Gloria Gaynor

• 1. Introduction

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  Gloria Gaynor was born Gloria Fowles on the 7th of September 1943, in Newark, New Jersey. Her father played the ukulele and guitar and sang professionally in nightclubs with a group called Step 'n' Fetchit. Music filled their home so constantly that she later wrote about it in her autobiography, "I Will Survive." Yet all through her young life, she kept her deepest wish a secret. As she put it: "All through my young life I wanted to sing, although nobody in my family knew it."

  By 1978, that secret had become one of the best-selling singles in history, with over 15 million copies sold worldwide. But how does a quiet girl from a Newark housing project become the voice of an anthem that outlasted the very genre that launched it? And what happened in the years when disco died, and the world briefly forgot her name?

• 2. Newark Beginnings

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  South Side High School in Newark is where Gloria Gaynor graduated in 1961, after her family moved to a housing project the year before. Growing up, she was raised partly by her grandmother, who lived nearby. She was the only girl among six siblings, and described herself as a tomboy.

  Her brothers formed a gospel quartet with a friend, but Gloria was barred from singing with them, simply because she was a girl. Her younger brother Arthur was also excluded, deemed too young. Arthur would later become her tour manager, turning that childhood bond into a professional one.

  At home, Gloria listened to records by Nat King Cole and Sarah Vaughan. Her father's nightclub performances gave the family a direct line to the stage, even if the children were not yet on it. The family was relatively poor, but Gaynor recalled a household filled with laughter and a dinner table open to friends from the neighborhood.

  A neighbor eventually recommended her to a local band, and she began singing in a Newark nightclub. After several years performing in local clubs and along the East Coast, she signed with Columbia Records in 1971. The road from South Side High School to a recording contract had taken roughly a decade.

• 3. Building the Disco Sound

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  Clive Davis signed Gaynor to Columbia Records in 1973, and the first fruit of that deal was the single "Honey Bee." She then moved to MGM Records, where her debut album Never Can Say Goodbye arrived in 1975.

  The first side of that album was designed as a continuous 19-minute dance marathon, blending "Honey Bee", "Never Can Say Goodbye", and "Reach Out, I'll Be There" without a break between them. Dance clubs embraced it immediately. "Never Can Say Goodbye" became the first song to top Billboard magazine's dance chart, reached No. 9 on the Pop Charts, and climbed to No. 34 on the R&B Charts. It landed in the Top 5 in Australia, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom, earning silver certification from the British Phonographic Industry and gold in the United States.

  Gaynor's second album, Experience Gloria Gaynor, appeared in September 1975. Singles including "(If You Want It) Do It Yourself" reached No. 1 on the disco charts. Her cover of "How High the Moon" topped the US Dance Charts as well. Unlike many disco productions of the era, Gaynor's records gained a reputation for directness; her later hit "I Will Survive" would be recorded without background singers or the common studio trick of pitching her voice higher to make the track feel faster.

  By 1976 she had released the album I've Got You, and since then she has recorded some sixteen albums in total, including recordings made in England, Germany, and Italy.

• 4. The B-Side That Changed Everything

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  In late 1978, Polydor Records released the single "Substitute" by the South African girl-group Clout, which had become a worldwide hit, as the A-side of a new Gaynor single. "I Will Survive" was placed on the B-side, considered less radio-friendly. That calculation proved spectacularly wrong.

  The song is written from the point of view of a woman recently left by a partner, telling him directly that she can manage without him and has no interest in his return. It was recorded without background singers and without the pitch manipulation common in disco production at the time. Gaynor won the Grammy for Best Disco Recording at the 22nd Annual Grammy Awards and received additional nominations for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

  Rolling Stone ranked "I Will Survive" at No. 492 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time." Billboard placed it at No. 97 on its "All-Time Hot 100." Over the decades, the song attracted cover versions by artists including Lonnie Gordon, Diana Ross, Chantay Savage, and rock group Cake.

  In a 2012 interview, Gaynor described the song's reach: "It feels great to have such a song like that because I get kids five and six years old telling me they like the song, and then people seventy-five and eighty." In 2015, the film The Martian used the song during its closing credits. In 2016, the Library of Congress selected it for induction into the National Recording Registry.

• 5. Disco's Fall and Faith's Rise

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  The backlash against disco that began in late 1979 hit Gaynor's career directly. Two disco albums she released in 1980 and 1981 were virtually ignored in the United States, though disco remained popular on urban contemporary radio.

  In 1982, Gaynor became a Christian after looking into a wide variety of faiths and religious movements. She began to distance herself from a past she considered sinful, and that same year released an album of mid-tempo R&B and pop songs simply titled Gloria Gaynor.

  Her final mainstream success of the decade came with the 1984 album I Am Gloria Gaynor, driven largely by the track "I Am What I Am." That song became a gay anthem and made Gaynor a gay icon in the club culture of the era. Her 1986 album The Power of Gloria Gaynor consisted almost entirely of cover versions.

  During the early and mid-1990s, a worldwide disco revival brought renewed attention to her catalogue. She also moved into television work in the late 1990s, guest-starring on The Wayans Bros, That '70s Show, and Ally McBeal, before a limited engagement on Broadway in Smokey Joe's Cafe. At the 30th Anniversary concert for Michael Jackson in 2001, she performed "I Will Survive" before an audience gathered to celebrate a very different chapter of pop history.

• 6. Second Grammy, New Chapters

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  Gaynor returned to the recording studio in 2002 with I Wish You Love, her first album in more than fifteen years. Both singles from that record, "Just Keep Thinking About You" and "I Never Knew," topped Billboard's Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. "I Never Knew" also reached No. 30 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart.

  On the 19th of September 2005, she was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame in the "Artist" category, alongside Chic and Sylvester. "I Will Survive" was simultaneously inducted in the "Records" category, giving Gaynor two entries in the same ceremony.

  In January 2008, the American Diabetes Association named her Honorary Spokesperson for the "NYC Step Out to Fight Diabetes Walk." On the 16th of May 2015, Dowling College awarded her an honorary Doctor of Music degree.

  Forty years after "I Will Survive" was first released, she won her second Grammy Award in January 2020, this time for the roots gospel album Testimony, taking Best Roots Gospel Album at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards. In 2021, she collaborated with Australian singer Kylie Minogue on "Can't Stop Writing Songs About You" for the reissue of Minogue's album Disco, a pairing that came about after Gaynor praised Minogue publicly for keeping disco alive.

  On the 13th of August 2025, President Donald Trump announced Gaynor as one of the honorees for the Kennedy Center Honors, to be presented in December 2025, more than sixty years after she first began singing in Newark nightclubs.