Donna Summer 'Crayons' album

CRAYONS with all its songs co-written by Donna Summer, is an international banquet of musical delights and surprises. Singer/songwriter/pop culture icon Donna Summer has been working hard on CRAYONS, her bold and long-awaited new collection of songs, the artist's first full-length studio album of newly-penned material since 1991's "Mistaken Identity" and her first new release since "VH1 Presents: Live & More Encore!," the CD (and DVD) companion to her top-rated VH1 television special which returned her to the Billboard Top 200 in 1999.

The arrival of a new Donna Summer album is a major musical event and CRAYONS is a worthy addition to one of the world's most influential musical catalogs. Five-time Grammy winner, Donna Summer, maintains an unbroken string of hits throughout the 70s and 80s, most of which she wrote. Donna holds the record for most consecutive double albums to hit #1 on the Billboard charts (3) and first female to have four #1 singles in a 12 month period; 3 as a solo artist and one as a duo with Barbara Streisand.

Songs on CRAYONS run the musical gamut from "a really real pop pop song" like "The Science of Love," to retro-modern "dance-oriented" tracks like "I'm A Fire,“ to the "socially conscious" "Bring Down The Reign" and the world-music-flavored "Driving Down Brazil.”

With the album's centerpiece ballad, "Be Myself Again," the artist creates the album's most intimate and revelatory musical meditation. "What I wanted to do," she says, "is strip down a song. I wanted it to be a cappella. There's always so much hoopla around the voice, I wanted to do a song where there's no hoopla. There's just you and the audience listening to somebody who's just singing to themselves, singing about the intimate parts of what it has taken to do what they do. The thing to do is stay connected to the true self and that's really difficult in show business. That's what the song is about."

"I wanted this album to have a lot of different directions on it, I did not want it to be any one baby. I just wanted it to be a sampler of flavors and influences from all over the world. There's a touch of this, a little smidgeon of that, a dash of something else ... like when you're cooking." – Donna Summer

US Tour Dates
6/24 Nashville, TN @ T-PAC
6/26 Marksville, LA @ Paragon Casino & Resort-Mari Center
6/27 Lake Charles, LA @ L Auberge du Lac Casino - Event Center
6/28 Lake Charles, LA @ L Auberge du Lac Casino - Event Center
7/1 Atlanta, GA @ Chastain Park Amphitheater
7/3 Newport News, VA @ Ferguson Center for the Arts
7/5 Vienna ,VA @ The Filene Center
7/8 Gilford, NH @ Meadowbrook Musical Arts Center
7/9 Uncasville, CT @ Mohegan Sun Arena
7/11 Bethel, NY @ Bethel Woods Center for the Arts
7/12 Boston, MA @ Bank of America Pavilion
7/13 Ottawa, ON @ Cisco Systems Bluesfest
7/16 Baltimore, MD @ Pier 6 Pavilion
7/18 Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Center
7/19 Wantagh, NY @ Nikon at Jones Beach Music Theater
7/20 Salamanca, NY @ Seneca Allegany Casino
7/22 RAMA, ON @ Casino Rama -- Entertainment Centre
7/23 RAMA, ON @ Casino Rama -- Entertainment Centre
7/25 Atlantic City, NJ @ Caesars Atlantic City
7/26 Atlantic City, NJ @ Caesars Atlantic City
7/27 Westhampton Beach, NY @ Westhampton Beach Perf. Arts Ctr
8/6 Seattle, WA @ Benaroya Hall
8/8 Richmond, BC @ River Rock Casino Resort
8/9 Richmond, BC @ River Rock Casino Resort
8/10 Spokane, WA @ Northern Quest Casino
8/13 Saratoga, CA @ The Mountain Winery
8/15 Reno, NV @ Peppermill Reno Hotel Casino
8/16 Oakland, CA @ Paramount Theatre of the Arts
8/17 Santa Rosa, CA @ Wells Fargo Center for the Arts
8/20 Alpine, CA @ Viejas - Concerts in the Park
8/22 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl
8/23 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl
8/27 Windsor Casino @ Windsor Limited
8/28 Windsor Casino @ Windsor Limited
8/30 Highland Park, IL @ Ravinia Pavilion
8/31 Prior Lake, MN @ Mystic Lake Casino

biography
An artist who once defined the ‘70s pop music generation as the “Queen of Disco,” Donna Summer has become one of the world’s leading singers and songwriters. The career of the five-time Grammy-winner spans a range of musical genres from R&B and rock to inspirational and dance.Born Donna Gaines to a large family in Boston, she developed an early interest in music. From the age of eight, Summer sang in church choirs and city-wide choruses, and by her early twenties she began performing in the musical theatre in Germany. While there, she won parts in such highly-acclaimed shows as Hair, Showboat, Godspell, and Porgy and Bess. She also met producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte who produced her first single, Hostage, which became a hit in the Netherlands, France and Belgium.

In 1975, Moroder and Bellotte produced the international hit, Love to Love You Baby which rose to 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and triggered Summer’s triumphant return to the United States as a key figure of the new disco genre. Love to Love You Baby paved the way for such Grammy-award winning hits as Hot Stuff as well as the Academy-award winning theme song Last Dance from the film Thank God It’s Friday, which remains a shining moment of Summer’s career.

In 1980, Summer became the first artist to sign with David Geffen’s new label, Geffen Records, leaving her disco days behind and moving into the next phase of her career with The Wanderer. In the years that followed, Summer collaborated with writers and producers such as Quincy Jones, Michael Omartian and England’s Stock Aitkan & Waterman and produced a steady stream of hits from the uplifting State of Independence to the anthem She Works Hard For The Money. In 1994, she released Endless Summer, a greatest hits retrospective, containing a new song, Melody of Love, which became Billboard’s 1 Dance Record of the Year. She also released the critically acclaimed album Christmas Spirit, a collection of Summer’s original songs and holiday standards recorded with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. Summer spent the ’90s continuing to tour, performing to sold-out audiences.

In 1997, when the new “Best Dance Recording” Category was created at the Grammy Awards, Donna Summer was the first winner with her fifth career Grammy award for Carry On. In 1999, Sony/Epic Records released VH1 Presents Donna Summer: Live & More – Encore!, an album of Summer’s critically acclaimed VH1 broadcast taped at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom. The show premiered on VH1 as one of the network’s highest rated shows to date and featured live performances of 10 of Summer’s top ten pop singles as well as three new songs. Ms. Summer has earned 5 Grammy awards, 3 consecutive 1 platinum albums (she is the only artist ever to accomplish this), 11 gold albums, 4 1 singles, 2 platinum singles, and 12 gold singles. In addition to her recording and performing career, Donna Summer is an accomplished visual artist whose work has been shown at exhibitions and galleries in every major U.S. city and in Japan in a special exhibition sponsored by Steven Spielberg. In 2003, Random House published her first book, “Ordinary Girl,” co-authored with Marc Eliot. Donna Summer is a consummate artist and songwriter with a vocal range exceeded only by her diverse talents in musical and other artistic genres.

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Tracklisting

Donna Summer - Crayons