NEW YORK — Donna Summer, the Queen of Disco who ruled the pop charts through the ’70s with “Last Dance” and “Hot Stuff,” died Thursday morning after a battle with cancer, according to TMZ and E! News. She was 63.
Summer brought a model’s style and a booming, gospel-trained voice to the repetitive electronic dance music of Europe in the mid-’70s and turned it into an international phenomenon, starting with “Love to Love You Baby” in 1975. Her impressive string of dance hits spawned five decades, after landing a No. 1 dance single last year with “To Paris With Love.”
Though dance music, as well as her career, came in and out of favor, Summer always believed in its power.
“I think dance music is happy music,” she told Newsday in 2008, before an appearance on Long Island. “It makes you euphoric. When I go to a dance floor, I want to hear something that will help me shake off every negative thing and all the work from the week before, and all I can think about is being free for a minute.”
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- In this May 21, 2008 file photo, Donna Summer performs during the finale of “American Idol” at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.
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