dance. Christina Aguilera was apparently a no-show, and I
don't know why yet. (She probably got sick or something.) That's
the bare bones account of the induction. Now let me quote something from a
live blog of the ceremony done by Hitfix.com:
9:15: Donna Summer's being inducted, but we're missing it. Booker T. Jones is in the press room. I asked him his favorite Albert King memory: "My best memory was when I was asked to write for him. Jones and William Bell wrote the song, and Jones says he wasn't sure about it (how hard to believe it that?), until they got into the studio. "We started the first four bars and he played that guitar lick. I was 19 years old and there I was playing with a blues god."
9:16: Summer's widower and his three daughters are accepting her award If Donna was here tonight, she's be gracious, she'd be funny, she was a very funny girl," he says, though adding she wasn't "very big on awards...She was about what's coming next," so much so that he could never get her to record a standards album. He thanks the fans for their "care and prayer" over the last year since Summer died, and, appropriately, all of the DJs, club and otherwise.
9:22: Kelly Rowland, who inducted Summer, just asked Flavor Flav for a clock. Man, you know he's going to grab that mic from Chuck D when Public Enemy's induction comes. "I need to know what time it is... " Jennifer Hudson, dressed in a glittery jumpsuit straight out of the disco era, and with big Summer-like hair, is singing "Bad Girls," although she seemingly forgot the words the second verse. She's now singing "Last Dance" to Flavor Flav who's about to hijack the proceedings. Hudson seems off her game.Christina Aguilera was supposed to perform as well, but she's a no show.
[APR 18] I have a couple of
pictures for you to see too. First go to wireimage.com.
As of right now, there are several pictures of Bruce and the girls taken
when they arrived at the induction ceremony. (There may be more things up
there by the time some of you see this.) Then we have this picture
from Twitter of Jennifer Hudson performing. (Check out the enormous
photo of Donna behind her! :-) ) And then there is Johnnyswim's
photo of I guess the program from the ceremony? It's on their Twitter
feed, and I'm just going to link you to their
main feed because they may post more photos later. (They are into
Instagram and the like.) The photo I'm talking about now is the one where
they say they are so proud to be at the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame
ceremony. And just in case you can't view photos for any reason, I have to
share the coolest thing about this picture. It's got this nice quote in big
bold letters. It says: "Donna Summer. She could sing anything,
anywhere, with anyone, at any time." That quote made my
night! And with that - I'm signing off for the night (at least on the
site) and I will be back on the weekend or sooner if I have more stuff to
share. :-)
[APR 18] Tonight's the night!
In 12 hours (give or take) Donna will officially be a Rock & Roll Hall
Of Famer! If you are going to the show - make a lot of noise for our
diva. :-) And if you aren't able to be there - blast those Donna
tunes! Wake up the neighborhood!
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