Donna Summer
In 1975, Casablanca had signed a new artist named Donna Summer and released her album entitled Love to Love You Baby which was certified gold. The title song would be over 17 minutes long, and Casablanca would release the song in its entirety as a single (a shorter version would also be promoted to radio). In releasing the 17 minute version as a single, Casablanca would help make popular a format that would become known as the 12 inch. The song, which featured Summer seductively moaning and groaning, would be banned by some American radio stations (as it had been in Europe) but still claw its way to #2 on the US Hot 100. Summer would have several gold and platinum albums on Casablanca from 1975–1979, and become the label's most successful act on the singles chart. At one point, she scored eight US top 5 singles within a two-year period.
Summer would be deemed in the press as "The First Lady of Love", a moniker that she was not totally comfortable with, but one that Casablanca would continue to market to great success. Other Summer hits included "I Feel Love", "Bad Girls", the Oscar and Grammy winning "Last Dance", and the Grammy winning "Hot Stuff". Casablanca would release the Bad Girls album and watch it soar to double-platinum status. The label would follow that with a Summer greatest hits collection; a double-album entitled On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes I & II, which would also be certified double platinum, and would be Summer's last album on Casablanca.
Read more about this topic: Casablanca Records
Famous quotes containing the words donna and/or summer:
“I’m stronger knowing that while Donna Rice could be sold, she could not be bought.”
—Donna Rice (b. c. 1962)
“Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
First vague shadow of surmise
Flits across her bosom young,
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free;
Nor thou detain her vesture’s hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)