Donna Summer: She could sing anything, anywhere, with anyone, at any time.

[JAN 17] Happy Sunday all! So last week I  gave you links to MacArthur Park with just the vocals and one with just the piano. There is more out there.  :-) Here is just the bass, and a video with just the strings. Fanmixers - go have some fun!

[JAN 17]  There was a 2009 audio documentary about Donna done by the BBC called Feelin' Love, The Donna Summer Story.  Someone has put it up on YouTube in parts.  So here is  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and finally Part 6.

[JAN 17] NPO Radio 2 in The Netherlands has a podcast about Donna on their website.  There is just one problem - I believe you have to be in the Netherlands to actually be able to play it.  When I click it, I get a short message in Dutch that I believe is telling me that the clip is region restricted.  But if you are in the Netherlands (or have some sneaky proxy trick you want to try), give it a listen.  :-)

[JAN 17] Bruce Sudano fans - look for a feature about him in the March issue of Goldmine. That will hit stores on February 1.  In the meantime, go check him out on Facebook where Bruce has been live on his couch again.  This is another new song he's working on. Unfortunately the video cuts off abruptly.

[JAN 17] Mary Bernard fans, if you are in her Facebook group, then you can watch the story that was posted on Patreon last weekend.  It's an interesting story about fan mail.... If you are not in Mary's group, then apply to join it!  (The technical side of the group is handled by Mary's daughter, so sometimes it takes a little while for them to get to the membership requests. Just have a little patience if you are on the waiting list.  :-) )

[JAN 17] I think that brings us (back) to YouTube.  As my American friends know (and quite possibly my international friends as well) - on Wednesday we swear in a new President.  (Hopefully without any drama!) Anyway, I thought it would be fun to look back at Donna's previous Presidential performances.  First up - Donna performing at the 1985 inauguration for President Reagan. Then we have Donna's performances at the Nobel Peace Prize concert for President Obama.  She did She Works Hard For The Money,  Bad Girls/Hot Stuff, and of course, Last Dance. And then I'm going to throw in a link to Begin Again just because I really feel like we need to do that.  Between the pandemic, the economy, and the divisiveness of the political situation, I'm looking tor a great big reset button!  (Hey wait - has anybody tried that yet?  Unplug the country for 30 seconds and then plug it back in again? It works for gadgets, maybe it will work for the country?   LOL)

[JAN 10] Happy Sunday all! Well, this week has been a .... bad dream? Continuation of 2020? Bruce reposted his American Sunset video on Facebook, and you know....  that song fits more now than it did just a few months ago.  Anyway... after a week like this, I think we can all use a little escape into the land of Donna.

[JAN 10] Let's start off with Mary. She just posted a new story on her Patreon that will show up on the Facebook group next week.  This one is a story of some memorable fan mail and yes, you will be amazed at what people send.  To access the story now (and get early access to future stories), sign up for Mary's Patreon. Or join the Facebook group and join the "family".  :-)

[JAN 10]  Eurweb.com posted an article about  Love To Love You and Time Magazine's coverage of it at the time.

[JAN 10] Here's a gem for you -  MacArthur Park. But not just any version of the song. This is just the vocals! Along with that, we have a track with just the piano.  Aside from the fact that it is very interesting to hear the various pieces that make up the whole, I can totally see some fan mixers having a blast with these.  :-) I should also tell you that the piano is for the whole suite, but the vocals are just MacArthur Park, but with some extras that weren't used.  :-)

[JAN 10] I think that brings us to YouTube.  First up,  a Suecase Hall video of Enough Is Enough/Let There Be Peace.  Then we have In A New York Minute, The Impossible Dream, Love Is The Healer, Riding Through The Storm, Amazing Grace,  and finally the symphonic version of I Will Live For Love.

[JAN 3] Happy New Year all!  And good riddance to 2020!  LOL  First up for the New Year (and new month) - the new Summer Fever Pick. This month we are playing with our Crayons. :-)

[JAN 3] I want to start off with Johnnyswim this week because if you have Discovery +, you will be able to see some of the programming for the new Magnolia Network starting tomorrow.  Some of that programing includes a 1 episode preview of "Home On The Road With Johnnyswim".  The show covers Johnnyswim doing a 3 month cross-country tour filmed what seems like a lifetime ago.  (Concerts? What are they?  LOL) Read more at Deadline.com.

[JAN 3] Moving on to Donna, Albumism.com posted a playlist the other day in tribute to Donna on what should have been her 72nd birthday.  Also, SiriusXM's 70s on 7 station had a countdown of the listener's picks for the top 300 songs of the 70s.  Now, I haven't been able to find a written list of the songs yet (probably because they were counting down all weekend) but I do know that Last Dance was on the list somewhere. I heard them play it the other day.  :-)

[JAN 3] In the land of remixes, we have the Joey The Hatt 2021 mix of Come With Me, the MHP mix of MacArthur Park (listen for extra adlibs in that one!), and the Ivan Sash mix of The Woman In Me.

[JAN 3] That brings us to YouTube. This week's theme is random stuff I've run into over the last couple of weeks.  First up is a British guitarist analyzing Donna's Hot Summer Night performance of Last Dance.  He gets into a lot of technical reasons about why Donna is such a great singer.  :-) Then we have This Time I Know It's For Real from a Norwegian TV show,  and Donna on The Tonight Show performing On The Radio and Starting Over Again.  Those of you who have heard Bruce talk about Starting Over Again will recognize this as the performance that made Dolly Parton get in touch to see if she could record the song. And finally we have Last Dance from American Bandstand's 33 1/3 Anniversary show.  (Those last 2 clips bring back a lot of happy memories of stalking the TV listings for any sign of Donna.  LOL)

[DEC 27] Greetings all! I hope you all enjoyed the holiday week - whether you celebrated or not.

[DEC 27] First up this week, photographer Harry Langdon is now selling a few of his Donna photos. Check out his YouTube video for a look at the ones available and for more info.

[DEC 27] Zora.com has compiled a list of the 100 most iconic albums by African American women.  Bad Girls is on that list! You have to scroll down quite a bit because the albums are listed chronologically, and they start in 1950.  But don't just read what they say about Donna - there is a TON of great music on that list!  Then The Atlantic has an article about the 2020 Disco Revival.

[DEC 27] Moving on to the land of remixes - we now have a Groovefunkel mix of Heaven Knows that comes right from the original multi-track recording. (I really like the way they did the video too - with some trivia, and the full credits at the end. Plus those wave forms for the various parts are hypnotic to me.  LOL) Then we have the Tom Moulton mix of Love To Love You on his Unreleased Remixes Vol 3.  And for those of you who want to make some remixes of your own, the studio acapella track for Hot Stuff has turned up on YouTube.

[DEC 27] I think that brings us to this week's trip to YouTube.  This time we are ringing in the New Year. Actually considering when these clips were recorded, we are ringing in several different New Years.  LOL  First up - a brand new video from our own Suecase Hall that celebrates Donna and 2021. Then we have Try Me  and Could It Be Magic, from  New Year's 1977,  On The Radio and Last Dance from Merv Griffin's 1993 New Year show, and You're So Beautiful from Dick Clark's 2004 show. Of course it it also Donna's birthday on New Year's Eve, so of course we need to hear (and sing) Happy Birthday.  And finally,  I have the edit of Begin Again just because after the raging dumpster fire we call 2020, I think we all need to begin again! :-) Happy New Year everyone! May 2021 bring health and happiness - and a return to some sort of normalcy I hope!

[DEC 20] Greetings all. This should be the last update before Christmas, so let me take the time to wish you all a very happy holiday season.  Yeah, I know with COVID this may not be the holiday we had hoped for, but better times are coming!

[DEC 20] There isn't a whole lot going on right now - I think it's just the usual end of year quiet.  But something just popped up recently on Facebook related to Donna and the musical Hair.  There was a 25th Anniversary concert fundraiser celebrating Hair back in 1988 at the UN and Donna was there along with Paul Jabara.  Clips of this event have surfaced on YouTube.  The show is uploaded in parts, so in Part 1 you have Donna and Paul (at about 16:05)  making an appeal for the charity (helping children with AIDS), and introducing one of the songs.  In Part 2, look for Donna and the tribe at about 20:50 singing Aquarius.  (It's so weird to hear her sing it in English - I am so used to her German version!)  And finally in Part 4 they have the big finale of Let The Sunshine in (starting at about 21:00). Little by little all the evening's performers come out for what becomes a big celebration onstage.  You can see Donna in the front row on the left pretty clearly at 24:33. Oh, by the way - does anybody happen to recognize the dress Donna is wearing?  You've all seen it before - although Donna's makeup was a bit different in the famous photos of her wearing it.  ;-)  Also - kudos to the Facebooker who found these clips. It's a great find!

[DEC 20] Related to the clips above, I found a little AP article about the benefit. It doesn't say too much, but it's a good companion to the clips above.

[DEC 20] And as long as we are celebrating Hair,  we have some clips of Donna with the German cast back in the day,  and a video by Suecase Hall for Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In.

[DEC 20] I think that brings us to YouTube. And I'm just going to share 2 things with you this week.  First is my YouTube playlist of Donna Summer Christmas songs (with a few bonuses thrown in).  And the second thing is Johnnyswim's Live From The Backyard #4 - Another Johnnyswim Christmas.

And then let me just leave you with this:

[DEC 13] Greetings all!  I'm going to start off with Johnnyswim this week because, they have new limited edition merchandise coming out tomorrow morning at 8 AM PST.  I think they might even still have a little Live From The Backyard stuff left.

[DEC 13] Speaking of Live From The Backyard, if you missed their last Christmas themed show, then you missed something really special. The last one was Christmas themed, and there was a space in the middle that was just ... transcendent.  It was emotional and touching, and something that just needs to be experienced.  Lucky for you, the show is still on YouTube for you to watch.  Donna Summer fans will want to pay attention at the 1:30 (ish) mark because Amanda shared a couple of Christmas memories from when she was a kid.

[DEC 13] In chart news, Donna has hit the UK  iTunes Top 100 with Last Dance at #60 on the December 13 chart.  It shares the chart with a heck of a lot of Christmas songs, so I am declaring Last Dance a Christmas Song now.  LOL  (Hey if Ronnie Spector can be Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree, then why can't Donna have the Last Dance under the tree?)

[DEC 13] TheArtsDesk.com has a list of vinyl Christmas gift ideas - The Wanderer 40th Anniversary set made the cut.  :-) 

[DEC 13] Also in Donna news (well, maybe not news to the diehard fans  LOL), CheatSheet.com has posted the stories behind She Works Hard For The Money and it's video.

[DEC 13] Bruce Sudano fans - AmericanaHighways.org has included Spirals Vol 2 in their list of Reader's Favorite Albums from 2020.

[DEC 13] Bruce will be part of the iVoted concerts again on January 5 in support of the Georgia run off election for the Senate. Check out the iVoted website to see how to get access to the show - and no, you don't have to be a Georgia voter to watch.  (They are listing Bruce's show as a rebroadcast, so I assume that means they are just restreaming his performance from November.)

[DEC 13] I think that brings us to YouTube.  In honor of the iTunes chart, let's start off with Last Dance live on the Midnight Special. (One of the first performances of that song.) As long as we're dancing, let's keep going but with  a relatively recent spin. So next up is My Life from the VH1 special, a video for To Paris With Love, the original mix of Love On And On, Stor Dubine's video for I Got Your Love, and  Love is The Healer live on The View.  And just for fun, a bunch of college kids dancing a choreographed routine to Donna's music in a shopping mall.

[DEC 4] Happy Friday all! The new Summer Fever Pick is up and of course you know that it is Christmas Spirit!

[DEC 4] Let's start off with Johnnyswim.  As you know, they have their Live In The Backyard Christmas concert tomorrow night.  That means that their digital merchandise table is live NOW.  There are new shirts, a hoodie and a Levi's jacket - hand screened by Johnnyswim themselves.  All the money goes to a good cause - keeping the live concerts going! :-) Oh, and don't forget that the concert merchandise is only available for 72 hours.

[DEC 4] Also in Johnnyswim news, as of today, their new Christmas EP, Another Johnnyswim Christmas,  has hit all your favorite places to stream or buy music, including Amazon.

[DEC 4] In Donna news, there is a book coming out May 6 called Donna Summer's Once Upon A Time which is (yes you guessed it) all about that album. It is available for pre-order now at Amazon.  There is also a book called I Feel Love: Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, and How They Reinvented Music.  Look for that on May 1 and you can also pre-order it at Amazon.  (Both books are available as paperbacks only - sorry eReader fans.)

[DEC 4] In Bruce Sudano news, he's posted a beautiful video for Morning Kisses on Facebook.  It's a beautiful video created by Rueben at Noksound - the same guy who did American Sunset. I expect it will find its way to YouTube one of these days.  :-)

[DEC 4] Also in Bruce news, he's posted a couple of other new Facebook videos this week.  The first one (live at the piano instead of on the couch is a tribute to John Prine.) Then the next day he posted another song he is working on called Doobie Doo. And on YouTube there is a video of Bruce talking about Donna.

[DEC 4] I think that brings us to YouTube.  I can't resist - we have to do some Christmas songs.  :-) So here is The Christmas Song live on GMA,  O Holy Night from Solid Gold, a lyric video for Rosie Christmas, and a lyric video for Christmas Spirit.  And finally one weird  video of the MacArthur Park Suite.  Someone has made a video for the suite by combining various clips of people dancing. There are clips from what looks like The Nutcracker, there is some Irish step dancing,  a whole bunch of people dancing in a mall (flash mob or performance?),  some precision marching,  what looks like an outdoor flash mob,  another group of Irish step dancers,  and it ends with something that looks like the stage moves more than the dancers?  It's a very strange video.  :-)

[NOV 29] Happy Sunday all! Let's start off with the Bad Girls red and blue vinyl edition that was due out Friday.  It's online release now been delayed until the Spring because Culture Factory is using it for their Record Store Day. (Which means right now, you'd have to find it in an actual store. Wait? Are there still actual record stores?  LOL)

[NOV 29] Mary Bernard fans - she has a new story video coming out on the  Once Upon A Diva Facebook group next week,  but if you go join her on Patreon, you can see it NOW.  (And you will be helping to finance these videos.) The new video is the story about the time that..... oh wait, I can't tell you.  :-)  But I will say that Mary's stories are still set in the early days.

[NOV 29] In musical news,  the site for the Brazilian production of Summer: The Musical has a couple of videos posted with I Feel Love, MacArthur Park, and Hot Stuff.  I see the dialog is in Portuguese and the  music is in English.  Someone will have to let me know how that works out for the Brazilian audiences.  Knowing that some songs (and not necessarily hits) are used to tell parts of the story, does that make it harder to follow the story when it's in 2 languages?

[NOV 29] Johnnyswim fans - we have a busy weekend coming up. Their Christmas album drops on Friday December 4. They have their Live In The Backyard Christmas concert on December 5, and there will be special merchandise available that weekend ONLY. (That's how they finance the shows - through the sales of merchandise.) If you have never watched them Live In The Backyard, I'm telling you that they do an amazing job. They could seriously advise other acts on how to do online shows.

[NOV 29] Bruce Sudano fans - check out the short article on SongFacts.com about Bruce's song, For The Sake of Humanity.  That's off of Spirals  Vol 2 which you can buy/stream at all the usual places. Or you can head to Bruce's site and grab an actual CD copy. You can also grab a Super Bruce bobblehead, or some stickers or magnets. Lots of that stuff is on sale until midnight Monday (November 30).

[NOV 29] I think that brings us to YouTube.  Since I ate too much over the holiday to even want to think about moving  LOL, let's do some ballads.  Let's start with Celebrate Me Home. Then we have Heaven's Just A Whisper Away live on The Word,  Thinkin' 'Bout My Baby (audio only),  There Will Always Be A You (audio only),  Sand On My Feet (live),  and Anyway At All live on The Tonight SHow.

[NOV 22] Greetings all and Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends!  Where should I start? Well, since it's 2020 and it seems to be the year of weird things happening, let's go with this new mashup. Somebody managed to mashup Donna's Hot Stuff with... wait for it... Ozzy Osbourne's Flying High Again.  Not a combination you would exactly expect, but it's actually not terrible.  But I can't help but wonder what those guys blowing up disco records in 1979 would have thought?  LOL

[NOV 22] In other weird news... reporter Andrew Marr did an interview recently in the UK where he said that he interviewed Putin at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. (If you remember - there was a big controversy at the time because Russia wasn't exactly the most gay-friendly place, to put it mildly.) Anyway, this journalist happened to run into Elton John shortly before the Putin interview. Elton, tasked Marr with the job of giving Putin a Donna Summer album and a kiss from him.  He did not say if he actually did as he was asked or if he chickened out.  LOL

[NOV 22] Moving on to more normal things, Jazziz.com has a nice little piece celebrating the song I Remember Yesterday.  And in cover news, Kelly Clarkson recently performed a cover of She Works Hard For The Money on her show.  (And I don't think I will ever get used to the virtual audiences some shows are using!)

[NOV 22] And in Wanderer news,  Pete Bellotte did an interview with Phil Marriott in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the album.

[NOV 22] In musical news, Summer : The Musical is slated to run at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust February 16 to 21, 2021.  I am assuming that is subject to change depending on the COVID situation.

[NOV 22] Bruce Sudano fans -  check out his 5 questions on DittyTV.com,  then his interview with Cashbox Canada.

[NOV 22] Johnnyswim fans -  check out their latest release, Pass Me A Pint from their upcoming Christmas album.  You can also watch them perform it live from their garage on Instagram. Also, they are planning another Live From The Backyard concert on December 5. No special guests this time - just a Christmas party at the Johnnyswim home.  And be on the look out for new merchandise for the show.  They always come up with something, and I think they are working on making some stuff themselves again.  (Looked like maybe screen printing this time.... last time it was tie dye.)

[NOV 22] I think that brings us to YouTube.  Since it's Thanksgiving this week,  let's do a throwback to when the cast of Summer: The Musical performed live for the Macy's Parade in 17 degree weather.  (That's -8 for those of you who use Celsius.)  I'm still stunned you can't see any chattering teeth!  LOL Johnnyswim also did a Macy's Parade but their was 2016. Catch them here on the rehearsal interviews,  here on an audience home video, and here on the actual parade broadcast.  Then we have Donna on the Queen Latifah Show talking about Thanksgiving (and performing), and another Thanksgiving interview on The View.

[NOV 14] Happy Saturday all! Not a lot going on this week, but Congrats to Bruce! A whole bunch of stations have added tracks from Spirals Vol 2 to their playlists.  And he's #88 on the Billboard BDS chart! (It's the bobblehead - nobody can resist the bobblehead!  LOL)

[NOV 14] In Johnnyswim news. WideOpenCountry.com has an article about their upcoming show on the Magnolia Network.

[NOV 14] Mary Gaines Bernard fans - as many of you know, she has a Facebook group for Donna Summer fans or perhaps I should say family, as she does consider us members of the family.  It's a private group so your membership request has to be approved - so be patient if you join and it takes a little while for you to get approved. (Mary's daughter handles that techie stuff and she's busy in her own right too.)  In this group. Mary posts videos with stories from her time with Donna, and she sometimes goes live to chat with us crazies. What came out of the last chat is that at some point, Mary would like to hit the road and do small pop up concerts for the fans.  So hopefully we can get this COVID situation under control and stuff like that can happen.

[NOV 14] I think that brings us to YouTube. Hmmmm.... I haven't done any duets in awhile. Let's go there. First up, Donna with the Brooklyn Dreams doing a Motown Medley on the Midnight Special.  Then we have Donna and Mary on Enough Is Enough,  Donna with Joss Stone on Try A Little Tenderness, with Darwin Hobbes on When I Look Up,  with Seal on Crazy, and with Paul Jabara on Something's Missing.  And finally, (I can never resist posting this one!) Donna with Barry Manilow on Could It Be Magic.

[NOV 8] Happy Sunday all! It's been quite a week here in the US and the good news is that I can stop reminding people to vote for at least another year!  LOL  We had a record number of voters this  year and the highest turnout in terms of the percentage of eligible voters since 1900.  I guess it takes more than a pandemic to silence the people.  :-)

[NOV 8] I know some of my American friends feel like Christmas has come early - and actually, it sort of has! Johnnyswim has a new Christmas album coming out and they are teasing us with the first track now. It is Little Drummer Boy, and you can buy/stream it at your favorite music sources.

[NOV 8] In the Donna is everywhere category, she got name checked in a recent episode of The Connors. Some characters were playing poker, and when one lost, she asked for her money back because she worked hard for it. Another player replied, "Hey we all work hard for the money Donna Summer. Next time you'll be more careful."

[NOV 8] Bruce Sudano fans - check out this piece he posted on the eve of election day.

[NOV 8] I think that brings us to YouTube.  Here are some of the songs I have been drawn to this week (in no particular order).... Love Is The Healer from Divas 2000,  Georgia On My Mind in concert from 2004,  A Whole New World with Dave Koz,  Enough Is Enough with Barbra, Crayons live in 2009,  the unreleased Run With It,  the recently remastered Looking Up,  and of course, God Bless America.

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