Donna Allen (born May 15, 1958) is an American

dance-pop Dance-pop is a popular music subgenre that originated in the late 1970s to early 1980s. It is generally uptempo music intended for nightclubs with the intention of being danceable but also suitable for contemporary hit radio. Developing from a ...

singer, born in

Key West, Florida Key West ( es, Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Sigsbee Park, Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Isla ...

, and raised in

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...

. At one point a

cheerleader Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to ente ...

for the

Tampa Bay Buccaneers The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) NFC South, South divisio ...

, she got her start performing in the bands Hi-Octane, Trama and Maxx. During her tenure with MAXX she was courted by Alan Walden (Capricorn Records/Hustler Productions) before launching a solo career. She also sang backup on tour for

Gloria Estefan Gloria Estefan (; born Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García; born 1 September 1957) is a Cuban-American singer, actress, and businesswoman. Estefan is a seven-time Grammy Award winner, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, and has been ...

for nine years.

Career

Allen's first disc was the Lou Pace-produced 1986 album, ''Perfect Timing'', and over the next few years she launched several hits on the US ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' Hot Dance/Club Play

chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...

. She had two Top 10 hits in the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

with "Serious" (1987, #8) and " Joy and Pain" (1989, #10). 1995's "Real", her last US chart hit, was taken from the

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

to the

Sylvester Stallone Sylvester Enzio Stallone (; born Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone, ) is an American actor and filmmaker. After his beginnings as a struggling actor for a number of years upon arriving to New York City in 1969 and later Hollywood in 1974, h ...

film ''

The Specialist ''The Specialist'' is a 1994 American action thriller film directed by Luis Llosa and starring Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone, James Woods, Eric Roberts, and Rod Steiger. It is loosely based on "The Specialist" series of novels by John Shirley ...

''. The UK dance act

Strike Strike may refer to: People * Strike (surname) Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm *Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...

used her chorus hook line from "Serious", as the basis for their club hit, "

U Sure Do "U Sure Do" is a song by British electronic dance music group Strike. Released in December 1994, it was their second single and reached number 31 in the UK charts. In 1997, it was featured on the group's only album, '' I Saw the Future''. The so ...

" released in 1994. Allen provided the vocals to Soulsearcher's 2003 dancefloor smash Feelin' Love. "He is the Joy" appeared on the '' Precious'' soundtrack (2009).

''The Voice''

In 2013, she made an attempted comeback by competing in

Season 5 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

's singing competition, ''

The Voice The Voice may refer to: Fictional entities * The Voice or Presence, a fictional representation of God in DC Comics * The Voice (''Dune''), a fictional ability in the ''Dune'' universe * The Voice, a character in the American TV series ''Cleo ...

''. On the inaugural day of the season, broadcast on September 23, 2013, she performed

Joe Cocker John Robert "Joe" Cocker (20 May 1944 – 22 December 2014) was an English singer known for his gritty, bluesy voice and dynamic stage performances that featured expressive body movements. Most of his best known singles were recordings of son ...

's song "

You Are So Beautiful "You Are So Beautiful" is a song written by Billy Preston and Bruce Fisher that was first released in 1974 on Preston's ninth studio album, ''The Kids & Me''. It was also the B-side of his single "Struttin'". Later that same year, English singer ...

" with two of the four judges, namely Adam Levine and

Christina Aguilera Christina María Aguilera (; ; born December 18, 1980) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and television personality. Known for her four-octave vocal range and ability to sustain high notes, she has been referred to as the " Voice of ...

, hitting their "I Want You" button and turning their chairs. Allen opted to be in Team Adam for the season. During the Battle Rounds, she was defeated by fellow Team Adam teammate

Tessanne Chin Tessanne Amanda Chin (; born September 20, 1985) is a Jamaican recording artist, best known for winning Season 5 of NBC's reality TV singing competition '' The Voice'' as part of Adam Levine's team. She has opened for artists such as Patti LaBe ...

, the eventual winner of Season 5.

Discography

Studio albums

Compilation albums

* ''The Best of Donna Allen'' (BCM Records, 1993)

Singles

References

External links

Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Donna Singers from Florida American cheerleaders The Voice (franchise) contestants Living people People from Key West, Florida Musicians from Tampa, Florida 20th-century American singers 21st-century American singers National Football League cheerleaders 1958 births