''Cats Without Claws'' is the twelfth studio album by American pop singer

Donna Summer LaDonna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948May 17, 2012), known professionally as Donna Summer, was an American singer and songwriter. She gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s and became known as the "Honorific nicknames in popular m ...

, released on September 11, 1984. Summer had achieved monumental fame during the

disco Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric pi ...

era of the 1970s, and in 1980 was signed to

Geffen Records Geffen Records is an American record label established by David Geffen and owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M Records imprint. Founded in 1980, Geffen Records has been a part of Interscope Geffen A&M since 1999 and ...

. She had had some degree of success with them, though her previous album had been released on another label. It peaked at No. 40 on '' Billboard''s album chart, failing to attain the success of its predecessor which peaked at No. 9. Her previous studio album, ''

She Works Hard for the Money "She Works Hard for the Money" is a song by American singer Donna Summer from her album '' She Works Hard for the Money'' (1983). The song was written by Michael Omartian and Summer, and produced by the former. It was released as the lead sing ...

'' (1983), had been her most successful since the disco era, and as a result, its producer

Michael Omartian Michael Omartian (born November 26, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, keyboardist, and music producer. He produced number-one records in three consecutive decades. He has earned 11 Grammy Awards nominations and won three. He spe ...

was asked to produce the next studio album as well. Again the majority of tracks were written by Summer and Omartian, though a couple of other writers were credited including Summer's husband Bruce Sudano. As with the previous studio album, ''Cats Without Claws'' was pop and

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

oriented but included soulful ballads. The album also contained a

cover version In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...

of " There Goes My Baby", originally made popular by

the Drifters The Drifters are several American doo-wop and R&B/soul vocal groups. They were originally formed as a backing group for Clyde McPhatter, formerly the lead tenor of Billy Ward and his Dominoes in 1953. The second group of Drifters, formed in 1 ...

, which became the first single. Although Summer requested "Oh Billy Please" as the first single, again Geffen and his executives rejected her request. A

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

song written by

Reba Rambo Reba Rambo (born October 17, 1951) is an American Christian singer and songwriter. She is a Grammy and Dove Award winner. Biography 1965–1975: Early life and career beginnings Rambo attended Hebron Elementary School in Hebron, Ohio and graduat ...

and Dony McGuire entitled "Forgive Me" would win Summer a

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

for Best Inspirational Performance.Encyclopedia of recorded sound -Frank W. Hoffmann, Howard Ferstler – 2005 Volume 2 – Page 1079 "She won Grammy awards for Best Inspirational Performance in 1983 and 1984, for "He's a Rebel" and "Forgive Me," respectively." ''Cats Without Claws'' produced three singles: " There Goes My Baby", " Supernatural Love" (also released as a 12" Single) and "

Eyes Eyes are organs of the visual system. They provide living organisms with vision, the ability to receive and process visual detail, as well as enabling several photo response functions that are independent of vision. Eyes detect light and con ...

", " There Goes My Baby" reached No. 21 on the pop chart. Further 12" dance remixes included "

" and "I'm Free".

Commerical performance

''Cats Without Claws'' peaked at number 40 on the

Billboard 200 The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine and is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artist ...

chart and spent only 17 weeks on the chart. The album failed to attain the success of its predecessor, ''

'', which peaked at number 9. In the UK, it reached a peak of number 69 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

, and was commercially unsuccessful. As of 2022, the only available physical version of the album is Vinyl, since all the original CD releases have now gone out of print. It is possible a 40th Anniversary Edition might be released on its 40th Birthday in 2024.

Track listing

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the ''Cats Without Claws'' liner notes. Musicians *

– lead vocals *

– keyboards, additional drums, additional percussion * Erich Bulling –

Yamaha DX1 The Yamaha DX1 is the top-level member of Yamaha's prolific DX series of FM synthesizers. Background The DX1 features two sets of the same synthesizer chipset used in the DX7, allowing either double the polyphony, split of two voices, or du ...

and

Yamaha DX7 The Yamaha DX7 is a synthesizer manufactured by the Yamaha Corporation from 1983 to 1989. It was the first successful digital synthesizer and is one of the best-selling synthesizers in history, selling more than 200,000 units. In the early 1980 ...

programming *

Paul Jackson Jr. Paul Milton Jackson Jr. (born December 30, 1959) is an American fusion/urban jazz composer, arranger, producer and guitarist. He was born and raised in Los Angeles. Jackson knew by the age of fifteen that he wanted to become a professional mus ...

– guitar *

Michael Landau Michael Christopher Landau (born June 1, 1958) is an American musician, audio engineer, and record producer. He is a session musician and guitarist who has played on many albums since the early 1980s with Boz Scaggs, Minoru Niihara, Joni Mitch ...

– guitar *

Nathan East Nathan Harrell East (born December 8, 1955) is an American jazz, R&B, and rock bass player and vocalist. With more than 2,000 recordings, East is one of the most recorded bass players in the history of music. East holds a Bachelor of Arts deg ...

– bass guitar *

Mike Baird Michael Bruce Baird (born 1 April 1968) is an Australian investment banker and former politician who was the 44th Premier of New South Wales, the Minister for Infrastructure, the Minister for Western Sydney, and the Leader of the New South W ...

– drums * Paulinho da Costa – percussion * Gary Herbig – saxophone solos * Dara Bernard – backing vocals * Mary Ellen Bernard, Gene Van Buren, Cydney Davis,

Siedah Garrett Deborah Christine "Siedah" Garrett (born June 24, 1960) is an American singer and songwriter who has written songs and performed backing vocals for many recording artists in the music industry, such as Michael Jackson, the Pointer Sisters, Brand ...

, Khaliq Glover, Portia Griffin,

Susannah Melvoin Susannah Melvoin (born January 26, 1964) is an American vocalist and songwriter. Melvoin is best known for her association with Prince in the mid-1980s. Melvoin comes from a musical family and is the twin sister of musician Wendy Melvoin, siste ...

, Bruce Sudano, Kin Vassy, & Terry Williams – backing vocals Production * Michael Omartian – producer, arrangements * John Guess – engineer, mixing (1, 3, 5, 7-10) * Jürgen Koppers – mixing (2, 4, 6) * David Ahlert, Larry Ferguson, Tom Fouce, & Ross Palone – second engineers * Steve Hall – mastering * Ronnie Puccinelli – production coordinator * Chris Whorf – art direction * Jeffrey Fey – design * Harry Langdon – photography * Susan Munao Management Co. Inc. – management

Charts

Weekly charts

Single

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1984 albums Donna Summer albums Albums produced by Michael Omartian Geffen Records albums New wave albums by American artists