AFTER YEARS OF STRUGGLING TO MATCH HER FORMER GLORIES, THE I FEEL LOVE STAR TEAMED UP WITH STOCK AITKEN WATERMAN TO CREATE AN ALBUM OF IRRESISTIBLE DANCE-POP. WAS THIS THE TRIO’S FINEST MOMENT?

DONNA SUMMER

MARK ELLIOTT

When Donna Summer turned up to start work on what was to become Another Place And Time, she had little to lose; her career had been spluttering towards a standstill for years. A decade earlier, a pairing of the reigning Kings of Dance-Pop and the undisputed Queen of Disco would have been obvious and inevitable but, by 1988, Donna Summer hadn’t had a major hit stateside for years and SAW, as we know, largely steered clear of working with established acts for good reason. If the challenges of working with opinionated artists like Dead Or Alive or Bananarama had tested their patience, would a demanding US diva finally break them?

The chance to collaborate with the singer came when Donna’s husband and manager Bruce Sudano approached Pete Waterman by the pool at a Beverley Hills hotel; he was there on a working trip in 1988 with Rick Astley, who had just broken through in the US. Bruce and Donna had heard Rick’s music during an extended stay in London the previous year and were no doubt aware of the trio’s success with other acts.

“Donna possessed the ability to take what we had written, go behind a microphone and take it three times further than anything we had achieved. Just to hear that voice coming back at you was absolutely fantastic.”

PETE WATERMAN

Pete had a clear vision about the record he thought SAW could make with Donna Summer, hoping to blend the offbeat but sophisticated style of recent material like Dinner With Gershwin (a UK hit the previous year) with the euphoric rush of her earlier classics like Love To Love You Baby. With a deal quickly signed with Donna’s UK label, a unique arrangement where she would develop the songs with Matt and Mike was settled upon. “When Donna first started working with us, I think there was a culture shock on both sides,” Pete told Billboard. “At first there was some friction as we tried to bridge the gap, but Donna soon understood that our squabbles were a way of achieving a final result.”

Pete explains that many of the songs would be uniquely shaped with the singer’s input. “We did not write for Donna in any different way than we’d approach any other subject. For us, the only difference would be that we sat down and worked with Donna - which was completely different from most of the acts we worked with,” he told Christian John Wikane in 2018 for the album’s 30th anniversary reissue. “We knew Donna was a consummate professional… She was going to concentrate on the song and the way she sounded on the track.”