With the passing of Donna Summer last week, local singer-songwriter Amy Correia felt particularly affected.
“As a Catholic girl growing up in Lakeville in the 1970s, I was always amazed and in awe of her powerful voice, her queenly presence, and subversive sexuality,” says Correia, whose album “You Go Your Way” won an Independent Music Award last year and who will perform at Club Passim in Cambridge on May 30. “She made me cry, listening to ‘On the Radio,’ as much as she made me want to dance to ‘Hot Stuff.’ ”
With that in mind, Correia gave us five ways she relates to the “late, great Donna Summer.”
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1. Character. “Donna and I both create characters within our music. Our music isn’t always confessional, something a lot of female singer-songwriters are accused of. We create stories.”
2. Acting. Correia and Summer both had brief careers as actresses. Summer performed in a German production of “Hair,” and Correia says, “I did an off-Broadway musical called ‘Fallen Angel’ that opened and closed faster than you could say ‘Love to Love You Baby.’ ”
3. Bad girls. “Donna’s ‘Bad Girl’ put on makeup and prowled the streets looking for men in hot cars; my bad girl puts on makeup, drives a ‘Powder Blue Trans-Am’ of her own and ‘can’t get a man’ to save her life.”
4. Home in Boston. “We both consider Boston our ‘main homes.’ I named my second album after my hometown — Lakeville, down on the South Shore — and recently moved home to Boston to be closer to family and part of the great music scene here.”
5. Faith. “Donna Summer was a woman of faith, after beating back her demons. Everybody defines God differently, and she found her definition. As life goes and flows, I learn more about what it means to give up “Old Habits” (a song I wrote about addictions) and bow to the fire of creation instead.’’
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