Photo Credit: Donna Summer by Francesco Scavullo for Casablanca Records in 1977 (Public Domain)
Primary Wave Music partners with the estate of Donna Summer to manage the iconic singer’s catalog and branding, including name, image, and likeness.
Primary Wave Music, a leading independent publisher, has announced its partnership with the estate of the legendary Donna Summer. Summer’s estate will work alongside Primary Wave on her award-winning music catalog and recordings, as well as share in her name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights. The partnership will also provide the estate access to Primary Wave’s marketing team and publishing infrastructure, working closely on new marketing, branding, digital, and sync opportunities, as well as film and television projects.
Having sold more than 100 million albums across the globe, Donna Summer is considered one of the best-selling artists of all time. Her repertoire includes 17 studio albums, which include three number-one records. She remains the only artist in history to have three consecutive double albums hit number one on the Billboard 200.
Of her nearly 90 singles released, 32 charted on the Billboard Hot 100, 14 of them making the Top 10, and four reaching the number-one spot. She was the first female artist in history to record four number-one songs in a 13-moth span, including “MacArthur Park,” “No More Tears (Enough is Enough)” with Barbra Streisand, as well as “Hot Stuff” and “Bad Girls.”
“Hot Stuff” was the lead single from Summer’s seventh studio album, Bad Girls—an album that would go on to be one of her best-selling and most critically acclaimed albums of her career. Upon release, it was an instant hit, and the single shot to #1 and stayed there for three non-consecutive weeks, remaining in the Top 10 for 14 weeks. “Hot Stuff” has been certified platinum and won Summer a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
The single “Bad Girls” was also a huge success, spending four weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reaching the Top 10 in over seven countries. The song, which sold more than 2 million copies, went on to win an American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single and was nominated for a Grammy.
A decorated entertainer, Donna Summer was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2025, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the early ‘90s.
