''Cats Without Claws'' is the twelfth studio album by American pop singer

Donna Summer Donna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948May 17, 2012), known professionally as Donna Summer, was an American singer and songwriter. She gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s and became known as the "Queen of Disco", while her music ...

, released on September 11, 1984. Summer had achieved monumental fame during the

disco Disco is a music genre, genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightclub, nightlife, particularly in African Americans, African-American, Italian-Americans, Italian-American, LGBTQ ...

era of the 1970s, and in 1980 was signed to

Geffen Records Geffen Records (formerly The David Geffen Company from 1980 to 1992 and Geffen Records Inc. from 1993 to 2004) is an American record label, founded in late 1980 by David Geffen. Originally a music subsidiary of the company known as Geffen Pi ...

. She had had some degree of success with them, though her previous album had been released on another label. It peaked at No. 40 on ''

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 advertis ...

''s album chart, failing to attain the success of its predecessor which peaked at No. 9. Her previous studio album, '' She Works Hard for the Money'' (1983), gained more fame and success since the disco era, and as a result, its producer

Michael Omartian Michael S. Omartian (born November 26, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, keyboardist, and music producer. He produced number-one records in three consecutive decades. He has earned 11 Grammy Awards nominations and won three. H ...

was asked to produce the next studio album as well. Again the majority of tracks were written by Summer and Omartian, though a couple of other writers were credited including Summer's husband known as Bruce Sudano. As with the previous studio album, ''Cats Without Claws'' was pop and

dance Dance is an The arts, art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often Symbol, symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

oriented but included soulful ballads. The album also contained a

cover version In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...

of " There Goes My Baby", originally made popular by

the Drifters The Drifters are an American pop and R&B/soul vocal group. They were originally formed as a backing group for Clyde McPhatter, formerly the lead tenor of Billy Ward and his Dominoes in 1953. The second group of Drifters, formed in 1959 and ...

, which became the first single. Although Summer requested "Oh Billy Please" as the first single, again Geffen and his executives rejected her request. A

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

song written by Reba Rambo and Dony McGuire entitled "Forgive Me" would win Summer a

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...

for Best Inspirational Performance.Encyclopedia of recorded sound -Frank W. Hoffmann, Howard Ferstler – 2005 Volume 2 – Page 1079 "She won Grammy awards for Best Inspirational Performance in 1983 and 1984, for "He's a Rebel" and "Forgive Me," respectively." ''Cats Without Claws'' produced three singles: " There Goes My Baby", " Supernatural Love" (also released as a 12" Single) and "

Eyes An eye is a sensory organ that allows an organism to perceive visual information. It detects light and converts it into electro-chemical impulses in neurons (neurones). It is part of an organism's visual system. In higher organisms, the ey ...

". The song, “ There Goes My Baby" reached No. 21 on the pop chart. This album also included 12" dance remixes included "

" and "I'm Free". A 40th Anniversary re-issue was released April 18, 2025.

Commercial performance

''Cats Without Claws'' peaked at number 40 on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart and spent only 17 weeks on the chart. The album failed to attain the success of its predecessor, '' She Works Hard for the Money'', which peaked at number 9. It reached a peak of number 69 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the O ...

, and was commercially unsuccessful. The 40th Anniversary edition of the album was released April 18, 2025.

Track listing

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the ''Cats Without Claws'' liner notes. Musicians *

– lead vocals *

– keyboards, additional drums, additional percussion * Erich Bulling –

Yamaha DX1 The Yamaha DX1 is the top-level member of Yamaha Corporation, Yamaha's prolific DX series of Frequency modulation synthesis, FM Digital synthesizer, synthesizers. Background The DX1 has two sets of the synthesizer chipset used in the Yamaha D ...

and

Yamaha DX7 The Yamaha DX7 is a synthesizer manufactured by Yamaha Corporation from 1983 to 1989. It was the first successful digital synthesizer and is one of the best-selling synthesizers in history, selling more than 200,000 units. In the early 1980s, th ...

programming *

Paul Jackson Jr. Paul Milton Jackson Jr. (born December 30, 1959) is an American Jazz fusion, fusion/urban jazz composer, arranger, producer and guitarist. In addition to being a recording artist in his own right, Jackson is also a session player, with a career ...

– guitars *

Michael Landau Michael Christopher Landau (born June 1, 1958) is an American musician, audio engineer, and record-producer. He is a session musician and guitarist who has played on many albums since the early 1980s with Boz Scaggs, Minoru Niihara, Joni Mitchel ...

– guitars *

Nathan East Nathan Harrell East (born December 8, 1955) is an American jazz, R&B, and rock bass guitarist and vocalist. With more than 2,000 recordings, East is one of the most recorded bass players in the history of music. East holds a Bachelor of Arts ...

– bass guitar *

Mike Baird Michael Bruce Baird (born 1 April 1968) is an Australian investment banker and former politician who was the 44th Premier of New South Wales, the Minister for Infrastructure, the Minister for Jobs, Investment, Tourism and Western Sydney, Mini ...

– drums *

Paulinho da Costa Paulinho da Costa (, born Paulo Roberto da Costa on May 31, 1948) is a Brazilian percussionist. Beginning his career as a samba musician in Brazil, he moved to the United States in the early 1970s and worked with Brazilian bandleader Sérgio Me ...

– percussion * Gary Herbig – saxophone solos * Dara Bernard – backing vocals * Mary Ellen Bernard – backing vocals * Cydney Davis – backing vocals *

Siedah Garrett Deborah Christine "Siedah" Garrett (born June 24, 1960) is an American singer and songwriter who has written songs and performed backing vocals for many recording artists in the music industry, such as Michael Jackson, the Pointer Sisters, Brand ...

– backing vocals * Khaliq Glover – backing vocals * Portia Griffin – backing vocals * Susannah Melvoin – backing vocals * Bruce Sudano – backing vocals * Gene Van Buren – backing vocals * Kin Vassy – backing vocals * Terry Williams – backing vocals Production and artwork * Michael Omartian – producer, arrangements * John Guess – engineer, mixing (1, 3, 5, 7–10) * Jürgen Koppers – mixing (2, 4, 6) * David Ahlert – second engineer * Larry Ferguson – second engineer * Tom Fouce – second engineer * Ross Palone – second engineer * Steve Hall – mastering at Future Disc (Hollywood, California) * Ronnie Puccinelli – production coordinator * Chris Whorf – art direction * Jeffrey Fey – design * Harry Langdon – photography * Susan Munao Management Co. Inc. – management

Charts

Weekly charts

Single

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1984 albums Donna Summer albums Albums produced by Michael Omartian Geffen Records albums New wave albums by American artists