Carmichael must have liked Donna’s voice when he recruited her a year later for another concept club group, the Universal Robot Band, which recorded a single and an LP entitled “Dance And Shake Your Tambourine. Donna recalls: “I did the Bumblebee Unlimited LP and then we went back to the studio and did the Universal Robot Band album. Donna says that she enjoyed her time in the studio with Greg Carmichael and Patrick Adams, whose creative chemistry brought a special magic to the album. Although they wrote all the songs, Donna reveals that Carmichael and Adams gave “their” creative freedom in the studio in terms of “their” vocals. After Greg took Carmichael Donna to a photo shoot in Canada for the cover design, “she”, the manager at the time, Linda Williams, took care of the publicity around the release of “Make It Last Forever”. “Make It Last Forever” was a great song. “She also recorded other songs for the record label – “We had several songs in the box,” says Donna – but they weren’t released. Donna’s first experience as a singer was performing gospel songs in her grandmother’s church choir when she was ten years old. Later, after listening to the albums of Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and Chaka Khan, she tried to make a name for herself by singing secular music. The album was well received, but did not translate this interest into major record sales, but it did bring Donna’s talent to the attention of other larger record companies. But today, 65-year-old Donna McGhee, who is still working, is back in the spotlight thanks to the re-release of “Make It Last Forever” by We Want Sounds, an album that reached triple-digit prices in its already rare original pressing in the United States. So it was with Donna McGhee, a young singer from Brooklyn, who made an excellent single and a fabulous LP in the late70s, but whose name is not familiar to those who think that the Gibb brothers are the gods of the dance floor.
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