Bruce Charles Sudano (born September 26, 1948) is an American musician and songwriter noted for creating songs for artists such as Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, and his late wife, the Grammy Award-winning singer Donna Summer. Sudano is the founder of indie record label Purple Heart Recording Company.

Early life
Sudano was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York City, to Margaret Alessio (1924–2012) and Louis Sudano (1923–2008). At the age of four, Sudano learned to play his first instrument, the accordion. He later taught himself to play piano and guitar. He soon developed a reputation in his community as a talented musician and got his first paid gig at the age of twelve.

By the mid-1960s, Sudano was playing bass guitar in his first band, Silent Souls. He spent much of his time rehearsing and was soon playing live shows at popular New York City nightclubs.

While playing at the Cheetah, Sudano met Tommy James of Tommy James and the Shondells and became his protégé. While working his way through college at St. John's University, where he earned a BA in theater, Sudano learned to craft songs with James at Allegro Studios.

In 1969, while only twenty, Sudano scored his first hit on the music charts with the song "Ball of Fire", which he co-wrote with his mentor.

Career

Alive N Kickin'
In 1968, Sudano co-founded the pop rock band Alive N Kickin' and became its keyboard player. Tommy James wrote a song for the band called "Tighter, Tighter" with Bob King. James also produced the track and sang backing vocals. The song was released on Roulette Records in 1970 and went to #7 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Alive N Kickin' did a promotional tour of the United States as the opening act for Chicago and Frank Zappa. However, Sudano left the band in 1972 and moved to Los Angeles, where he wrote and performed folk songs as a solo singer.

In 1973, Sudano returned to Brooklyn, where he continued writing and performing but also began rehearsing and playing gigs with Joe "Bean" Esposito, Eddie Hokenson, and Louis Hokenson.

Brooklyn Dreams and Donna Summer
In 1977, Sudano, Esposito, and Hokenson moved to Los Angeles, formed the band Brooklyn Dreams, and signed a recording deal with Millennium Records. That same year, Skip Konte of Three Dog Night produced their self-titled debut. The trio scored a modest hit with the single "Music, Harmony and Rhythm", which they performed on American Bandstand.

On March 13, 1977, Sudano met Donna Summer, who was signed to Casablanca Records, the distributor for Sudano's label Millennium Records. Brooklyn Dreams and Summer immediately began writing songs together, and within a few months, Sudano and Summer were dating. In 1978, the band penned "Take It to the Zoo" with Summer for the Thank God It's Friday soundtrack. The same year, Brooklyn Dreams appeared in the movie American Hot Wax, performing as the Planotones, a group created for the movie with longtime friend Kenny Vance. They scored a top 5 hit when they appeared on the single "Heaven Knows", with Esposito and Summer singing a duet. The song peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and became a certified million-selling Gold single in 1979.

That year, Brooklyn Dreams and Summer wrote the title track "Bad Girls" for the best-selling album of Summer's career, Bad Girls. Sudano also co-wrote the songs "Lucky" and "On My Honor" with Summer and Harold Faltermeyer, as well as "Can't Get to Sleep at Night", with Bob Conti. He then wrote the song "I'm a Rainbow", which was the title track to Summer's next album. This was shelved by Geffen Records, however, and not released until 1996.

When Millennium Records changed their distribution to RCA, the Brooklyn Dreams contract was transferred to Casablanca. Under their new recording contract, the band recorded three more studio albums. In 1979, they released Sleepless Nights, produced by Bob Esty, and Joy Ride, produced by Jürgen Koppers, an engineer for Giorgio Moroder. In 1980, they made their fourth and final album, Won't Let Go, which they produced themselves. A song from this record, "Hollywood Knights", became the title track for the comedy The Hollywood Knights, starring Tony Danza, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Fran Drescher. In 2008, "Hollywood Knights" was sampled by Snoop Dogg on his song "Deez Hollywood Nights".

Brooklyn Dreams amicably disbanded in 1980, when Hokensen returned to New York after his mother died. Sudano and Summer continued writing songs together and were married the same year. Sudano spent two decades managing Summer's career. They toured together, with Sudano playing keyboards and singing background vocals.

Solo work
Sudano was signed as a solo artist by RCA and released his first record, Fugitive Kind, in 1981. It featured the song "Starting Over Again", which Sudano had co-written with Donna Summer, about his parents' divorce. In 1980, the song was recorded and released by Dolly Parton on the album Dolly, Dolly, Dolly and hit #1 on the U.S. country charts on May 24, 1980. The track was re-recorded by Reba McEntire in 1995.

In 1984, Sudano wrote "Tell Me I'm Not Dreamin' (Too Good to Be True)" with Michael Omartian. Jermaine and Michael Jackson recorded the song as a duet for the album Jermaine Jackson. The track was nominated at the 1985 Grammy Awards for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. In 1988, it was covered by Robert Palmer. During the same period, Sudano co-wrote four songs on Summer's She Works Hard for the Money album. In 1986, he co-wrote "Closest Thing to Perfect", the title track for the John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis movie Perfect.

In 2004, Sudano released a second solo record, called Rainy Day Soul, which scored three top-ten Adult Contemporary hits and earned him the New Music Weekly 2004 Adult Contemporary Artist of the Year award.

Sudano's third solo record, Life and the Romantic, was released in 2009 and won the New Music Weekly Adult Contemporary Song of the Year award for the track "It's Her Wedding Day", which Sudano wrote about his daughter Brooklyn's marriage. Footage from younger daughter Amanda's wedding to her Johnnyswim bandmate Abner Ramirez was included in the song's music video. Johnnyswim performed with Sudano on the track "Morning Song".
In 2014, after the death of his wife, Sudano released the CD With Angels on a Carousel.

In the fall of 2015, Sudano released The Burbank Sessions. While playing shows throughout 2014 with his newly formed Candyman Band, he continued writing and incorporated the new material into the sets.

In May 2017, Sudano released 21st Century World, a record that features the most culturally and politically charged songwriting of his career, touching on topics from self-serving government, extremism and demonization, the loss of common sense, the epidemic of single motherhood, and the illusion of social media, to hypocrisy and the meaning of Christianity. A number of videos and live shows followed in support of this record. At the same time, he was steadily immersing himself in the production of a musical based on the life and music of his late wife. In April 2018, Summer: The Donna Summer Musical opened on Broadway. Sudano ended his 2019 tour in the UK, before heading into a two-year COVID lockdown. He spent that time writing and recording three EPs: Spirals, Vol. 1: Not a Straight Line to Be Found (2020), Spirals, Vol. 2: Time & the Space in Between (2020), and Ode to a Nightingale (2021).

Personal life
Three years after their first meeting, Sudano and Donna Summer were married, on July 16, 1980. Sudano became the stepfather to Summer's daughter, Natalia Pia Melanie Sommer (born 1973), from her first marriage, to Austrian actor Helmuth Sommer.

Sudano and Summer had two daughters together. The couple's first child, Brooklyn, named after the New York City borough Sudano is from, was born in 1981. Their second child, Amanda Grace, was born in 1982. The family settled on a 56-acre ranch in Thousand Oaks, California. In 1991, they moved to Connecticut and remained there for four years. In 1995, they relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, keeping a second home in Naples, Florida, and later buying a third home in Manhattan. On May 17, 2012, Donna Summer Sudano died from lung cancer.

Discography

Solo
 Fugitive Kind (1981)
 Rainy Day Soul (2004)
 Life and the Romantic (2009)
 With Angels on a Carousel (2014)
 The Burbank Sessions (2015)
 21st Century World (2017)
 Spirals, Vol. 1: Not a Straight Line to Be Found (EP, 2020)
 Spirals, Vol. 2: Time & the Space in Between (EP, 2020)
 Ode to a Nightingale (EP, 2021)

with Alive N Kickin'
 Alive N Kickin (1970)

with Brooklyn Dreams
 Brooklyn Dreams (1977)
 Sleepless Nights (1978)
 Joy Ride (1979)
 Won't Let Go (1980)

References

External links
 
 Interview with Bruce Sudano of Alive N Kickin'

1948 births
Living people
American dance musicians
American male singer-songwriters
American multi-instrumentalists
American music arrangers
American people of Indonesian descent
American people of Italian descent
Record producers from New York (state)
Ballad musicians
Donna Summer
American disco musicians
St. John's University (New York City) alumni
Musicians from Flatbush, Brooklyn
Singer-songwriters from New York (state)