Robbed hit of the week 9/7/15 - Donna Summer's "Dinner With Gershwin"...

"Dinner With Gershwin" - Donna Summer
from the album All Systems Go (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #48

This week's "Robbed Hit" comes from the 'Queen of Disco', Donna Summer, who was having a more tougher go in the mid-80s after switching labels to Geffen Records. Her 1984 record Cats Without Claws was clumsily promoted with a cover of the Drifters' "There Goes My Baby", which just missed the top-20 on the American pop chart. With her next album, she surprisingly continued in the adult R&B vein, with a song written by Brenda Russell (who would have her own success with "Piano In the Dark" later on), and produced by Pointer Sisters go-to guy Richard Perry. "Dinner With Gershwin" may not have fit the current radio mood, but it was a classy piece of shuffle-swing...

"Dinner With Gershwin" stopped short at the halfway mark on the American pop chart in October of 1987. However, it wasn't a total flop - the single made it to #10 on Billboard's R&B chart. The single also crossed over to #38 on the adult contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, and the extended version climbed to #13 on the Dance Club Play list. Internationally, the song climbed to #13 in Britain (her biggest hit there since "No More Tears" in 1979), top-20 in Ireland and Italy, and #39 in Canada.

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Here's Donna promoting the song on Top Of The Pops...

...and her live in Japan in 1987...

This is songwriter Russell with her take on her song...

..and finally Donna live again on another TV appearance...