The Foote Files: Donna Summer
(CBS 11) - If you want to talk about a singer who sang a lot of songs about love, it would be Donna Summer.
Born La Donna Adrian Gaines on December 31, 1948, Summer was probably the best known singer/songwriter/actress of the 1970s disco era. She even was dubbed "The Queen Of Disco." That era of music started around 1975 (Joe Simon had a hit in 1975 that was disco called "Get Down, Get Down On The Floor").
The music style of music was so popular that even some American radio stations flipped to that format. WKTU-FM in New York was one such station and was extremely successful between 1975-1982 before that format started waning (it later became WXRK under Mel Karmazin's Infinity Broadcasting and was the home of Howard Stern for years). Yet during that time, it was the #1 radio station in New York in both ratings and revenue.
Summer charted 20 songs from 1975-1989. She had four #1 hits, 13 songs in the top 10, and 42 hit singles in Billboard Hot 100.
Today's song is and was Summer's second single release from 1977 called "I Feel Love." It was first released on her fifth studio album "I Remember Yesterday" and contains some of the first electronic dance music.
Written by Summer, Giorgio Moroder and Pete Belotte, produced by Moroder and Bellotte, and running 5:33 on the Casablanca Record label, the lyrics go like this:
Ooh, it's so good, it's so good
It's so good, it's so good
It's so good
Ooh, I'm in love, I'm in love
I'm in love, I'm in love
I'm in love
Ooh, I feel love, I feel love
I feel love, I feel love
I feel love
I feel love
I feel love
The song reached #6 in the U.S. but #1 in Australia, Austria, Belgium and The Netherlands
Summer passed away on May 17, 2012 at age 63.
You can hear this song on SIRIUS XM 70's On & with Magic Matt Alan, Jaybeau Jones, J.J. Walker, Charlie Wilde, and Ron Parker. Enjoy this clip from Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special which aired on NBC Late Night on Fridays with Wolfman Jack as the announcer…..who was at that time an evening personality on 66 WNBC Radio in New York.