Donna Summer, queen of disco, dies at 63; fans remember her hit songs

July 26, 2024

Donna Summer, the five-time Grammy Award winner who ruled the charts with her disco hits like “Bad Girls and “Last Dance,” died in Florida at the age of 63. The Associated Press reported that she had cancer. In her obituary, T. Rees Shapiro told the story behind one of her most popular songs:

Ms. Summer said her 1983 hit “She Works Hard For the Money” was inspired by a trip to the restroom. She was at a Grammy Awards party when she spotted the women’s restroom attendant asleep from exhaustion.

“And my first thought was, ‘God, she works hard for her money, that lady,’” Ms. Summer told ABC news in 2008. She quickly returned to the restroom and began composing the song on toilet paper.

Ms. Summer’s lasting popularity was buoyed by legions of black, Latin and gay fans. Her electrifying performances were known to draw sellout crowds.

Celebritology also wrote a tribute to “She Works Hard for the Money," which was one of the first music videos from an African-American female performer.

In 1983, it was still rare to see a non-white face in an MTV music video. The network was only two years old at that point, but African American artists still had to fight pretty hard to get their clips into heavy rotation on the increasingly influential channel.

Summer was one of the first to break through that barrier. And she did it with "She Works Hard for the Money," a four-minute clip that follows the struggles of working women and does something that a lot of videos at the time were still trying to figure out how to pull off: tell an actual story that tied in directly with its source material. It worked so well that it ultimately made Summer the first African American woman to receive an MTV Video Music Award nomination; the clip earned two nods in 1984, the first year the VMAs was held. (She ultimately lost in her categories to Cyndi Lauper and Michael Jackson.)

Naturally, the problems of all the females in the video — working moms, low-paid waitresses, seamstresses working in sweatshops that at least had the decency to feature highly synchronized choreography — were ultimately resolved with a video-closing, climactic dance routine in the streets of New York. Hey, this is how we can solve the economic gender gap: Let’s dance it out!

Celebritology also spoke up on behalf of “Thank God It's Friday,” Summer’s only film role:

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“Saturday Night Fever” was obviously the definitive cinematic expression of the leisure suit era, but “Thank God It’s Friday” — the story of the high jinks, hopes and dreams of a bunch of people who go to a disco called the Zoo on the same night — boasted many elements that “Saturday Night Fever” lacked.

It featured a performance by the Commodores.

It gave us dialogue in which people said things like, "Hey, don't give me that funky jive, man" and really meant it.

But most importantly, “Thank God It’s Friday” features Donna Summer playing a feisty, aspiring disco star even though she was already an established disco star in real life. And as such, she introduced the world to “Last Dance,” one of her signature tunes and a track that would go on to win the Academy Award for best original song, making the following sentence accurate. “Thank God It’s Friday” is an Oscar-winning film.

Suzi Parker, writing for She the People, wrote about the influence of the song “Bad Girls”:

"Bad Girls," a themed-album about prostitution, sold more than 2 million copies in the United States. Suddenly, every girl wanted to be a bad girl and walk on the Sunset Strip. We bought satin disco pants and skated under sparkling lights at the roller rink, pretending we were stars at Studio 54 in New York. Donna Summer offered escape from cliques and homework.

Summer influenced me to love music. From that 8-track of "Bad Girls" that my parents bought me, Summer led me to bands that loved synthesizers, such as Blondie and pop icons Duran Duran.

As fans recall their favorite songs, there has been an outpouring of sympathy, including a collection of flowers at Summer’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Celebritology reported about rumors of plans for a public memorial:

TMZ reported that a public memorial service for Summer had been planned for Wednesday in Nashville, a city she made her home in 1994. But Summer's publicist Brian Edwards told Celebritology via e-mail that "reports of a public memorial are not accurate."

Edwards said “final details” about a memorial service are not available at this time.

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