Donna Summer

Born Donna Adrian Gaines in Boston, she dropped out of high school, fronted a blues rock band, and landed in Munich in 1968 for the German cast of Hair. There she met Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, who produced her 1974 debut and the 1975 breakthrough "Love to Love You Baby" - a sultry, extended disco track that hit number two in the US and made her Casablanca Records' "First Lady of Love." Three gold albums followed, then I Remember Yesterday in 1977 with "I Feel Love," a stark, synthesizer-driven anthem that became a cornerstone of electronic dance music. She stacked hits through the late '70s - "Last Dance," "MacArthur Park," "Hot Stuff," "Bad Girls" - and in 1979 became the first woman to score three number one singles in a single year. The backlash against disco and rumored homophobic remarks fractured her base; she left Casablanca in 1980, tried rock and gospel at Geffen, then returned to the top ten in 1983 with "She Works Hard for the Money." A 1989 collaboration with Stock Aitken Waterman gave her a final top ten placing, and she kept recording until lung cancer took her in Naples, Florida, in 2012. A year later, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted he