Source: Chicago Sun-Times

Seventies flashbacks aside, Donna Summer is not Rod Stewart.

''When my record company [Burgundy/Sony BMG] came to me about two years ago, they wanted me to do oldies, what Rod Stewart was doing. They said, 'Well, we don't know what market you'd be in at this point, and we don't know if we could get you into the mainstream market anymore,''' Summer says. ''That was a valid point, but I didn't feel it was necessarily the truth.''

So Summer played the label ''Be Myself Again,'' a new song she co-wrote with Lester Mendez and Wayne Hector, inspired by James Blunt.

''I was thinking to myself, 'I would love to do a song like [Blunt's] "You're Beautiful," where I don't sing very many lyrics, where there is just the simplicity of a broken heart, no frills,''' she says.

The lyrics sketch a life lived in the public eye, lamenting the resulting loss of self (''I gave everything to play the game/My soul fell apart at the seams''). And at the bridge, when Summer opens up that throaty yet crystal-clear voice, as familiar to millions as the sound of running water, it's a moment.

''They never mentioned that oldies thing again,'' Summer says. ''Not once.''

It took Summer 17 years to release a follow-up to 1991's ''Mistaken Identity.'' Not that she was taking it easy. The 59-year-old is mother to three daughters, two of whom are ''in the business''; wife of 27 years to musician Bruce Sudano, and grandma, not to mention painter, amateur interior designer and consistent touring artist (she was at home in Nashville a total of eight weeks last year).

But the diva -- who is estimated to have sold 130 million albums worldwide -- is also a talented songwriter, and that was what finally pushed her back to the studio.

''I've been extremely blessed, and I am obviously aware of it. That was one of the reasons I felt that I shouldn't even bother to be out there again, because there are so many people who haven't even had a chance yet, and it just clutters up the market,'' she says. ''But at some point, I just got bored. There were songs that were in me, and the little head kept popping up. I felt like, 'You know what, I'm supposed to do this.'''

Her new album, ''Crayons,'' brings the unmistakable Summer sound into the 21st century, with the help of a slew of of-the-minute writers and producers, including Greg Kurstin (Lily Allen, Pink), Danielle Brisebois (Natasha Bedingfield, New Radicals), JR Rotem (Sean Kingston, Rihanna) and Evan Bogart, who co-wrote Rihanna's ''SOS.'' Bogart is the son of Casablanca Records head Neil Bogart, who discovered and nurtured Summer before succumbing to cancer in 1982, at the age of 39.

''She's still got it,'' Bogart says. ''Her voice is so powerful; she still has that Donna diva swagger. I knew she wanted to stay away from most of the disco elements. She really wanted to come into today's sound.''