Donna Qoofolk Cross

New York comedy and cabaret singer-cum-jazz vocalist Donna Brooks is heard here on her third recorded outing for the Dawn label, and her first true full-length. Recorded in 1956, the smoky, sultry-voiced Brooks has a delivery that is a dead cross between Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington. With a fronting band of a generic piano trio, Brooks is nonetheless a fine interpreter of modern jazz song. Here she covers the Kaye/Mossman classic "Full Moon And Empty Arms," Mel Torme's "A Stranger In Town," Rodgers and Hart's "I Didn't Know What Time It Was," Cole Porter's "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To," and the Martin & Blane nugget "An Occasional Man," and infuses them with a beautifully haunting femme fatale quality, with a perfect ear for nuance and color, and stunning pronunciation and articulation…

A Hot Summer Night was filmed and recorded live on 6th August 1983, at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, CA, with an audience of 18,000 fans, during the second-leg of Donna Summer’s 1983 Hard For The Money tour, which supported the recently released She Works Hard For The Money album. Restored from the analogue video tapes, this is the concert’s debut album release and therefore the makes it a perfect sequel to 1978’s Live And More. The set-list includes MacArthur Park, Love Is In Control…, Bad Girls Medley, On The Radio and Last Dance, as well as performances with special guests Musical Youth, her sisters Dara and Mary Ellen on an extended showpiece version of Woman, as well as closing the show with her eldest daughter Mimi, performing State Of Independence.

It's September 1981 and it's matter of weeks away from the release of I'm A Rainbow, the second album Donna Summer had recorded for Geffen Records, which had been produced by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. At the time that the album was being recorded, the musical landscape had changed and production techniques were developing further. Geffen also wanted a more R&B-influenced album, despite the album having a more R&B feel than The Wanderer had done. The songs and their lyrical content were very strong and Donna's voice had never sounded better, which was always a tough comparison against previous albums. A decision was taken by the label to withdraw I'm A Rainbow just prior to it's release.

A Hot Summer Night was filmed and recorded live on 6th August 1983, at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, CA, with an audience of 18,000 fans, during the second-leg of Donna Summer’s 1983 Hard For The Money tour, which supported the recently released She Works Hard For The Money album. Restored from the analogue video tapes, this is the concert’s debut album release and therefore the makes it a perfect sequel to 1978’s Live And More. The set-list includes MacArthur Park, Love Is In Control…, Bad Girls Medley, On The Radio and Last Dance, as well as performances with special guests Musical Youth, her sisters Dara and Mary Ellen on an extended showpiece version of Woman, as well as closing the show with her eldest daughter Mimi, performing State Of Independence.