Like a solid-gold bartender, Gloria Gaynor has been listening for decades.
Ever since she recorded the emancipation anthem “I Will Survive” in 1979, strangers have approached her with stories of disappointment, loss and – most of all – perseverance.
The original disco diva was doing a radio call-in show a few years after “Survive” hit the airwaves when she heard from a woman who underwent open-heart surgery.
“Right in the middle of it, her husband came in and said he wanted a divorce,” recalled Gaynor, 56, in a telephone interview from her Greenbrook, N.J., home.
Then a nurse brought the patient a recording of “I Will Survive.”
“It encouraged her to come to terms with it and realize she could live without him,” Gaynor said.
These days, she is still belting her signature tune, along with fresher discofied R&B dance tracks and working on jazz, gospel and Christmas albums. Oh yeah, and a book too.
The Newark, N.J., native is collecting stories about what else? Survival.
Hundreds of fans have testified on her Web site (www.gloriagaynor.com) about how they’ve overcome poverty, cancer and unrequited love while latching onto “I Will Survive” as motivation.
“I’m overrun with divorce stories,” she said.
Ultimately, Gaynor hopes to include recollections from celebrities and politicians along with anecdotes from “normal people.” The publication target is spring 2006. Fellow disco/gospel singer Candi Staton (“Young Hearts Run Free”) and the controversial infomercial peddler Kevin Trudeau, author of “Natural Cures “They’ Don’t Want You to Know About”‘ have already submitted tales.
Maybe Ivana Trump will contribute.
“Every time she sees me she tells me that song helped her with her divorce from The Donald,” said Gaynor, her voice as soothing as a hot cup of tea.
Born Gloria Fowles, she first sang as part of an obscure R&B crew, the Soul Satisfiers, before MGM Records discovered her and signed the singer to its label. In 1975, Gloria Gaynor had her first hit with a cover of the Jackson 5’s “Never Can Say Goodbye.” It became the first song to top Billboard magazine’s dance chart.
She also made lesser-known disco grooves like “Honey Bee” (1974), “Casanova Brown” (1975) and “I Am What I Am” (1983).
But it was “I Will Survive” that brought Gaynor seemingly everlasting fame. The song, which has since been recorded more than 200 times, was awarded the first and only Grammy Award for Best Disco Recording.
Twenty-six years later, she still gets a charge from performing it.
“I become 290 percent grade-A ham when I sing that song,” she said. “I just really love doing it.”
Originally released as the B side of a more “radio-friendly” single, “I Will Survive” enraptured the masses only after DJs flipped the record over. The song’s story of the recently dumped woman telling her ex-lover to “walk out the door” was told during the same decade the federal Equal Pay Act and Sex Discrimination Act were passed. It was also the year Britain elected Margaret Thatcher as its first female prime minister.
At the time, Gaynor said she recognized the song as empowering in that it helped her accept her mother’s death and with her own recovery from spine surgery, an operation she needed after falling over a microphone.
Today, she sees the song legions of karaoke warblers have appropriated in broader terms.
“It’s very uplifting, encouraging, specifically for women,” she said. “I’ve kind of come to the understanding that people want to be counseled by people who can empathize, not just sympathize.”
It’s a skill she’s honed through personal trials. In her 1987 autobiography, “I Will Survive: The Book,” she describes her drug abuse, two abortions, marital problems, and her embrace of born-again Christianity.
And now, with 17 albums – her latest 2003’s “I Give You Love,” which topped Billboard’s dance charts twice – the sveltified singer is enmeshed in what she considers her greatest challenge: college. She’s studying for a bachelor’s degree in behavioral sciences at the New York Institute of Technology in Manhattan.
“I want to go into the ministry of counseling, professionally, and continue singing. I just really feel that I should be doing more to empower women than sing.”
The music industry’s treatment of women has not evolved as Gaynor, who practices pilates three times a week and does not eat meat, had hoped it would by now. The commoditized image of women is too narrow, she said.
“Whether it’s rap, R&B, on MTV, BET, whatever – no matter what video station you turn on, unless it’s a Christian station, the women are twisting and turning and doing everything but laying down,” she said.
Gaynor worries even for young women she admires like 24-year-old Grammy winner Beyonce.
“She’s talented. She doesn’t need to do all that.”
In a career through parts of four decades, Gaynor has come to recognize physical beauty as fleeting and to live according to her faith, she said.
“The most important thing you can do in life,” she said, “is seek truth and surrender to it.”
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