Incorporating pieces from previous posts, this is not part of my current book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), but may appear in the hypothetical GREM! (Volume 2).
An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!
Rock 'n' roll.
In the late seventies, Donna Summer was the Queen of Disco. Her sovereign status in that realm was undisputed. Who could challenge her? Andrea True? Please. With the seduction-to-the beat of 1975's "Love To Love You Baby," the new wave sound of the future pulsing in 1977's "I Feel Love," and disco smashes like "Last Dance" and "MacArthur Park" in '78, Donna Summer established herself as royalty under the flashing lights, the sun ne'er to set on her every-night-fever empire.
In 1979, Donna Summer wanted to record a rock song. Back in the sixties, Summer had been the lead singer in a rock band called Crow, so why the hell shouldn't the Queen of Disco annex the rock world as well?
She succeeded, but everyone still considered her rock record "Hot Stuff" a disco song. Really, "Hot Stuff" was both, a dance number with a Big Rock posture, an AOR re-imagining of life under the flashing lights, complete with a guitar solo by classic rock heavyweight Jeff "Skunk" Baxter. As the rock record it is, it's one of the best AOR tracks of the era, maybe the best. AOR snubbed it because it's Donna Summer. Too hot for ya? Not my problem, and I much prefer Donna Summer and "Hot Stuff" to a lot of what was getting album-rock FM play at the time.
My own story of recognizing the song's legit rock cred is, at best, a tangent to the Donna Summer story, and really not even that. It involves a club show I witnessed in 1979, the first time I saw former New York Dolls lead singer David Johansen live. Johansen's encore that night was, of course, the Dolls' signature tune "Personality Crisis."
If you're familiar with the Dolls' original recording of "Personality Crisis," you know there's a pause in the song just before its two-minute mark, followed by Johansen whooping And you're a prima ballerina on a spring afternoon!, the band returning as well with wolf-whistles and guitar grunge. In a live performance of the song, it's a natural spot to throw in a snippet of a different song as a willful non sequitur, illustrating the schizophrenic nature of a personality crisis. In '79, I think I'd read in Trouser Press that Johansen was doing "Personality Crisis" as an unlikely medley with Bonnie Tyler's "It's A Heartache" (a song which channeled Rod Stewart so effectively that I thought Bonnie was Rod; she was, in fact, bigger than Rod). That night at the Slide Inn in Syracuse, I'm sure I half-expected to hear "It's A Heartache" in the middle of "Personality Crisis."
But...no. The song's pause came, and a familiar guitar riff suddenly filled the Slide, as patrons like me, with senses slowed by beer, struggled to mentally name that tune in...OH MY GOD, IT'S DONNA SUMMER!!
I guess the divine Miss S actually appearing at the Slide to duet with David Jo would have been a bigger surprise than just hearing him sing a Summer song, but maybe not by much. Sittin' here eatin' my heart out waitin', waitin' for some lover to call. "Hot Stuff." Donna Summer. One could argue that Summer's own version of "Hot Stuff" was already more of a rock song than it was a disco song. It certainly rocked in the capable hands of the David Johansen Group.
The connection was monumental. We were punks and rockers, boppin' with unironic intent to a song--a great song--by the reigning queen of disco. Johansen's short cover was faithful and true, so we couldn't claim he'd somehow redeemed the song. The song was already great; our own closed ears may have made us deaf to its charm. Until that instant.
This wasn't my first realization that maybe some disco or disco-related music wasn't necessarily awful. But David Johansen singing Donna Summer, even if it was just an excerpt of one of her songs, performed and contained within a cantankerous classic by the New York Dolls, was an irresistible manifesto for a brokered peace between the battling factions of punk, disco, and rock 'n' roll. Cease fire. War is over if you want it.
Yeah, I know it wasn't really that simple. Schisms remained, and would remain. But I saw. I heard. I wasn't alone in that. By the eighties, as punk and new wave had slid into new (later alternative) music and disco's commercial day had passed for the time being, lines continued to blur. Much of the mainstream rock crowd still hated us, but that was okay. We were fighting the good fight. Looking for a lover who needs another, don't want another night on my own. Fall in, troops. No sleep 'til victory. A New York Doll says Donna Summer's here, and the time is right for dancing in the streets.
But really, we should never have needed anyone's Rock Cred stamp of approval in the first place. "Hot Stuff" is cool, paradox be damned, especially when it's Donna Summer. Hot summer! Hot enough for ya? The Queen of Disco rocks.
If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar.
My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.
No comments:
Post a Comment