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Singer-songwriter explains why she is tired of being called the "Disco Queen" and reveals the new title she's selected for herself. (1:42)
 

Tavis: Pleased to welcome Donna Summer to this program. Her outstanding career in music has earned her numerous number one hits and five Grammy awards along the way. In stores tomorrow, bam, you can pick up a copy of her new CD, the first full studio album of new material in 17 years now. The disc is called "Crayons." Here from the CD, some of the video for "Stamp Your Feet."

[Clip]

Tavis: Seventeen years is a long time, Donna Summer, where you been?

Donna Summer: (Laughter) Holed up in Nashville, yeah, having a good time.

Tavis: Donna Summer lives in Nashville?

Summer: Yeah, I do.

Tavis: How's that work?

Summer: It works great.

Tavis: Yeah?

Summer: Yeah, it's a great place to live.

Tavis: When I think Nashville, I don't think Donna Summer. I think, like, Garth Brooks or something, yeah.

Summer: Country music? Well, he's there too, I think. Well, actually, he's not - he's in Oklahoma or somewhere. But it's a really good city. It's a great place to live, a great place to raise my kids. They're grown now.

Tavis: Nashville - it's actually a good place to jump off our conversation, I think, because you're living in Nashville now, but you're one of those rare artists - rare Black artists, certainly, who actually started their career in Europe and then came this way. As opposed to starting in the Black church, becoming a crossover artist, and then going across the water, you came back this way.

Summer: Well, I did start in the Black church, singing.

Tavis: That's true. That part is true, yeah, exactly.

Summer: (Laughs) (Unintelligible.) Well, I went to Europe and I was in musicals, so I wanted to be in musical theater. And so that was the best route at the time. There weren't that many roles for Black women, and times have changed, thank God.

Tavis: Tell me about the story - give me a little bit more about what it was like in Europe when you were there, and the journey that you had to go through to become a hit there first, and then come this way.

Summer: Well in short, I auditioned in New York for the musical "Hair," and then after I did the audition they took me to Germany. I wound up there. My dad used to be in the service there so I really wanted to go there because he spoke German. And so I got there, started learning German, started doing "Hair." Then afterwards I did four or five more musicals.

And then I got married and had my first daughter there, and so it was very, very lucrative for me there, there were very few Black women, and it was right during the cultural revolution in the United States - Black is beautiful, big afros and all that stuff. So I was in, they were ready to receive. (Laughter) They had their arms out going "Come to me, Mama." (Laughter)

And I came. So it was a really great moment for me to be there, it was the best time in the world for me to be there. I learned a lot about myself.

Tavis: And you speak fluent German?

Summer: Yavot, spreche Deutsche.

Tavis: No, no, heck, no - don't start that. (Laughter) Don't embarrass me on my own show, Donna -

Summer: Come on, now you know you should speak German.

Tavis: Volkswagen. That's the best I can do. And they sold that, I think, years ago. That's not even German anymore. Although I went to Germany for the first time about two years ago, and I guess I expected what everybody else expects when they go to Germany and to Berlin. I had the greatest time in Berlin.

Summer: Yeah, Berlin is great, yeah.

Tavis: I loved it. It was funny - not funny; funny's the wrong word. I want your take on this. I got the sense, though, that there's still this - how could I put this - this sort of collective guilt that many people there still have. But I thought they were the nicest people. I had a wonderful time in Germany.

Summer: I don't think it's so much of a collective guilt. Certainly the new generation doesn't see themselves as -

Tavis: Doesn't see it that way, yeah.

Summer: - as responsible for what their parents did. But I do think that the Germans tend to be really hypersensitive about being correct.

Tavis: That's fair. That's fair, yeah.

Summer: And I think anybody would. I think we have the same thing going on in this country in the South where people, maybe there are things that went on and people want to be really correct, they want to make sure that they keep themselves in check. And I think that's probably what you're feeling a lot of.

Tavis: Yeah, yeah. Funny story, when I walk in the door to check in the hotel, I saw the German paper, which I could not read, as we all know now - I can't read German. But I see on the front page of the paper, Donna, this big, huge picture of a guy who I recognized - B.B. King. So I asked the guy behind the counter, the guy checking me in, "Does this say that B.B. King was here or B.B. King is going to be here?

He said, "Oh, no, he was here already." Then he looked again, he says, "No, no, no, no, no - he's been here, but tonight is his last night." So my very first day in Berlin, I tracked -

Summer: You went to see B.B. King?

Tavis: - I tracked him down.

Summer: Oh, that is hysterical.

Tavis: I called every cell number I had, I tracked him down.

Summer: Great.

Tavis: So my first night in Germany, I saw B.B. King.

Summer: You got to hang out with -

Tavis: And I hung out with B.B., but the people loved him.

Summer: Oh, they loved him.

Tavis: And that turned out to be his last European tour, his last date in Germany.

Summer: Oh, really?

Tavis: So I had a great time there, yeah.

Summer: Great, that's good.

Tavis: Here I am in Germany, seeing African American artists who I love.

Summer: Did you eat food over there?

Tavis: I did.

Summer: And?

Tavis: They have some great - their beef -

Summer: They got some soul food, you know?

Tavis: They got some soul food, yeah, but they have some great beef over there, though. (Laughter)

Summer: They do, they have great beef and they have great sausages, and they even have collard greens when you go up to Hamburg and that area? They have what's called gruenkohl, and it's equivalent to our collard greens.

Tavis: Next time I go to Germany, maybe I'll call you. You'll go hang out with me.

Summer: I'll go with you. (Laughter) That's the way to do it.

Tavis: Show me a good time in Germany, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, enough of that. The new CD - why now and tell me about the material on the CD.

Summer: Well, the material is all over the place. I've been dubbed the disco queen for so many years that I decided that if I did a new album, that I was going to call it -

Tavis: Stop, stop. You sick of being called the disco queen?

Summer: Absolutely.

Tavis: You're tired of it.

Summer: Every day. It's not that I'm tired of it, I just want to be - I want to expand it to the empress now. I'm over the queen thing. (Laughter) I want to be referred to as the empress. I'm much older, and I want to be. That's my new name. So my daughters have already brought me letterhead with "The Empress" on it.

Tavis: "The Empress" on it, okay. (Laughter)

Summer: Because I have some little divas coming up, and it's not going to work. We're not all going to fit in that house together. (Laughter)

Tavis: So they could be the queen, but somebody's got -

Summer: They can be the queen, but I'm going to be the empress.

Tavis: You got to be empress, I got it. Yeah, that's (unintelligible), okay.

Summer: So.

Tavis: A lot of estrogen in one house.

Summer: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. (Laughter) And my daughters are absolutely beautiful and they're very talented, but it will be a house to share.

Tavis: Yeah, and your poor husband.

Summer: And I will still be the boss.

Tavis: And your poor husband.

Summer: Well, my husband will be the boss.

Tavis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. (Laughter) As her eyes roll. Yeah, I'm glad he didn't see your eyes roll over that one, Donna.

Summer: Yeah. (Laughs)

Tavis: Back to "Crayons," though, the material is what?

Summer: All the material is diverse. I think we've covered every single aspect of music that I can. My personal goal is to win 10 Grammys in 10 different categories. And there's a reason, there's some logic behind it, and one of it is that notoriously, Black people tend to do certain types of music, and I think that we need to be free to do any kind of music, because it pigeonholes us to be considered only in one vein or two veins or whatever. And I just feel like I just want to conquer all those fields.

Tavis: This may be inside - this may be too inside the music business, but when a CD has that much variety on it, how do you market, how do you promote it, how do you even sequence a record that's got that much stuff on it on the same project?

Summer: You market me.

Tavis: Yeah, that's smart. Yeah.

Summer: This is (unintelligible) -

Tavis: Market the empress.

Summer: Yes. (Laughs) Yes, well, I think that it's important. People are going to like what they're going to like. I think there's something for everybody on that album, and so far we've been getting incredible responses for different songs and I think the other thing is it's going to cause people to start to like things they may not have been into before, just because "I like that song." They're going to be honest. So we're hoping for the best.

Tavis: How do you think - and you are a student of this, I know, because we've talked before. You're a student of this. How do you think, in 17 years - and let's round it up to 20 years - in the last two decades -

Summer: Wait, no, let's round it down to 16. (Laughter)

Tavis: I like that. High five on that. Okay. Why say 17? Let's just say 15 or 12 or something like that.

Summer: Yeah, okay.

Tavis: In the last dozen years, how do you think the music industry has changed for the better and for the worse? Because you're putting out a project now a few years -

Summer: Well for the artist, it's absolutely fabulous. I think it's an open playing field. I think as a young artist you have the opportunity to establish a populace that - or an audience that you had no contact with before. For the record company, not so great. But I think that they'll find their footing and they'll find a place where they can actually still be very successful with artists, but I think it's kind of good for one and not as good for the other.

Tavis: Why do this record? Donna Summer is - never mind your new title as the empress and no longer the disco queen, never mind that you don't have to do this anymore, you have made your mark. I heard your song on the radio, your music, three times coming to the studio, flipping stations. People are still playing your stuff every day. Why, for Donna Summer, do this now?

Summer: Well, because I have three grandkids, and I want them to have some new songs.

Tavis: Yeah, that's fair.

Summer: So I just want them to have something new. I've been playing these songs, going out on the road, playing the same songs for so long. Last tour that I was on I thought you know what? I need some new songs. And I just felt like it's time, let's do it. I didn't want to record before, but I just got tired of it.

Tavis: Yeah. To your point now, Donna, I wonder whether or not you think it's a good thing or a bad thing - when I said a moment ago I'd heard your songs a few times over the weekend in the last few days, I meant that. It's hard to turn the radio on now because everybody's got these oldies and goodies stations, and old school stations.

So you can hear Donna Summer, as I'm sure you do, any time on any station any day of the week. Is that a good thing or a bad thing, that we're playing - it's good stuff, but we're playing it so much now that you almost get tired of the old stuff that was good as much as you get tired of the stuff that comes out now that we play over and over and over again.

Summer: Well, I just think you have to change the channel.

Tavis: But that's my point, though. When you do that, you're still hearing - all I'm saying is that whether it's Donna Summer or Marvin Gaye, run the list, or Stevie circa - the stuff was so good then, it still sounds good now, but you hear it so much on every station that I wonder whether or not we start to, how could I put this, lose an appreciation for the classic nature of the stuff?

Summer: I don't think so. I just think people are hungry for what they consider meaty and substantial, and I think that a lot of people relate to that music, and it has - it's attached to so many memories in their lives and in the vernacular of their living that they want to have access to that memory again.

And so when they hear the song it's like okay. I hear Barry White or something, I'm just right there. I'm 19 years old; I'm having a good time. So it's all about the moment.

Tavis: So you're going out to do some live stuff, some dates?

Summer: Yeah, I'm going out, and July the 5th I think we go to Vienna, Virginia, that's the first date. And then we're on the road for the summer, and we get out and we finish the last day of August.

Tavis: And you ain't tired of that yet? You ain't tired of that road yet?

Summer: You know what? No, I love to perform. What I don't like to do is press. I'll be honest with you -

Tavis: All right, that's enough. (Laughter) Thanks for watching the show tonight. (Laughter)

Summer: No, no, no, you're a show. But I'm saying when you're on the phone in the morning and you're, like, 10 radio drops, and it's just like oh, God, it just wears you out.

Tavis: I don't care what she says. I love Donna Summer, and there ain't nothing she can do about it.

Summer: Thank you. (Laughter)

Tavis: Whether she likes doing press or not. Anyway, the new CD - "Crayons." I said 17 - okay, five. But it's new material, and we're glad to have it out. Donna, good to see you.

Summer: Thank you.

Tavis: My pleasure.

Summer: Love you, sweetie, thank you.

Tavis: Thank you, sweetie.