Have you ever wondered how an artist’s trajectory might have turned out differently if just one decision had gone another way? In the case of the illustrious career of Donna Summer, that’s actually an easy game to play. In the latter half of the 1970s she established herself as the “Queen of Disco,” then expanded her sonic palette on her exceptional 1979 double album Bad Girls. The early ‘80s were a transitional time for Summer musically and personally, and in 1981, she reached a fork in the road professionally.
The path Summer took resulted in a change of musical direction. Summer’s widower and songwriting partner Bruce Sudano (also formerly of Alive ‘N Kickin’ and Brooklyn Dreams) sat down with American Songwriter on a video call to discuss why the superstar abandoned a nearly completed album and a successful long-standing partnership just two years after reaching her commercial apex in order to pursue a different sound. He also shares his thoughts on I’m a Rainbow—the album that had to wait 15 years to get released.
A High-Stakes Release
Summer was one of the most popular recording artists of the late ‘70s, and she was arguably the biggest star in music in 1979. Bad Girls spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 that summer, and both that album and Live and More finished in the Top 10 of Billboard’s year-end album chart. Summer had five singles in Top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 during 1979, and “Hot Stuff,” “Bad Girls,” and “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” (with Barbra Streisand) all went to No. 1.
The end of the decade brought the end of Summer’s relationship with Casablanca Records, which released each of her albums from her 1975 breakthrough Love to Love You Baby to her late-1979 compilation On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volume I & II. Summer’s The Wanderer, released in October 1980, was the first album to be put out on the Geffen Records label. Though the title track rose to No. 3 on the Hot 100, the album missed the Top 10 of the Billboard 200, and it spent just 18 weeks on the chart.
Summer went into the studio to record her follow-up album five months after the release of The Wanderer. Sudano said the label “was insecure” in its early stages, adding, “Donna was the first artist signed to Geffen Records. It was a very big deal. There was a lot riding on it.”
Though Summer had already recorded, by Sudano’s account, “75 [to] 80 percent” of what would eventually become the I’m a Rainbow double album, label head David Geffen decided to scrap the project altogether. Instead of having Summer start anew with her longtime producers and co-writers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, Geffen had Summer record a new set of songs with producer Quincy Jones.
Going All in on R&B
Much like Bad Girls did, the 18 tracks that comprised I’m a Rainbow spanned a variety of genres, from R&B to electronic to new wave to, yes, even disco. However, Sudano says, “I think [Geffen] was trying to position Donna a little differently. … Seems like the musical climate had changed. And maybe he wanted to push Donna a little bit more into an R&B direction.”
So instead of the musically varied album she had been working on with Moroder and Bellotte, Summer made her self-titled album, which had a smooth R&B feel. The influence of Toto, who lent Steve Lukather, David Paich, Steve Porcaro, and Jeff Porcaro to several tracks, can be heard. (Meanwhile, Toto was concurrently recording their career-defining smash Toto IV.) The only tracks that veered from the new direction were the Bruce Springsteen-penned “Protection” and the electronic “Love Is Just a Breath Away,” which Summer co-wrote with David Foster and Rod Temperton.
While Geffen thought that having Summer work with Jones would create a sure-fire hit, Donna Summer only made it to No. 20 on the Billboard 200. It did enjoy a much longer stay on the chart than The Wanderer, lasting 37 weeks spawning the Top-10 single “Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger).”
I’m a Rainbow Finally Shines
I’m a Rainbow eventually got its day in the sun, as Mercury Records and Casablanca Records released it in August 1996. Sudano says the songs were fully formed compositions, and production was nearly completed. He adds, “I don’t know that, at the end of the day, it was meant to be a double album. … In my estimation, it could have been narrowed down to a very strong single album.”
While Donna Summer may have been the better reflection of the early ‘80s zeitgeist, I’m a Rainbow is a snapshot of a period that was full of change in Summer’s personal life. She and Sudano were married in 1980, and their daughter Brooklyn was born just a couple of months prior to the first sessions for I’m a Rainbow in 1981. The album includes Summer’s loving (and funky) ode to their newborn daughter, “Brooklyn.” By the time Summer shifted to working with Jones, she was pregnant with her and Sudano’s daughter Amanda.
Sudano notes the track “Romeo” became something of a hit long before the release of I’m a Rainbow due to its inclusion on the Flashdance soundtrack in 1983. He also mentions that besides “Romeo,” the title track and a cover of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from the musical Evita were tracks from I’m a Rainbow that made it onto Summer’s live set lists. Sudano wrote the title track about the various aspects of his own personality, and he says, “Donna completely related to it, because she basically saw herself the same way.”
How would Summer’s discography have developed if I’m a Rainbow had been released right after The Wanderer instead of Donna Summer? Would we still have gotten “She Works Hard for the Money,” “This Time I Know It’s for Real,” or “I Will Go with You (Con te partirò)” in the years that followed? We can only speculate. Regardless of whether I’m a Rainbow was the right album for the early ‘80s, it deserved to be released, and it stands up well in a discography that has no shortage of quality albums.
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