Gloria Gaynor - A Profile

Gloria Gaynor is celebrating her 79th birthday today. She is probably best known for two or three songs. The first a disco version of "Never Can Say Goodbye" in 1974 (which perhaps introduced her to most), the female emancipation song "I Will Survive" which was a worldwide smash hit 1978 and is still played to this day as an anthem, and what has become a gay anthem "I Am What I Am" in 1983.

Born Gloria Fowles in Newark, NJ, on 7 Sep 1943 one of six children who had been singing for a decade or more before her breakthrough hit "Never Can Say Goodbye" in 1974. 

She was a member of the Soul Satisfiers and recorded her first single "She'll Be Sorry" / "Let Me Go Baby" on Johnny Nash's Jocida label in Sep 1965. The A side, "She'll Be Sorry" is a song written by Lou Courtney and a young Dennis Lambert (Lambert & Potter) and  has had spins on the Northern Soul scene.

Her next recording wasn't until Aug 1973 when she released a single for Columbia "Honey Bee" written by the Steals twins (aka Mystic & Maestro) and arranged by Norman Harris. A shorter remixed version was then somehow released on MGM with a different B side in Jan 1974. 

In Sep 1974 she released her disco version of a song written by Clifton Davis originally intended for The Supremes but recorded by The Jackson 5 as their first single from "Maybe Tomorrow" album in 1971. It was a #2 Hot 100 hit for them featuring a twelve year old Michael. Isaac Hayes was the first to cover the song on "Black Moses" and then as a single in 1971 reaching #22 Hot 100. Gaynor's version reached #9 Billboard Hot 100 and #2 UK in Jan 1975 and was the very first #1 on a newly created Billboard Disco chart. It is a popular song with SecondHandSongs currently listing 151 different versions of it. Some of the versions  were recorded by artists such as Jr. Walker & The All Stars, The New Birth, James Brown, Melba Moore, Donnie Elbert and Smokey Robinson who all recorded it before Gaynor, however there are not many notable versions since although Will Downing did one in 2019 on Romantique (part one).

Gloria's debut album "Never Can Say Goodbye" is historically significant as the A side consisted of a 19 minute continuous mix by Tom Moulton  of "Honey Bee", "Never Can Say Goodbye" and "Reach Out, I'll Be There" and was the first of it's kind and is considered as probably the first disco album.

She had a few more moderate hits until 1978 when her career was hitting the buffers and she was asked to sing a song intended originally as a B side to "Substitute" (a cover of a 1977 pop hit by South African girl group Clout) and on its first release was actually relegated to the B side until it was passed to New York club DJs and the rest is history as that song was "I Will Survive".

The above is all 'fine and dandy' you may by now be thinking but those are pop/disco songs, so what has this got top do with a soul music blog? If you pick though her albums there are several lesser known, non-hit songs that have graced modern soul dancefloors (i.e. "Tell Me How", "This Love Affair" and "Casanova Brown" in particular and some have finally woken up to "We Just Can't Make" which as been ignored for decades simply because it's easily found on the flip to "Never Can Say Goodbye") along with some good ballads.

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