After Dinner Speakers: Donna Summer, Richard Noble, James Naughtie

b. Ladonna Gaines, 31 December 1948, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Summer's "Love To Love You Baby" and "I Feel Love" made her the best-known of all 70s disco divas. Having sung with rock bands in Boston, Summer moved to Europe in 1968 and appeared in German versions of Hair and Porgy And Bess, later marrying Austrian actor Helmut Sommer, from whom she took her stage name. Summer's first records were "Hostage" and "Lady Of The Night" for Giorgio Moroder's Oasis label in Munich. They were local hits but it was "Love To Love You Baby" (1975) that made her an international star. The track featured Summer's erotic sighs and moans over Moroder's hypnotic disco beats and it sold a million copies in the USA on Neil Bogart's Casablanca label. In 1977, a similar formula took "I Feel Love" to the top of the UK chart, and "Down Deep Inside", Summer's theme song for the movie The Deep was a big international success. Her own film debut came the next year in Thank God It's Friday, in which she sang another million-seller, "Last Dance". This was the peak period of Summer's career as she achieved four more US number 1s in 1978-79 with a revival of Jim Webb's "MacArthur Park", "Hot Stuff", "Bad Girls" and "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)", a duet with Barbra Streisand. The demise of disco coincided with a legal dispute between Summer and Bogart and in 1980 she signed to David Geffen's new company. Her work took on a more pronounced soul and gospel flavour, reflecting her decision to become a born-again Christian. Some of her major US hits during the early 80s were "On The Radio", "The Wanderer", "She Works Hard For The Money" and "Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)" in 1982, produced by Quincy Jones. After a three-year absence from music, Summer returned in 1987 with a US and European tour and enjoyed another international hit with the catchy "Dinner With Gershwin". Other major US and UK hits include "This Time I Know It's For Real" and "I Don't Wanna Get Hurt". Another Place And Time, her bestselling 1989 release for Warner Brothers Records, was written and produced by Stock, Aitken And Waterman while Clivilles And Cole worked on Love Is Gonna Change. The 90s proved only moderately successful for the singer, but she remains a perennial club favourite.