Hot Stuff! - The Fabulous Miss Donna Summer Quiz

Answer: Boston

Born LaDonna Adrian Gaines, her father Andrew was a butcher and her mother Mary, a schoolteacher. The young Donna Gaines demonstrated a supreme talent for singing from a very early age. Her first public performance came at the age of eight when she was asked by a minister to stand in for a singer who had failed to show up for a church meeting.

A popular student at school, she attended the Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Boston where she performed in many of the school's musical productions. However, her alter ego was more rebellious and she would frequently make her escape from home in spite of the strict curfew imposed upon her by her parents.

Answer: Hair

After moving to New York in 1967, Donna Summer joined the rock band Crow as the band's vocalist. After their split, she auditioned for a role in the stage musical 'Hair', agreeing with the producers a move to Germany, again in spite of her parent's disapproval, to take her place in the production being performed in the Bavarian city of Munich. Credited on the record label as Donna Gaines, her first single release in Europe on the Polydor label was a 1968 German language version of the song 'Aquarius' from the musical 'Hair'.

This was followed in 1969 by 'If You Walkin Alone' on the Philips record label and a cover of a 1963 hit record for the Jaynetts, 'Sally Go Round the Roses' which was released on Decca in 1971. By 1973 Donna Gaines had married the Austrian actor Helmuth Sommer; it was due to a printing error on the cover of one of her in 1974 demos that the name Summer became the surname under which she would record for the rest of her career.

Answer: Munich

Italian singer/songwriter and producer Giorgio Moroder and English producer Peter Bellotte were working in partnership at the Musicland Studios in Munich when they met Donna Summer for the first time, the pair signing her to their label in 1974. It was after embarking with this partnership that Donna Summer's musical career began to take off.

Answer: 'The Hostage'

The song 'The Hostage' was the first to be released as a single from the album 'Lady of the Night' on the 22nd of January 1974 prior to the album's release the following month on the 26th of February. The album was only officially released in the Netherlands where it achieved the number two spot, but airplay on radio stations in neighbouring Germany caused the title track to become something of a hit and the record remains popular in that country even today.

The song also proved successful outside of the Netherlands giving Summer a number one hit on the Belgian singles chart.

Answer: Oasis Records

Summer's tenure at Moroder's own label, Oasis Records, was a very short-lived affair with the singer recording with the label for barely twelve months before it became a subsidiary of the US disco label Casablanca Records with which both Summer and Moroder were to enjoy such enormous success throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.

I think that it is worth saying something about the contribution made to European music by the relatively unheard of genius that is Giorgio Moroder. Born in the South Tyrol region of northern Italy in 1940, Moroder has influenced virtually every genre of popular music from the late 1960s through to the present day. Unbelievably, Moroder was considered a pioneer of the 'Krautrock' movement of the early 1970s before moving to folk, rock and disco during the middle of the decade. During the 1980s Moroder branched out into producing film soundtracks including those for the 1978 prison drama 'Midnight Express' and an up-dated but controversial soundtrack for the 1927 Fritz Lang masterpiece 'Metropolis'. Moroder was also responsible for the official songs for both the 1984 Los Angeles and the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympic Games and in recent years has remained at the forefront of European popular music through collaborations with French dance act Daft Punk, Kylie Minogue, Coldplay and Lady Gaga amongst many, many others... He is truly a twenty-first century renaissance man!

Answer: Cinderella

Many fans of Donna Summer, me included, consider this album to be the pinnacle of her recording career. Released on the 31st of October 1977, 'Once Upon a Time' was Donna Summer's sixth studio album and was a writing collaboration between Summer, performing in the role of a Cinderella-like character, Giorgio Moroder and his friend and long time collaborator, British producer Pete Bellotte.

The album spawned a number of successful singles both in Europe and the United States; these include the emotional and magnificent disco anthem 'I Love You' which reached the number 10 position on the UK Singles Chart and the number 37 spot on the US Billboard Hot 100 during December 1977. On a personal level, the highlights for me from this album are the first two tracks on side two of the album's original vinyl release, 'Now I Need You' and 'Working the Midnight Shift', both classic examples of European electronic dance music.

Answer: Barbra Streisand

This song was recorded for a dual purpose; it was destined to appear on Barbra Streisand's 1979 album 'Wet' and on Donna Summer's compilation album 'On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes 1&2'. The version of the song on the Streisand album runs to just under eight and a half minutes whilst Summer's version, the 12" recording, is a few minutes longer at just under twelve minutes duration. Sales for both versions of the single were amalgamated with the song hitting the number one spot on the US Billboard Hot 100 for the week 24th of November to the 1st of December 1979 and the song achieved a top three position on the UK Singles Chart receiving both gold and silver certifications respectively.

Although she was at the height of her popularity at this stage in her career, 'No More Tears (Enough is Enough)' was to be the last chart topping single for Donna Summer.

Answer: HIV/AIDS

During the middle years of the 1980s when the AIDS epidemic was in full swing, Summer who was by that time a born-again Christian courted controversy with reports of a few off-hand remarks about AIDS being a punishment from God being visited upon the gay community; ironically Summer was to become a gay icon.

After her faux-pas, many of her records were returned unsold to the distributors an event that was to do not insignificant damage to her career at the time. It was a number of years later that Summer made an apology for her remarks justifying it by denying that she had made any such comment and further claiming that any remarks that she had made had been the root of 'a terrible misunderstanding' and that they had been taken out of context.

In 1981 Summer issued a lawsuit against New York magazine after they attempted to stir up the past by reprinting the damaging rumours about her prior to the release of her album, 'Mistaken Identity'. The case was later settled out of court with neither party revealing the details of any settlement under the suit.

Answer: Painting

Donna Summer began painting for relaxation at some stage during the early 1980s and demonstrated an aptitude for it. The first exhibition of original lithographs took place in 1989 at the New York Art Expo. During the 1990s she exhibited original paintings and lithographs produced with Jean Pierre Remond at galleries in Atlantic City, San Diego, Chicago and in Beverly Hills as well as many others.

The first work that Summer sold earned her thirty-eight thousand dollars and prices for her work ranges from as little as seven thousand to upwards of seventy-five thousand dollars. During her lifetime it is estimated that the income earned by Summer from selling her art originals falls within the region of one million dollars, a not insignificant amount by a living artist.

Answer: The 2001 World Trade Centre attack

Donna Summer passed away at the age of 63 at home in Florida on the 17th of May 2012 from lung cancer; ironically she had never smoked and had led a healthy lifestyle. Her condition was blamed on toxic fumes and dust that she had inhaled whilst in New York City during the terrible terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre on the 11th of September 2001. Donna Summer was interred at the Harpeth Hills Memorial Garden cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee on the 23rd of May 2012.