disco
Evelyn Thomas, the powerhouse vocalist who helped define the hi-NRG dance music scene of the 1980s with her international hit “High Energy,” has died at the age of 70. The news was confirmed by her longtime producer and mentor Ian Levine on social media. No cause of death was disclosed.
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“It is hard for me to accept that my lifelong protege really has left us,” Levine wrote on X. “Her music will outlive us all.”
Born on Aug. 22, 1953, in Chicago, Thomas first caught the attention of the music industry when Levine discovered her in 1975.
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Her debut single “Weak Spot” became her first chart success, peaking at No. 26 on the U.K. Singles Chart in 1976. The early triumph led to an appearance on the influential British music show Top of the Pops, marking the beginning of her ascent in the music world.
Thomas’s career exploded with the release of “High Energy” in 1984. The track topped the Billboard Hot Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart for one week and reached No. 85 on the Billboard Hot 100. Co-written and co-produced by Levine and Fiachra Trench, it became a defining moment in the emerging hi-NRG genre, a high-tempo offshoot of disco that dominated clubs in the mid-1980s.
“Nobody else in the world could have ever sung it,” Levine noted about vocal prowess. The pulsating dance anthem achieved remarkable commercial success, selling an impressive seven million records worldwide. As of 2024, “High Energy” continues to resonate with listeners, boasting over 15 million streams on Spotify.
Thomas’s powerful four-octave range and emotive delivery set her apart in the dance music scene. DJ and music historian Bill Brewster commented, “Evelyn’s voice had this incredible ability to convey both vulnerability and strength. She was a cornerstone of the hi-NRG movement.”
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Following the success of “High Energy,” Thomas continued to make her presence felt on the charts.
Her soulful rendition of The Supremes’ “Reflections” climbed to No. 18 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart in 1985, while “How Many Hearts” ascended to No. 11 in 1986. Both tracks were featured on her final studio album, Standing at the Crossroads (1986).
Thomas’s discography includes notable albums such as I Wanna Make It on My Own (1978) and High Energy (1984).
Levine revealed that Thomas had reached out to him “in love” in recent months, aware of her declining health. The reconciliation led Levine and Trench to compose a final song for her titled “Inspirational,” though Thomas was ultimately too ill to record it.
Her daughter, recording artist YaYa Diamond (born Kimberly), intends to record the track as a heartfelt tribute to her mother’s legacy.
Watch “High Energy” by Evelyn Thomas below.
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Unapologetically gay disco pioneer Sylvester was one of the many LGBTQ artists whose lives were cut short by the AIDS epidemic in the ’80s while the Republican-led government willfully ignored the crisis or actively blamed its victims. But while Sylvester, the human being, died at 41 of AIDS-related complications in 1988, Sylvester, the Queen of Disco, is immortal — and Pride Month 2023 finds the legend being honored twofold.
A newly available anthology, Disco Heat: The Fantasy Years 1977-1981, draws on the six albums he recorded for Fantasy Records, covering his three Billboard Hot 100 top 40 hits – “Dance (Disco Heat),” the undying classic “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and a version of “I (Who Have Nothing)” — as well as rare 12-inch mixes. After that, New York City’s venerable Lincoln Center is saluting the trailblazer with a tribute concert featuring performances from Inaya Day, Mykal Kilgore, Dawn Richard, Byron Stingily and Kevin Aviance on June 15.
Finally, it seems, the world is catching up to Sylvester – even if it is 50 years after his debut album. But when “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” began to gain traction in 1978, most people simply weren’t ready for a human as mightily real as Sylvester.
“The thing was, my brief for promoting Sylvester was to tell him to downplay his gayness,” Sharon Davis, who worked as a publicist for Fantasy Records in the U.K. in the late ‘70s, tells Billboard. “The U.K. just was not ready for this type of open-minded artist. And it was felt that his career could be dead in the water if he promoted his gayness, despite having an international dance hit under his belt.”
Regardless of any brief from the record company, Sylvester was hardly closeted. He wore women’s clothing, hit the stage wearing makeup and took gender-bending flamboyance to peaks that even a glam-era David Bowie never dared to scale.
Rudy Calvo, a veteran makeup artist who has worked with everyone from Patti LaBelle to Chaka Khan to Natalie Cole, remembers the first time he saw Sylvester and the Hot Band perform at L.A.’s Whisky a Go Go in 1973. “Sylvester and his posse hit the stage like an 5F tornado,” Calvo raves. “His hair was in a turban, and he was wearing lots and lots of bracelets you could hear clinking in the back of the room. His face was painted to perfection, which added to the drama of his androgynous stage persona.”
Davis – whose book Mighty Real: Sharon Davis Remembers Sylvester is currently being expanded and rewritten now that the film rights have been picked up – says Sylvester casually used feminine and masculine pronouns. “Sylvester was happy being a man,” Davis explains. “In leisure time, if he was in gay company, he would use the term ‘she’ but in public always referred to himself as ‘he.’” While she admits that the androgynous imagery of glam rockers like Bowie and Marc Bolan helped bring about “a certain tolerance in the U.K. music business,” people weren’t fully ready to embrace a gay-gay disco star. “Being bisexual seemed to be the get-out clause at that time,” she opines.
Despite Sylvester’s flashy threads — and a falsetto that soared so high it scraped heaven — both Davis and Calvo describe him as comparatively reserved in private. “He was quiet, softly spoken,” Davis says. “I loved the calmness about him. Yet he could be as stubborn as a mule if he didn’t want to do something.” Calvo – who became friends with Sylvester not long after he caught the artist’s 1973 show at the Whisky – recalls him similarly. “He was totally different from the person you saw on stage,” Calvo says. “The way he dressed, he seemed very flamboyant; in reality, he was very low-key.”
Calvo says he and Sylvester bonded over a shared love for “underground artists like Betty Davis” and a mutual respect for each other’s styles. The afternoon before Calvo caught Sylvester’s Whisky set in ’73, he had been scouring a flea market in West Hollywood for the perfect outfit to wear to the show. After picking up “a vintage yellow bowling shirt with silver threading woven throughout” to complement his bell-bottoms and platforms, Calvo clocked a striking man with bright pink hair also browsing the selections. Later that night, backstage at the Whisky, both Calvo and Sylvester realized they had been admiring each other’s fashion sense from afar at the flea market. “Oh, you were the guy at the flea market with the cool haircut,” Sylvester told Calvo when the makeup artist took off his hat to reveal a “short-spiked cockatoo” haircut. In turn, Sylvester “lifted off his turban to reveal his hidden pink electric hair,” says Calvo.
Four years after they first met, Calvo gave Sylvester a preview listen to Patti LaBelle’s self-titled debut album. “The first time he heard the song ‘You Are My Friend,’ he said, ‘I could do something like this.’” Two years later, Sylvester released a live cover of the song (backed by The Weather Girls) on his Living Proof album; the song became a top 30 hit on what’s now called the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and appears on the Disco Heat: The Fantasy Years 1977-1981 anthology. At one concert, the soul icon and the disco pioneer even performed it together. “When he hit the stage, it was like a church experience,” Calvo says. “He brought that energy of gospel to his music. It was like disco gospel.”
“His smile was wonderful, as it lit up his face, and his lisp so attractive,” Davis says. “A beautiful man on many levels. I shall always be grateful to have his friendship. And call him my brother.”
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“I have a secret life. You’re looking at me, but what you see is not what I am.”
That’s just one of the illuminating self-reflections peppered throughout the new documentary Love to Love You, Donna Summer. The film premieres on HBO this weekend (May 20), coinciding with the anniversary of Summer’s death from lung cancer on May 17, 2012.
“The timing wasn’t pre-planned,” Summer’s daughter and the film’s co-director Brooklyn Sudano tells Billboard during a recent phone interview. “But with the anniversary of her passing, it feels like a full-circle moment; like it was meant to be.”
As was the pairing with her co-director, Academy Award winner Roger Ross Williams, because the duo have delivered a loving-yet-unvarnished look at the real woman — Donna Adrian Gaines — behind the artist who kept the club floors crowded with hot disco, R&B and pop hits such as “Love to Love You Baby,” “I Feel Love,” “Hot Stuff,” “Bad Girls” and “She Works Hard for the Money.”
As Williams noted to Billboard, Summer “was so much more than” the Queen of Disco. And through strikingly candid comments and recollections by family (including husband Bruce Sudano and daughters Mimi, Brooklyn and Amanda), creative colleagues (producer Giorgio Moroder), Summer herself and others, the documentary peels away the various layers underneath the star persona.
The five-time Grammy Award winner was also a daughter, sister, wife, mother, abuse survivor, painter and a very spiritual being, all while wrestling with the demands and sacrifices that come with stardom. Just as insightful are the accompanying family home movies and backstage/on-the-road videos that Summer shot, as well as memory-evoking concert footage that underscores what a multi-talent she truly was.
Brooklyn Sudano
Maria Dunlap Berlin
Asked what her mother’s reaction would be after watching Love to Love You, Donna Summer, Sudano says, “She would probably be laughing hysterically and saying, ‘See I told you so,’ because she always called me ‘the reporter.’ As a kid, I was always the great sharer of news at the dinner table. So it seems appropriate that my first film report is on her. [Laughs] But I think she’d be very proud.”
Below, find more from Billboard‘s interview with Sudano and Williams:
Before filming began, what was your vision?
Sudano: I had become a mother myself and had lost my mother. So I was grappling with that process and trying to understand it. At the same time, so many people were coming up to me and sharing their personal stories about interacting with my mom or how impactful her music had been in their own lives. I just felt there was so much to say and so much that people didn’t fully understand about my mother and her artistry. So about seven years ago, I talked to my dad about it and he’s like, “Let’s do it.” Then after a bit of time, Roger and I crossed paths. We were able to collaborate in a way that has been truly magical; we were lock-stepped in our vision.
Williams: It had been my dream to make a film about Donna Summer as I’m a huge fan. And when I met Brooklyn, the dream came true. It’s been an incredible journey; from the beginning we had the same vision of not making your typical music documentary, to really dive deep into the emotional core of who Donna was as a person and an artist.
How difficult was it to draw such candid comments from those you interviewed?
Sudano: I don’t think you can really understand somebody or their artistry unless you really know who they are; to see what they’ve been through. It gives deeper meaning to her journey and music. A lot of people were hesitant at first when they began speaking to Roger and I. But they were able to get things off their chest. It was cathartic for them talk about my mother in a way that they hadn’t been able to before. I give everybody credit for being honest and willing because it made the movie what we wanted it to be: deeply personal and deeply grounded. Hopefully, that will set this film apart from anything that’s ever been done on her life before.
Williams: Being interviewed by Donna’s daughter, I think, gave everyone in Donna’s life permission to open up and tell the truth. There were a lot of tears of joy and sorrow. It was a mourning and healing process for everyone involved. They got to talk about a woman they love.
Roger Ross Williams
Justin Bettman
What was the hardest challenge in doing this project?
Williams: For me, the most difficult part was sorting through such an incredible treasure trove of Donna’s home movies, videos and thousands and thousands of photos. There was so much material to create the collage that we did.
Sudano: I agree. When you have a personality and a life like my mother’s that was so full and spans decades, the challenge was in crystallizing all the moments that were the most impactful. And then the songs … using them in a way that was fresh but also as a way to move the storytelling forward. In trying to weave all those things together, I give a lot of credit to our amazing editor, Enat Sidi. Finding the proper structure in making this feel like a real immersive experience was probably the trickiest part.
What one thing did you learn in the process?
Sudano: A better depth of understanding about how intense stardom felt like for my mother and the sacrifices that it took for her and our family … like being a mother and having to be away from her daughters so much. As much as it’s my mother’s story, it’s our individual stories as well because we are part of her. On a personal level, having these conversations with other family members has brought a lot of healing for us. I just have a deep respect and gratitude for my mother’s sacrifices — and respect for the strength it took for her to survive that. What she did was not easy.
Williams: That Donna had this incredible sense of humor. The home movies that Donna would shoot or videos she filmed backstage and on the road were just hilarious. It was a real insight into her personality. Like many, I just knew Donna as the Queen of Disco. But she was so much more than that. She was the first woman to win a rock ‘n’ roll vocal Grammy [for “Hot Stuff” in 1980, when the best rock vocal performance, female prize was first awarded]. I mean come on … that’s an amazing accomplishment. She was the first Black woman artist to have a video on MTV. She was the first in so many things as an artist.
What do you want viewers to take away after watching?
Williams: Donna Summer is an incredibly layered, complex artist who, in my opinion, has been under-appreciated. Everyone who watches this film will see her immense talent and all the facets of her artistry. She deserves that.
Sudano: I want people to understand that my mother was a real artist. That she used her gifts to spread love, joy and healing. And I hope that she’s remembered in the great lexicon of music and culture as somebody who was impactful and influential. This film is an extension of that legacy.
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