Singer Donna Summer was the first and perhaps only true luminary of the disco era. Beginning with a breakthrough 1975 hit that pigeonholed her as a libidinous electrified diva, Summer recorded several albums over the next few years that brought her international fame; for a brief time her style even seemed to be breaking down racial barriers in American pop music. She was often referred to as the "queen of disco" and by 1979 had topped the charts with Bad Girls, the best-selling album by a female performer that year.

Summer was born La Donna Gaines in 1948 and grew up in Boston. As a youth, she sang gospel in her church and moved to Europe before finishing high school when offered a role in the stage version of the popular hippie musical Hair. She spent the next several years in Germany, married an Austrian named Helmut...