More than 40 years after her heyday, Donna Summer remains the queen of disco
RICH LOPEZ | A&E Reporter
Rich@DallasVoice.com
We know that Donna Summer is the undisputed Queen of Disco thanks to her classic dance anthems like “Love to Love You Baby” and “Hot Stuff.”
But we also know, she had a spotty relationship with the queer community (don’t even ask my fellow DV reporter about her). Still, her music was undoubtedly both infectious and impactful on the radio and across the club scene — especially the gay clubs in the 1970s.
Now this definitive Donna era has been revisited.
In today’s release of the box set Donna Summer: The Casablanca Studio Albums Collector’s Edition, fans and disco aficionados can relive the era through all her albums released under that label.
The set features the four albums released in a three-year period: A Love Trilogy, Four Seasons Of Love, I Remember Yesterday and Once Upon A Time.
Then it moves on to her Live And More double album, recorded at Los Angeles’ Universal Amphitheatre in 1978. Bad Girls rounded out the Casablanca years, yielding what are perhaps her biggest hits with the Billboard No. 1 track title track and “Hot Stuff” as well as “Dim All the Lights,” giving her a trio of singles that landed in the first or second spot on the charts.
All of the albums were produced by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, with the exception of Love To Love You Baby, which was produced by Bellotte.
The set comes in two formats. Both the seven-CD box set and the multi-colored (light blue, hot pink, green, yellow, orange, indigo and violet) 10-LP vinyl set are accompanied by a new, 3,500-word essay penned by Christian John Wikane.
Wikane, with Alice Harris, is author of A Night at the Disco, a book culled from interviews with Summer, her ex-husband, songwriter Bruce Sudano, producer Pete Bellotte and others. The limited-edition vinyl set also includes a reproduction of the 1977 Four Seasons of Love calendar poster.
Wikane is a New York-based music journalist and essayist who has written for People magazine and PopMatters and was also credited as a consultant for the HBO documentaries Tina (2021) about Tina Turner and Love to Love You, Donna Summer (2022).
Ahead of today’s release, Wikane spoke with Dallas Voice about his work on bringing Summer’s Casablanca era to the page, what younger generations can take away from her hits and the queer relationship to disco and Donna Summer.
Dallas Voice: Let’s just get into it. What did you feel was most important about Donna Summer that hadn’t been told yet? Christian John Wikane: For me, it was appreciating how much thought went into recording the albums themselves. A lot of this music has been heard outside its original context on radio or greatest hits compilations. But if you listen to an album like Once Upon a Time start to finish, it’s revelatory.
Most of her releases were concept albums, and Casablanca Records really helped her explore her artistry rather than just making standard three-to-four-minute radio songs. From Love to Love You Baby to Bad Girls, there was so much innovation and intention behind the work.
Already knowing so much about her, were there any discoveries that surprised you in your research? One thing I hadn’t explicitly noticed before was that for four consecutive years (1977–1980), Casablanca Records was ranked the number one disco label by Billboard. That directly parallels Donna’s time at the company. I mean, she really was their shining star, and it shows why Casablanca remains such an important label for the 1970s.
How did you decide what deserved the most attention in your writing? I wanted to focus on why her biggest hits were so groundbreaking and unique. For instance, explaining the story behind “MacArthur Park Suite” and how it evolved into an 18-minute masterpiece. Tracks like “Love to Love You Baby” and “I Feel Love” sometimes eclipse her other work, so my approach was to highlight the intention behind each album and show how she continuously pushed her career forward without repeating herself.
There have been multiple generations since her release. What do you want younger listeners to discover through this collection that they might not find in a playlist? I hope they appreciate Donna as a songwriter. On the Bad Girls album, she wrote “Dim All the Lights,” completely on her own along with co-writing many of the ballads.
Didn’t she have a Dolly Parton connection? Yes! She co-wrote “Starting Over Again” for Dolly Parton, which became a country hit in 1980. I think the story is that Dolly saw Donna perform it and wanted to record it herself. And you know Dolly didn’t need anybody’s song, so I think that shows how the industry respected her. She wasn’t just a singer with a great voice; she was an incredible storyteller and creator.
Which song did you first connect to personally? My favorite Donna Summer song of all time is “Dim All the Lights.” Structurally, it’s so unconventional — it starts slow, builds up, has a unique vocal breakdown, and the background vocals don’t even enter until halfway through. Another deep cut I love is “Now I Need You,” from Once Upon a Time, which is one of her most haunting performances.
The music is so powerful, and we still hear it on the dancefloor. How do you view the connection between the music and the LGBTQ+ community? The music itself served as a source of empowerment, liberation and self-expression. Clubs provided a safe sanctuary for the LGBTQ+ community during an era when people couldn’t always be open in public. Disco gave people the space to come together, express themselves, and feel joy, creating a timeless bond between the community and the music.
We didn’t have to be alone in our apartments listening to the music. We could go and stay out all night and be ourselves. Even to this day, I think the music hits differently.
Of course, in the ’80s, her relationship with the queer community soured. Can you talk about her relationship with the community — if any — before that which pertains to this box set’s era? So, I have written about her relationship to the gay community in other essays, and I think there was a rough patch there in the early ’80s. But I truly think Donna really loved her audience.
I think that people were hurt, and it’s up to each person’s own experience of how they connect to her music. But I think Donna really was always for her fans. There’s always going to be a love between her and the gay audience, and I think that is because it’s hard to let go of the music that was so very defining and liberating.
And to veer slightly away from today’s release, can you talk about your book, A Night at the Disco? Thank you! It’s a celebration of dance music from 1970 through 1979, highlighting more than 110 artists who drove innovation in pop music. I think we show how disco doesn’t have to be treated strictly as a monolith. It was varied, creative and this enduring era of music that remains relevant 50 years later.
Donna Summer: The Casablanca Studio Albums Collector’s Edition’ is available at major retailers and various independent music retailers.