Dang!!! Another one gone. :(

[DRIFTER_016]

Donna Summer Dead @ 63

 

Sad news.

 

Donna Summer, the Queen of Disco, has danced her last dance.

 

TMZ reports that Summer died this morning in Florida after a battle with cancer. She was 63.

 

 

If you had no idea she was ill, as I didn't, sources reportedly say Summer was trying to keep the extent of her illness a secret. And, in fact, she was very recently talking about working on a new album.

 

Celebrities, music world pay tribute to Donna Summer

 

 

 

Summer won five Grammys and six American Music Awards, and sold millions of albums. Her best-known hits includeGrammy "Hot Stuff," "I Feel Love," "Bad Girls" and "She Works Hard for the Money."

 

 

Donna Summer was born LaDonna Adrian Gaines on New Year's Eve 1948 in Boston, Massachusetts.

 

One of seven children raised by devout Christian parents, she started singing in the church at a young age. She dropped out of school and in the late 1960s and actually joined a psychedelic rock group called The Crow as lead singer. She later moved to New York and then to Europe with a production of Hair, in which she played Sheila, and performed in more stage productions in Germany.

 

She married and divorced Austrian actor Helmuth Sommer and kept his name - stylizing it “Summer.”

 

Her first single, "Sally Go 'Round the Roses", was released in Europe in 1971 under her maiden name, Donna Gaines. “Love to Love You Baby” was her first single in the U.S. in 1975, though some radio stations apparently refused to play it because of its suggestive nature - it featured Summer moaning and groaning in seeming orgasmic delight. An extended dance remix found success in the clubs and the album of the same name sold over a million copies.

 

She released several successful following albums and finally had her first No. 1 single in 1978 with a version of Richard Harris’ “MacArthur Park” and her first No. 1 album that same year with the live album Live and More.

 

She won her first Grammy with the single "Last Dance" and hit No. 1 again in 1979 with the album Bad Girls.

 

That was the apex of her success. Subsequent albums fared well, however, and “She Works Hard for the Money,” a single off the album of the same name released in 1983, has become a classic, while she continued to hit the top of the dance charts, right up until 2010, when “To Paris With Love” hit No. 1. Her last album, Crayons, was released in 2008.

 

 

 

Summer in 2001

 

 

Summer reportedly suffered from depression and anxiety and has said that she attempted suicide more than once. She also reportedly became addicted to prescription medication at one point and suffered a nervous breakdown in 1979, after which she became a born again Christian.

 

She had a daughter, Mimi, with Helmuth Sommer, in 1973, and two more children, Brooklyn and Amanda, with second husband Bruce Sudano, in 1980 and 81, respectively.

 

She is survived by her husband, three daughters, and four grandchildren.

[camillj]

I know !!!! 63 is a helluva tough year .. thanks god I gots a few left before then

[bucktail]

Bad stretch for music, I got to see James brown 6 months before he kacked. It was awesome.

[bh87ss]

Hey bucktail you need a new pic, that pike is getting old, maybe this week will produce a new quality photo