Donna Summer on PBS

[Teddybear]

Last night, the Diva of Divas was interviewed by a respectful Tavis Smiley. Some excerpts:

Tavis: You're one of those rare artists - rare Black artists, certainly, who actually started their career in Europe and then came this way. As opposed to starting in the Black church, becoming a crossover artist, and then going across the water, you came back this way.

Donna: I did start in the Black church, singing [...] Well, I went to Europe and I was in musicals, so I wanted to be in musical theater. And so that was the best route at the time. There weren't that many roles for Black women, and times have changed, thank God. [...] Well in short, I auditioned in New York for the musical "Hair," and then after I did the audition they took me to Germany. I wound up there. My dad used to be in the service there so I really wanted to go there because he spoke German. And so I got there, started learning German, started doing "Hair." Then afterwards I did four or five more musicals.

***

The new CD - why now and tell me about the material on the CD.

Well, the material is all over the place. I've been dubbed the disco queen for so many years that I decided that if I did a new album, that I was going to call it -

Stop, stop. You sick of being called the disco queen?

Absolutely [...] Every day. It's not that I'm tired of it, I just want to be - I want to expand it to the empress now. I'm over the queen thing. (Laughter) I want to be referred to as the empress. I'm much older, and I want to be. That's my new name. So my daughters have already brought me letterhead with "The Empress" on it.

***

Back to "Crayons," though, the material is what?

All the material is diverse. I think we've covered every single aspect of music that I can. My personal goal is to win 10 Grammys in 10 different categories. And there's a reason, there's some logic behind it, and one of it is that notoriously, Black people tend to do certain types of music, and I think that we need to be free to do any kind of music, because it pigeonholes us to be considered only in one vein or two veins or whatever. And I just feel like I just want to conquer all those fields.

This may be inside - this may be too inside the music business, but when a CD has that much variety on it, how do you market, how do you
promote it, how do you even sequence a record that's got that much stuff on it on the same project?

You market me.

***

So you can hear Donna Summer, as I'm sure you do, any time on any station any day of the week. Is that a good thing or a bad thing, that we're playing - it's good stuff, but we're playing it so much now that you almost get tired of the old stuff that was good as much as you get tired of the stuff that comes out now that we play over and over and over again.

Well, I just think you have to change the channel.

But that's my point, though. When you do that, you're still hearing - all I'm saying is that whether it's Donna Summer or Marvin Gaye, run the list, or Stevie circa - the stuff was so good then, it still sounds good now, but you hear it so much on every station that I wonder whether or not we start to, how could I put this, lose an appreciation for the classic nature of the stuff?

I don't think so. I just think people are hungry for what they consider meaty and substantial, and I think that a lot of people relate to that music, and it has - it's attached to so many memories in their lives and in the vernacular of their living that they want to have access to that memory again. And so when they hear the song it's like okay. I hear Barry White or something, I'm just right there. I'm 19 years old; I'm having a good time. So it's all about the moment [italics are mine].

[STEPHEN L FREEMAN]

Originally Posted by Teddybear

This may be inside - this may be too inside the music business, but when a CD has that much variety on it, how do you market, how do you promote it, how do you even sequence a record that's got that much stuff on it on the same project?

You market me.

That's my girl!!!
You GO, Empress-Donna!!!

[Dayna]

The More I listen to it The more i like it..
It's hard for me not to like anything from Donna or Diana..although even my girl Diana has done some albums that I have not done somersaults over...