Like it or lump it, Donna Summer defined disco.

Rifts among fans of musical genres are commonplace, but back in the late 1970s, you either stepped onto the strobe-lit dance floor, or you plotted its demise.

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Upon hearing of Summer's recent death at 63 due to lung cancer, I was transported back to my youth. Those days you could hear her voice belted out of FM radio on a regular basis.

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Summer was the face of disco, for the most part. Her songs were constantly in the top handful on most radio playlists, and the aforementioned dance floors.

Some of her songs were controversial, but in those days that was just good advertising. A 5-time Grammy winner, her hits like "Hot Stuff," "Last Dance," "She Works Hard For The Money" and "Bad Girls" got throngs off their chairs and busy shakin' it in their platform shoes and nylon shirts. Her records flew off store shelves, and her likeness seemed to pop up everywhere.

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I remember heading to the theater to see her starring role in the film "Thank God It's Friday," which came out in 1978. The flick starred Jeff Goldblum and Terri Nunn, with the first screen appearance of soon-to-be-household-name Debra Winger.

The script was forgettable, but the whole film teased the performance of Summer, who would finish off the evening at the Goldblum's disco with a rendition of "Last Dance."

For good reason, she closed the film. Because after she took the stage, no one was going to follow. The Commodores performed early in the film, and most people who saw it back then would be hard-pressed to remember they were even onscreen.

Summer was magnetic north in 1978.

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At the time, I was performing with our high school's swing choir, shorn in my Angel's Flight slacks, platform shoes and nylon "poofy" shirts.

The divide at school between the pro-disco and the "disco must die" factions was just as deep as anywhere else.

The Levi-jeans-and-T-shirt crowd thought the contrived, mirror-ball hub-bub was all flash and no substance. Besides, disco was taking over the airwaves and robbing air time for their beloved Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd and KISS.

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The disco crowd was just happy to be different, what with their night-club ready attire and the anointed queen Donna Summer belting out hit after shimmering hit.

I was lucky enough to ride both sides of the fence, somehow. Disco was fine by me at the time, and I found the whole scene to be very amusing, as such genres taking wing tend to be. There's always a few taking things over the top, and in the process making themselves look somewhat foolish in their devotion to be different, thinly veiled behind the mantra of being "cutting edge."

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Say what you will about disco. But Donna Summer's voice brought the backbone to the backbeat and gave the movement the footing it needed to remain relevant for a few good, lighted dance floor years.

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Godspeed, Donna. The heavenly choir just gained a soloist.

Jerry Hitchcock is a copy editor for The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2017, or via email at [email protected].