|
Donna Summer: She could sing anything,
anywhere, with anyone, at any time.
[DEC 1] Happy Sunday everyone!
I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving. And Happy Hanukkah to all my Jewish
friends! (I guess this year's celebrations include 8 days of Thanksgiving
leftovers? LOL) It's a new month again, so that makes it time
for a new Summer Fever Pick. Being
December, you know that means that Christmas Spirit is
in the spotlight again. Why? Because it's the best Christmas album ever - so
BUY IT if you haven't already. (I see my regulars rolling their eyes
out there.... "Oh God, Cathy is at it again!" LOL)
[DEC 1] Let's start off with
some chart news. MacArthur Park moves up to #12 on the Billboard
Dance Club Play Chart with no sign of slowing down. Maybe Santa will
bring us a #1 for Christmas this year? I have all my fingers crossed!
[DEC 1] I know we have a
few Barbra Streisand fans out there. Well, she did a concert in Brooklyn
that was filmed for PBS and is currently running (in NY at least) as part of
the Great Performances series. In it she says some nice things about Donna
before doing her solo take on Enough Is Enough. You can check
out the set list and a couple of clips (but not the Enough Is Enough
clip) on PBS.org.
Now if you can't catch it on PBS, you can also get the CD/DVD set at Amazon
(or Amazon
UK). Enough Is Enough is only on the DVD part of that set, so
don't be put off that it's not on the tracklist.
[DEC 1] In the Donna's
music is everywhere category, the trailer for American Hustle uses I
Feel Love.
[DEC 1] And in strange
news, somebody made a holiday
wreath out of a Donna record. I would normally be upset at the waste of
a good LP, but they used a badly scratched album.
[DEC 1] Bruce Sudano fans, he
premiered a new song at his recent show at Genghis Cohen. It's called Gentle
Girl and he posted it (along with the story behind the song) on SoundCloud.
Check it out, it's a good one. :-)
[DEC 1] I think that brings us
to YouTube. Look for Philippe's video for the AfroJack mix of I
Feel Love, and his video for I
Don't Wanna Get Hurt. Then check out Let
It Be live on a UK TV show, On
The Radio from Live & More Encore, She
Works Hard For The Money from Disco Inferno, Paul
Shaffer remembering Donna, and just in time for the holidays, Patrice's
video for Lamb Of
God.
[NOV 24] Happy Sunday everyone!
Let's start off with some fan club news. As you know, Tom started selling
t-shirts and things on the
site, and now he has an interesting idea for the holiday season. He's
going to donate all the profits from the sales from now to January 1 to a
charity picked by the fans. Head over to their Facebook
page to suggest a charity. (Don't forget to tell them why you like the
charity!) Oh, and while you are there, don't forget to click the like
button. (I KNOW there are more than 680 of us on Facebook!)
[NOV 24] And while we are on
the subject of the fan club, Tom has compiled a list of what's
left of Donna's lithos. (Sigh...) If you are looking to buy, contact Tom
because the fan club has some special pricing available.
[NOV 24] Ok, time to hit the
charts. MacArthur Park is up 10 spots to #22 in the Billboard
Dance Club Play Charts. (They ought to just rename it the Donna Summer Chart
- she owned it in life and now she owns it in the afterlife! You can't
keep a great diva down! :-) )
[NOV 24] Bruce Sudano was
interviewed on the Marc & Myra Show on SiriusXm's Studio 54 channel last
week. He talked about his CD With Angels On A Carousel and about
Love To Love You Donna.
[NOV 24] Johnnyswim fans - did
you catch them on VH1 last week in the You Oughta Know concert? Well, if you
somehow missed it, or if you just want to see it again, go to VH1.com
to see clips from the show. The Johnnyswim clips start on page 5 - do
not miss Diamonds!
[NOV 24] I think that brings us
to YouTube. This week brings Hot
Stuff from the AMA's, Hot
Stuff from another TV appearance, the State
Of Independence video, The
Wanderer video, and the Sound Factory mix of Love
Is The Healer.
[NOV 24] I'll be back next
weekend, but in the meantime Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends
(and to any of my international friends who want to blow off work Thursday
and stuff themselves with food. The more the merrier! :-) )
[NOV 17] Let's start off with
some chart news. On the Billboard Dance Club Play Chart, MacArthur Park
moves up to #32. :-)
[NOV 17] And speaking of MacArthur
Park, there are at least 4 Ralph Rosario mixes out there. No word on if
they will ever be released commercially, but my guess is you will hear them
out in clubs. So if you are out partying, keep those ears open!
[NOV 17] And just in case you
were wondering about the original version of MacArthur Park, Jimmy
Webb talks about the meaning of the lyrics and about the Richard Harris
recording in this
interview.
[NOV 17] Now how about a little
I Feel Love? (I'll wait while you do your robot dance. LOL)
In this short
article, Giorgio Moroder talks about I Feel Love being inspired
by Star Wars. (Dance with me Obi Wan Kenobi, you are
my only hope... okay, I'll take off my geek hat for now. ;-)
)
[NOV 17] With the
holidays upon us, now it the time to start shopping for your favorite Donna
fan - or even for yourself. :-) And just in time for the shopping
season, Tom at the fan club has opened up an online
store with shirts and hoodies with the famous fan club drawing/cartoon
of Donna. And then of course you have Donna's
official store (linked through her site and the fan club site) where you
can buy Love To Love You Donna in vinyl or as a bundle with
vinyl, cd and a poster. Maybe I'm a bit old school, but that cover art
is FABULOUS on a nice large LP cover!
[NOV 17] Moving on to
magazines, I was sent scans of a couple of German magazines for you to
view. I have the pages all available for you as jpg images, co click
on each link below to see the page you want.
Hinnerk
Magazin (October 2013)
Good
Times (October/November 2013 page 1
Good
Times (October/November 2013 page 2
Good
Times (October/November 2013 page 3
Good
Times (October/November 2013 page 4
Good
Times (October/November 2013 Disco Story
Magazin
Stern (February 1, 1979)
[NOV 17] Facebookers, Alejandro
has posted a couple of new classic things as well. He's go the Superteen
Yearbook from 1980, Teen
Beats Disco from January 1980, and Right
On from April 1980.
[NOV 17] For those of you
in the mood for Christmas music, ChristmasMusic.org
is online and streaming AND they did play some Donna this morning. (And
really, that's the only Christmas music I can deal with this early!
LOL And since I mentioned it, DOnna's Christmas album is still available on Amazon.com.
If you don't have it, you HAVE to get it! Come on, it's really cheap
right now and they will throw in a download copy when you buy the CD. If you
only buy one Christmas album ever, this is the one!!)
[NOV 17] Johnnyswim fans -
don't forget to tune into VH1 on November 21 at 8 to see them on the You
Oughta Know concert. You will hate yourself if you don't! Just to whet
your appetite, check out a snippet of their cover of Til
The World Ends.
[NOV 17] That brings us to
YouTube. This week we have Donna
live in Japan (from the 80s). This is the whole show guys! Then
there is Autumn
Changes, Could
It Be Magic, and MacArthur
Park from the Hot Summer Night concert. On a side note, if you are
doing your own YouTube search for recent uploads, watch out for anything by
CockRockDisco. That stuff is all DJ Donna Summer aka Jason Forrest, and not
our Donna.
[NOV 14] If any of you guys
ordered the Donna bundle with the poster from MyPlay
Direct, don't freak out when you get the box and the poster isn't there.
That ships separately in a tube and will arrive by US Mail. Mine came
a day apart, but your mileage may vary depending on how far you are from the
warehouse. (On a side note - the album art is GORGEOUS on a nice big vinyl
cover!!)
[NOV 11] Happy Veteran's Day to
all the military families out there - be you currently serving, formerly
serving or in the reserves and just waiting til you are needed. :-)
Sorry the update is a little late - I had a busy weekend and was too tired
to do it yesterday. (Especially since I had to take the early shift at work
this morning... who is the evil entity that invented work? LOL)
[NOV 11] Ok, everybody
take out your copies of Love To Love You Donna and look at the
cover. (Or if you bought the download, look at the cover art in your
iPod or whatever.) Are you looking at it? Well guess what - you are
looking at the best album cover for the week of October 22 as selected by
the Album
Art Exchange Blog. I have to say they have excellent taste. :-)
[NOV 11] The other night, Dutch
TV ran a documentary about Disco magazine. It was a 2 hour event and of
course you know Donna was in there. :-) (In fact she was even in the
TV magazine Vara for that week as well.) You can watch the documentary
here,
and it doesn't seem to be region restricted. I got it to play here in the US
with no problem. Even better (for me anyway) they went with English on the
audio track and Dutch subtitles. So I could understand what was being
said. :-) Now the whole thing is interesting, but if you are
short on time and just want to watch Donna, jump to about the 51 minute
mark.
[NOV 11] Let's move on to articles. We
have a number of websites that have chosen to write about Love To Love
You Donna. Here's the list:
Windy
City Times
RandomHouse
SCPR.org
(especially note the paragraph answering "Did you learn something new
about Donna Summer. It is very nice to read!)
Inland
Valley News
[NOV 11] Let's move on to the
charts. Love To Love You Donna drops to #8 on the
Billboard Dance Album chart for the week of November 16. It seems to have
slipped off the other album charts - at least as far as I can tell from the website.
(You can only see part of the charts online without a subscription .) MacArthur
Park debuts at #39 on the Billboard Dance Club Play chart - the highest
debut this week. (On a side note of trivia, the MacArthur Park Suite
was #1 35 years ago today. 35 years? Who feels old now?)
[NOV 11] You may recall that
the Fan Club website was holding a contest for the best objective review of Love
To Love You Donna. The winner is none other than our friend Jimmie
Lee. Congrats Jimmie Lee! You can read
the review here, and believe me its worth the read. (It's a little
long though, so be careful you don't get caught if you are reading it at
work. LOL) And while we're on the subject of the fan club, it has come
to my attention that the Fan
Club Facebook page only has 642 likes. That's crazy! I know there are
more of us out there - I think some of you just forgot to click
"like". ;-) Now on the off chance that some of you
think that if you like this site, you can't like the fan club, or vice versa
- that's just more crazy talk! I encourage you to like us both because
it really is my masterplan to have Donna take over the entire
internet! ;-) Tom and I are not in any sort of
competition.... wait... unless... hmmm... If competing will somehow
get us vaulted tracks quicker, then I will be happy to challenge Tom to a mud wrestling
match or something. (That would be one competition where we'd all end
up winners! LOL)
[NOV 11] While we're on the
subject of Facebook, Alejandro has been posting again. This time he's got 16
Magazine's Rockline from 1979, the Disco
Handbook from 1979, and the 1979
Year In Music.
[NOV 11] Bruce Sudano fans - go
catch him at Genghis Cohen in Los Angeles this Saturday November
16. And if you go - say hi for me and tell him to come out East
again! :-)
[NOV 11] Johnnyswim fans -
catch them on VH1's You Oughta Know concert Thursday November 21 at 9 PM on
VH1. It's actually being taped tonight and as I write this, the live concert
is streaming on VH1.com.
(Their new song Diamonds is a keeper!!) Seriously, if you haven't had
a chance to see Johnnyswim live yet, then tune in to the concert (or DVR it
or something.) You will hate yourself if you miss it. Now if you need
a little something to tide you over until then - watch them talk about marriage
and teamwork on VH1.
[NOV 11] And moving to the
youngest generation, some of you know that Mimi's girls sing. Vienna in
particular is pretty active on YouTube, and this summer she and her friend
Asa posted a music video they made for their cover of The
Fault Is In Our Stars. Check it out if you get a chance.
[NOV 11] And that will bring us
to YouTube. This week we have On
The Radio from the Hot Summer Night special, Patrice
has posted several new mixes he made, the official promo video for Last
Dance ( with a few bonus seconds of Paul Jabara's Disco Queen
at the beginning), and a tiny clip of Giorgio Moroder talking about Love
To Love You Baby.
[NOV 3] Where should we start
this week? How about with - Oh my god it's November! Where is this
year going?? LOL So obviously it's time for a new Summer Fever
pick. This month it is All Systems Go.
[NOV 3] Moving on to Love
To Love You Donna... we have a little chart action happening.
:-) It debuts at #97 on the Billboard
Top 200 Albums, #20 on the Billboard
R&B Hip Hop Album Chart, #11 on the Billboard
R&B album chart, and #2 on the Billboard
Dance Electronic Album chart. (Those are all for the week of November 9,
by the way.) I'm actually very surprised and pleased at how well the album
is doing. Always in the past we had Donna out there promoting her
stuff - I wasn't sure how well it would go without her. Now if we move
over to the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart (which has always been very
good to Donna!) for the week of November 2, MacArthur Park is
the #3 Breakout song. :-) The chart action earned Donna a
mention in the Chart Moves column on Billboard.biz.
[NOV 3] Bruce Sudano was
interviewed by Joonbug.com
specifically about the Love To Love You Donna compilation. In
it, he addresses a lot of the questions we were all wondering about, like
why Working The Midnight Shift is a cover. (And for the record, I
think there would have been way less controversy about that song if Verve
had just been totally upfront about it being a cover when they released the
track. If you expect a cover then you judge it on its own merits. If you
expect Donna's voice and you get someone else, then .... well, we all saw
what happened. We fans do have a rep for being very vocal. LOL)
[NOV 3] In original track news,
the 1977 I Feel Love has reappeared on various European iTunes
R&B charts. I figure this is either because of that 4G
commercial I posted last week, because the I Feel Love remixes may have
inspired interest in the original, or a combination of the two. The
Journey also popped up at #5 in the German iTunes album chart.
That may be due to Donna being featured in a German music documentary called
100 Songs, die die Welt bewegten. If you are in Germany, you may
still be able to see it online here.
(The rest of us are out of luck - it's region restricted.)
[NOV 3] If you are in the
Phoenix area, check out the Women Who Rock exhibit at the MIM,
now through April 20. The exhibit will move to the Henry Ford Museum in
Dearborn, MI from May 15 to August 24. The exhibit covers blues artists of
the 20s all the way up to contemporary artists. You can see costumes,
albums, instruments, photos, video, etc. You can check out a short video
abotu the exhibit here.
[NOV 3] Giorgio Moroder fans,
check out his new interview for the LA
Times where he confirms he found lost master tapes in his laundry room.
(All I ever find in my laundry room is escaped dryer sheets. Maybe I need to
move?)
[NOV 3] In the land of video,
let me start off with one on Facebook. It's almost a minute of Donna
performing Last
Dance at David Foster's wedding on November 11, 2011. Sigh. On YouTube
look for She
Works Hard For The Money from a TV appearance, Dinner
With Gershwin from another TV appearance, a Donna
Summer megamix from Looking Back, MacArthur
Park from Night Of The Proms, a 1987 live clip of She
Works Hard For The Money, and finally O
Come All Ye Faithful from Solid Gold.
MEMORIAL NEWS PAGE
OLD NEWS ARCHIVES
|
