An interview with Bruce Sudano

[Marcio**]

An extract...



[Doak Turner] You have had tremendous success with a couple of other hit songs that you have written, "Bad Girls" and "Starting Over Again" to mention a few. Maybe a couple of stories behind those great songs?

Bruce Sudano - The biggest Donna Summer song was "Bad Girls." That came about when I was in a group called Brooklyn Dreams. We were recording our first album in Los Angeles in 1977 when I first met Donna. We met and instantaneously started writing songs together. I had to move to Irvine, CA, which was about an hour from LA. Donna would drive out and visit maybe one day or night a week. She did a part on our album, and Brooklyn Dreams sang backup on her album, I Remember Yesterday.

As Donna's and my relationship developed as writers and as a couple, whenever we had a day together, a friend of mine from Brooklyn, Inky (laughter) was his name, would get with us. Those guys from Brooklyn always have those cool names. Inky had a studio in the valley and Donna, Joe Esposito Eddie Hogason - members in our trio - and I would go in the studio and write at 11 at night. Inky would turn on the mics, [and] I would play guitar and piano. We would go for hours with the tape running.

One particular night, Donna had an incident at Casablanca Records on Sunset Blvd. Sunset was famous for street girls walking up and down the street. This one particular day, there was this black secretary working at the record company. She got pulled over by the cops because they thought she was walking the streets. In fact, she was a secretary walking down the street. Donna wanted to write a song about the girls on the street. The tape was running, and she started singing about Bad Girls. A couple days later we talked about it.

Probably six or eight month later, Donna was going into the studio to record what was going to be and ended up being the Bad Girls album. Donna was writing with Georgio Moroder. There was this engineer, Steve Smith, [who] was going through a pile of tapes that Donna had brought in. He stumbled on "Bad Girls" and really liked it. I did some lyrical treatment. She usually just streams out tons and tons of stuff and I will go back and edit, pull and tweak. That is what I did with "Bad Girls" after she spewed out about 90% of the song. Donna and I cut a real demo with a band. We brought it in to Neil Bogart, who was head of Casablanca Records, and said we had a smash. Neil did not hear the song as a smash. He thought it was too Rock and Roll for Donna, said he had just signed Cher, and wanted her to record the song "Bad Girls." So, we looked at each other and told him to give us our song back.

We took the song to Georgio Moroder. Georgio cut it and it was a catalyst song for Donna. She was more orchestrated disco up until this point. The Isley Brothers' "Who's That Lady" was a big influence on us. When Georgio and Donna opened up to the song, it evolved into "Hot Stuff," "The Rock," and all that stuff. It was a crucial song, almost going to Cher.

[Doak Turner] Is that you playing the lead guitar on "Bad Girls"?

Bruce Sudano - No, it was Skunk Baxter (former Doobie Brother, Steely Dan and studio musician). We wrote it on acoustic guitar, tripping on an Isley Brothers groove, tapping into a "Fly Robin Fly" by the Silver Convention, or some kind of groove like that!

[Doak Turner] Did the "Bad Girls" song lead to the "Sunset People" song on the album?

Bruce Sudano - Yea, it all evolved for the album. It just opened the floodgates to what the album was all about. Another song on the album, "On My Honor," sounded like a country song with a German perspective, as Georgio and those guys gave it a twist.





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