Gloria Gaynor – She Not Only Survived, She Thrived

FEATURED PHOTO: Gloria Gaynor 

I Will Survive was never meant to be a hit song, nor an inductee into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry; it was an afterthought in 1978 from Polydor Records that the label considered a throw-away. But the moment Gloria read the lyrics, she felt the power of the words and knew in her heart God had given her a gift. She made the song her own and has used the words to inspire generations.

Gloria has achieved global stardom and musical recognition with hit songs on the charts all four decades of her career. She has channeled her fame into support for several charities and devotes her time and energy to children and other worthy causes. A recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Award, as well as an inductee into the Dance Music Hall of Fame, Gloria is an author, a television personality, and now a member of the New Jersey Hall of Fame Inductee Class of 2017.

Warm, welcoming, and open about her life and journey, here is our exclusive interview with the incomparable Gloria Gaynor.

 

 

CM: When did singing enter your life?

Gloria: I always wanted to sing. As a child it was difficult for me because I had five brothers, four of them older, and they didn’t allow me to sing with them because I was a girl. Nobody paid attention to me singing, and I just wanted someone to hear me sing.

CM: How did you become a professional singer?

Gloria: I was working at Bambergers Department Store and I became friends with this girl. Eventually I became Godmother to her first child. One day she called me to tell me she was having trouble with her babysitter and asked me if I would babysit because she knew I was on my first day of vacation from my job and would be available for two weeks. So, I went over to babysit for her and I noticed that each afternoon I would hear footsteps in the apartment above me. And I thought, Hmmm. If I can hear them walking, I bet if I sing loud enough they could hear me. So, I listened for the footsteps and when they would stop, I would sing. So I did that every day for the two weeks I was there. A couple of weeks later my brother and I go to a movie and on the way back we passed a night club and went in. We were sitting there waiting to be served, and the band was singing a song that I knew so I was singing it to myself. A little while later someone gets on the stage and says, “Ladies and gentlemen there’s a young lady in the audience who really has a wonderful voice. Maybe if we give her a little encouragement, we could get her up to sing a song or two.” I realized he was looking at me and that this was an opportunity I’d been waiting for for years. And so I wasn’t about to give it up. I was very, very scared…my first time singing in public since high school…and they asked me what I wanted to sing, and I said the song I had been singing in my seat which happened to be Save Your Love for Me by Nancy Wilson. They played the song, I sang the song, got a standing ovation, went back to my seat, my brother and I both excited, and the band comes over and asks me if I would come and sing with them every night. But I wanted to know how they even knew I could sing. Turns out the club owner was the footsteps I was singing to above me. The footsteps belonged to the club owner and he had heard my friend calling to me once as I left the building and that was how he had gotten my name.

CM: Did you take the job?

Gloria: They wanted me to start the next night. Thank goodness I was a child who always listened to my mother. She told me you always have to be ready for war in peace time and just always be ready. So I had asked her to make me some clothes, because singing had always been what I wanted to do, so she had made me some dresses for the stage. I had an autograph album from high school and every time I learned a new song, I would write it in the book. So I took it to the band and told them to pick out the songs that they knew, because I knew them all. I started singing with them the following night and never looked back.

CM: I’ve read you said I Will Survive is your God-given purpose?

Gloria: I’d had surgery on my spine, I had fallen on the stage, and ended up paralyzed from the waist down. I ended up in the hospital and while I was there the record company said they were not going to renew my contract. So there I was with no job, no way to pay my rent, no idea where I was going when I left the hospital, and I was worried about what was going to happen to me. So I began to pray and ask God what? What? What? What? What’s going to happen to me? I left there and stayed with my boyfriend for a while. I was consistently praying. Finally the record company called and said they decided not to end my contract, that they had gotten a new president over from England and he wanted me to specifically record a song he had had success with in England. When I went to LA to the recording studio I asked what was going to be the B side of his song. If you remember we had B sides then…

CM: Yes, on 45s…

Gloria: Right! So they wrote down the lyrics and when I read them I said to them, what are you nuts? This is a hit song. You’re going to put this on the B side? And they said maybe it would get a chance. So I told them if I had anything to do with it it was going to get a chance right now. So we recorded it. The main thing that always makes me believe it was a divine appointment is that they then asked me what type of songs I liked to record. And I told them I liked songs that were meaningful. They decided I was the one they had been waiting for, because they had had the song for two years. So after we recorded it they took it back to the record company and they wouldn’t listen to it. So we took it to Studio 54 and gave it to the deejay there. He played it and the audience immediately loved it, which told me that it was a hit song because a jaded New York audience doesn’t immediately love anything. We gave him a stack of them to give to his deejay friends in New York, they began to play it and people were requesting it in the clubs, and then they were requesting it on the radio. So the radio stations called the record company and wanted to know where the song was. And they had to say, with much chagrin, it’s on the B side of the song that we sent you. So they flipped it, and the rest is history.

CM: What was the song on the A side?

Gloria: It was actually a song called Substitute…

CM: Oh how ironic…

Gloria: Right? (Laughs).

CM: What does I Will Survive mean to you?

Gloria: It’s been an inspiration to people around the world. I was going to be performing in Italy and I wanted to change the words in the song from “it took all the strength I had not to fall apart” to “only the Lord could give me strength not to fall apart”, so we did. When I got to Italy I sang the song with the new lyrics for the first time. That night a young Asian woman came up to me after the show and said that she had missed her flight that morning and came to my show instead. I told her I was sorry she missed her flight, and she said, “oh no, don’t be, I think God meant for me to be here. I’ve been having a lot of difficulty here, but I don’t have any privacy here in Italy where I’m living, so I was going home so I could commit suicide. But now that I’ve heard your song I know where my strength can come from and I don’t have to die.” So these are the types of encounters that makes me realize this song is a divine appointment, the core of my purpose. I even wrote a book called We Will Survive that has 40 stories of people whom this song has empowered and encouraged to make it through difficult times. Yes, this is definitely the core of my purpose.

CM: What’s next for Gloria Gaynor?

Gloria: I have three things. I’m touring with the new album Testimony, a fatherhood project I’m working on, and helping charity. I think that’s enough to keep an old lady busy.

 

Some of Gloria’s Favorite Things

Favorite song: Other than I Will Survive is Please Let Me Show You. I recorded it on an album I did myself. (Available on ITunes.)

Favorite singer: Ooh. It’s a toss-up between Nancy Wilson and Sarah Vaughan. Modern time would be Whitney Houston. So, so sad.

Favorite city in the world: My favorite city has always been Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The people there are other worldly. Just good, kind-hearted, caring people.

Favorite quote: Hmmm. I have a favorite scripture, Proverbs 3:5-6. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path.” It’s part of my items on my website Iwillsurvive.com. It’s a charity-based website and a percentage of every purchase goes to the charity of the buyer’s choice. I just feel you should really give back.

Favorite movie: (Laughs) Well, let me think. For years my favorite movie was The Long Kiss Goodnight, because Gina Davis is such a tough cookie in that and she’s like my alter ego. She’s the tough girl I wish I was. But, Heaven is for Real really is my favorite movie now.

Favorite book: Other than the Bible, it’s This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti. I so want Steven Spielberg to produce that movie. It’s a page turner.