And, for someone who was rarely taken seriously by critics in her 70s heyday, much of it pleasingly placing her as a pivotal figure in popular music.
(Though I've lost count of how many tributes I've heard from Paul Gambaccini...)
Just about every story and obit said she was very popular with The Gays, and then mentioned the controversy over that alleged "Aids is God's punishment" comment.
I think it's sad how this myth, and it is a myth, became such a big part of her story - it would look odd if an obituary didn't mention it - and despite her endless refutations and a high profile libel case.
The two best articles I've read by twelve inches or more both came from The Guardian.
Here's a beautiful piece by Alex Needham on her game-changing records and the power of her music; "charged with feelings of liberation, a pre-Aids world of pansexual freedom and adventure... her best records still pulsate with that spirit, the lifeforce of pop itself."
And here's Paul Flynn on Donna Summer as the "the accidental gay icon".
(I read it soon after it went online and many of the readers' comments brought up that Aids comment, often assuming it was true. Grrr...).
I know what Paul means, and agree - though I don't think it was completely accidental.
Interviewing Giorgio Moroder some years ago he told me during the Casablanca days rather a lot of the people they worked with were gay.
Casablanca's rarely given credit as a gay-friendly and pioneering gay-savvy label.
Giorgio told me he was too naive to notice they'd queered up the sleeve of his Nights In White Satin album, by adding a K to the title, and getting Giorgio shot for the cover photo in what looks like a gay sauna surrounded by some... knights in white satin.
KISS may have built Casablanca's city on Rock 'n' Roll, but their manager, Bill Aucoin, was gay - and I bet it was him who told those four nice Jewish boys to turn up the camp to 11.
As for Casablanca's other really big act, Village People, what need I say?
Though yes, they were often coded - and their bizarro film, Can't Stop The Music (often blamed for bankrupting the label) had them playing themselves laughably straight.
Casablanca also put out two of Disco's boldest singles, The Ritchie Family's Cruising The Streets and Skatt Brothers' Walk The Night.
And then there was Patrick Juvet and Paul Jabara - the latter wrote No More Tears (Enough Is Enough and It's Raining Men - and they signed Dusty and ruddy Cher!
But anyway I'm wibbling away.
As I said, these are two great pieces.
Donna Summer deserved writing about her as good as these.
Update: There's more! Jon Savage and Ewan Pearson on How I Feel Love Changed Pop. Wow.
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"But anyway I'm wibbling away."
ReplyDeleteWibble away!!
Very interesting, thanks.
Hello Richard,
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right on Casablanca and your brilliant personal pop archive is as detailed and informative as ever. I didn't know about the Kiss manager and had forgotten about Skatt Brothers signatory. Village People I always think of as the hinge on which the crossover from repression to liberation pivots in pop. They're the great tragi-comic fable for the pop age - you can almost hear the closet door creaking open between the grooves of the records, no-one quite knowing whether to leap out or not. I'd so read your book on that subject if you were ever to write it.
With some odd timing, I'd also interviewed Moroder three weeks before writing this. The recording makes for sombre listening in the light of Donna's passing. It's clear that though Moroder and his wife were still in close contact with Donna they had no idea of her illness.
I loved him, as I'm sure you did when you interviewed him. What I loved most was that he wore any influence he'd had so lightly, as if he were a jobbing engineer who struck musical gold quite by accident. He thinks now is the golden age of dance music and presents a fascinating defence of that argument.
But he was absolutely clear on the fact that neither he, Donna nor Pete engaged with the night-time. They knew nothing of it, really. I guess this was the fantastic contradiction I was trying to get across in that piece, though given there is nothing worse than journalists defending 'what I meant to say', I take all your thoughts with the deepest respect.
Keep up the good work in keeping us all in check and all the very best,
Paulx