Donna Summer, queen of disco, dies of cancer at 63

Donna Summer, the multimillion-selling singer and songwriter whose hits captured both the giddy hedonism of the 1970s disco era and the feisty female solidarity of the early 1980s, died of lung cancer Thursday at her home in Naples, Fla. She was 63.
With her doe eyes, cascade of hair and sinuous dance moves, Summer became the queen of disco — the music's glamorous public face — as well as an idol with a substantial gay following. Her voice, airy and ethereal or brightly assertive, sailed over dance floors and leapt from radios from the mid-1970s well into the 1980s.

She riffled through styles as diverse as funk, electronica, rock and torch song as she piled up 14 Top 10 singles in the United States, among them "Hot Stuff," "Last Dance" and "She Works Hard for the Money." In the late 1970s, she had three double albums in a row that reached No. 1, and each sold more than a million copies.
Summer won a total of five Grammy Awards for dance music, R&B, rock and gospel. Her recorded catalog spans the orgasmic moans of her first hit, "Love to Love You Baby," the streetwalker chronicle of "Bad Girls," the feminist moxie of "She Works Hard for the Money" and the religious devotion of "Forgive Me," a gospel song that earned her another Grammy.

Well into the 2000s, she continued to appear on the dance-music charts: three songs from her last studio album, "Crayons," in 2008, reached No. 1 on the dance chart, as did her final single, "To Paris With Love," in 2010.
Through it all, Summer's voice held on to an optimistic spirit, and she garnered loyal fans. In 2009 she performed in Oslo at the concert honoring the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to President Barack Obama.

On Thursday, the president released a statement, saying, "Her voice was unforgettable, and the music industry has lost a legend far too soon."
She is survived by her husband, Bruce Sudano, three daughters — Brooklyn Sudano, Amanda Sudano and Mimi Dohler — and four grandchildren. She is also survived by a brother and four sisters.
"This music will always be with us," Summer said in 2003. "I mean, whether they call it disco music or hip-hop or bebop or flip-flop, whatever they're going to call it, I think music to dance to will always be with us."