When success finally knocked on Donna Summer’s door in 1976, the singer was approaching her thirties and had almost her entire stage life behind her. Settled in Germany for seven years, after having accepted a role in the German version of the hit comedy Hair, the American singer met two talents who would change her life: Pete Bellotte and Giorgio Moroder. After getting her to change her marital name Sommer to Summer, the producer duo get to work.
A first album “Lady of the Night” was released in the Netherlands in 1974. The single “The Hostage” enjoyed critical acclaim, particularly in France, but it was nothing compared to the surge that awaited the singer with her future title “Love To Love You Baby”. The inspiration for the song, Donna Summer owes it to the sulphurous hit by Serge Gainsbourg, performed by Jane Birkin, “Je T’aime… Moi non plus”, released in 1969, and whose sales resumed during the year 1974 A comeback that challenges Giorgio Moroder to whom Donna Summer suggests recording their own “love song”.
“At first, I didn’t want to listen to him”
Taken at her word, the American singer quickly finds herself with the beginning of a piece and the obligation therefore to sing the few words she has written on this composition as sensual as it is innovative. The one who was entrusted with the explicit moans of the song to a chorister launches into a studio emptied of its occupants and in which the light has been dimmed. The track is in the box and will get off to a shy start. It must be said that even Donna Summer is reluctant to listen to it and that the title, considered obscene, is refused by many radios.
“At first I didn’t want to listen to it. When I heard some ooh, aah, I turned blue! But it doesn’t bother me anymore”will comment in particular on the singer to the magazine Rolling Stone.
