Sunshine was a disco group and the backing vocalist for singer Donna Summer. The members included Carlena Williams and Summer's sisters Linda Gaines (now Lotman), Dara Bernard, and Mary Ellen Bernard. [1] Their 1978 number one Billboard Disco hit "Take It to the Zoo" charted as "Last Dance / After Dark / Thank God It's Friday / Take It to the Zoo" by Donna Summer. [2] [3] The song was featured on the "Thank God It's Friday" film and soundtrack, was co-written by Summer (with Bruce Sudano and Joe "Bean" Esposito), who also sings background on the track.
The planned album, "Sunshine Watching Daddy Dance", was pulled at the last minute. Mary Ellen Bernard continued to perform with Summer until her sister's death on May 17, 2012. Linda Gaines Lotman, Mary Ellen Bernard, Dara Bernard and Jenette Yancey, sang "We've Come This Far By Faith" at Summer's funeral at Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville. [4]
Dara Bernard, who also toured with Summer, is now living in Atlanta, Georgia.
LaDonna Adrian Gaines, known professionally as Donna Summer, was an American singer and songwriter. She gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s and became known as the "Queen of Disco", while her music gained a global following.
Dance Club Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States. It is a national look over of club disc jockeys to determine the most popular songs being played in nightclubs across the country. It was launched as the Disco Action Top 30 chart on August 28, 1976, and became the first chart by Billboard to document the popularity of dance music. The first number-one song on the chart for the issue dated August 28, 1976, was "You Should Be Dancing" by the Bee Gees, spending five weeks atop the chart and the group's only number-one song on the chart.
Love & Kisses is a 1970s disco group assembled by European producer Alec Costandinos, with a variety of male and female singers.
Pattie Brooks is an American singer most frequently associated with the disco era. She was born in Fort Riley, Kansas to a military family. Her first break came in 1968 when she auditioned for the chorus on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. In the next decade she became a sought-after backing singer, appearing on the Bobby Darin Show and touring with, among others Helen Reddy. She sang backing vocals on Donna Summer's album I Remember Yesterday.
Thank God It's Friday is a 1978 American musical disco comedy film directed by Robert Klane and produced by Motown Productions and Casablanca FilmWorks for Columbia Pictures. Produced at the height of the disco craze, the film features The Commodores performing "Too Hot ta Trot", and Donna Summer performing "Last Dance", which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1978. The film features an early performance by Jeff Goldblum and the first major screen appearance by Debra Winger. The film also features Terri Nunn, who would go on to fame in the 1980s new wave group Berlin. This would be one of several Columbia Pictures films in which the studio's "Torch Lady" came to life in the opening credits, showing off her moves for a few seconds prior to the start of the film.
"I Feel Love" is a song by American singer and songwriter Donna Summer. Produced and co-written by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, it was recorded for Summer's fifth studio album, I Remember Yesterday (1977). The album concept was to have each track evoke a different musical decade; for "I Feel Love", the team aimed to create a futuristic mood, employing a Moog synthesizer. The song was released just before the album on May 1, 1977, as the B-side to the single "Can't We Just Sit Down ", which rose to number 20 on the US Billboard R&B chart. Two months later, the sides were flipped and the single was reissued. "I Feel Love" reached number one in Australia, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, number three in West Germany, and number six on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, and topped the charts in many other countries.
"Last Dance" is a song by American singer Donna Summer from the soundtrack album to the 1978 film Thank God It's Friday. It was written by Paul Jabara, co-produced by Summer's regular collaborator Giorgio Moroder and Bob Esty, and mixed by Grammy Award-winning producer Stephen Short, whose backing vocals are featured in the song.
Live and More is the first live album recorded by American singer-songwriter Donna Summer, and it was her second double album, released on August 28, 1978 by Casablanca Records. The live concert featured on the first three sides of this double album was recorded in the Universal Amphitheater, Los Angeles, California in 1978.
"Thank God It's Friday" is a 1978 disco song by the studio disco group Love & Kisses, popularized as the theme song of the film by the same name. It was written by European composer and producer Alec R. Costandinos. Along with the tracks: "Last Dance" by Donna Summer, "After Dark" by Pattie Brooks, and "Take it to the Zoo" by Sunshine, "Thank God It's Friday", peaked at #1 on Billboard's Disco charts. On other US charts, "Thank God It's Friday" went to #23 on the Hot Soul Singles chart and #22 on the Hot 100.
Paul Jabara, also known as Paul Frederick Jabara, was an American actor, singer, and songwriter of Lebanese ancestry, born in Brooklyn, New York. He wrote Donna Summer's Oscar-winning "Last Dance" from Thank God It's Friday (1978) as well as "No More Tears " her international hit duet with Barbra Streisand. He also cowrote The Weather Girls iconic hit "It's Raining Men". Jabara's cousin Jad Azkoul is a Lebanese-American musician specializing in classical guitar.
She Works Hard for the Money is the eleventh studio album by Donna Summer, released on June 13, 1983. It was her most successful album of the decade, and its title track became one of the biggest hits of her career.
The discography of American singer Donna Summer includes 17 studio albums and 89 singles, plus several other releases. Her first single, "Wassermann", a German version of the song "Aquarius" from the musical Hair, was released in Europe in 1968 under her maiden name, Donna Gaines. She would become known as Donna Summer from 1974 onwards. Her first full-length album under that name was Lady of the Night.
"No More Tears " is a 1979 song recorded by American singers Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer. It was written by Paul Jabara and Bruce Roberts, and produced by Giorgio Moroder and Gary Klein.
Makin' It is an American sitcom starring David Naughton that aired for nine episodes on Fridays at 8:00PM on ABC from February 1 to March 23, 1979. It also aired in the United Kingdom on ITV from March 21, 1979.
Cats Without Claws is the twelfth studio album by American pop singer Donna Summer, released on September 11, 1984. Summer had achieved monumental fame during the disco era of the 1970s, and in 1980 was signed to Geffen Records. She had had some degree of success with them, though her previous album had been released on another label. It peaked at No. 40 on Billboard's album chart.
The Brooklyn Dreams were an American singing group of the late 1970s, mixing R&B harmonies with contemporary dance/disco music and best known for a number of collaborations with singer Donna Summer. The band consisted of Joe "Bean" Esposito, Eddie Hokenson and Bruce Sudano. Esposito provided lead vocals for the band and played guitar, while Sudano played keyboards and Hokenson played drums and occasionally sang lead vocals.
Mary Gaines Bernard is an American singer best known for her work with her sister, Donna Summer.
Keeping Time is the second studio album by American actor, singer and songwriter Paul Jabara.
American Gigolo is the soundtrack album to the 1980 film of the same name, starring Richard Gere and Lauren Hutton. The music was composed and performed by Italian musician Giorgio Moroder and was released worldwide on the Polydor label. It peaked at #7 on the Billboard 200 album chart. All the cuts from the soundtrack also went to number two for five weeks on the disco/dance charts.
Divas of Disco is a live video album recorded on April 25, 2007, at Avalon, Hollywood, performed by CeCe Peniston, Thelma Houston, Linda Clifford, A Taste of Honey and France Joli. The whole concert was issued on CD in 2010.