By Debbie Gardner
debbieg@thereminder.com
“I did a show a day ago, and now I have a week and a half before I have another show in Hershey [Pennsylvania]. As for the rest of the year, its one or two shows a month. But this business is very changeable and I could end up next week with 10 more shows.”
At 66, Gloria Gaynor shows no signs of slowing down. Fresh from a July tour playing multiple venues in Spain, she was using her down time back in the states to pen a few more pages of her book and review designs for a new clothing line.
“I like being busy,” Gaynor admitted during an early August chat with PRIME about her upcoming appearance at the Big E. “My friends tell me I don’t know how to relax.”
Resting on your laurels isn’t what keeps a performer’s
career going for nearly 40 years. That’s a fact Gaynor – who broke onto the music scene during the Disco era of the 1970s, reached icon status with the single “I Will Survive” in 1979 and later expanded her dance music repertoire to include songs inspired by a strengthening relationship with God – knows well.
“I kind of brought people along with me … because my music is not just relevant to a particular genre, and it was relevant to their lives,” Gaynor said.
And when it comes to entertaining those fans, she knows what they want.
“They look for the hits,” Gaynor said. “They like to be uplifted and they look to be able to dance and that’s what I give them.”
Her show during the opening weekend of the Big E’s Centennial Celebration – Gaynor takes the Court of Honor Stage Sept. 17 and 18 at 3 and 8 p.m. – will be just that, a mix of the songs her fans know well, and material from an upcoming CD to be released in March, 2017.
And of course, she will perform her 1979 hit, “I Will Survive,” – which was chosen by the Library of Congress for preservation as “a key artifact of American culture” earlier this year.
Gaynor said though it was early in her career, she knew that song had a certain power.
“When I read the lyrics, before ever hearing the melody, I believed it was a timeless lyric that anyone would be able to relate to,” she said. “I had a situation that was unrelated to the love lyrics in the song, and I related to it.
“I had recently had an accident, and people were going around the record company saying that the Queen is dead,” Gaynor recalled, referring to the “Queen of Disco” title bestowed on her by the International Association of Discos and DJs in 1976. “I was still in a back brace as I read the lyrics, and recorded it a few days later.”
Performed with minimal accompaniment and intended to be the “B’ side of a single, over the years the song has become a rallying cry for countless individuals as well as organizations from the Women’s Movement to Gay Pride.
Gaynor said it was “an awesome honor” to have her recording included in the nation’s cultural archives.
“You know, people have also asked me if I get tired of singing ‘I Will Survive,’ or if ‘I Will Survive’ limits me because it stands out so far above everything else.
“I’ve come to understand that ‘I Will Survive’ is the core of myself – to inspire, uplift and encourage,” Gaynor explained. “That’s what keeps me going. I have a purpose and I’m accomplishing my purpose and to know that that purpose is so relevant to other people is encouraging and inspiring to me.”
But that iconic anthem isn’t all she has in store for fans who come to see her at the Big E. Expect to hear some familiar pieces in a whole new way when Gaynor takes the stage.
“I particularly like ‘Stop in the Name of Love.’ It was originally done by the Supremes, and I like that Kool & the Gang did a new arrangement of it for me,” Gaynor said. “I love, love, love doing that song.
“I also have a new arrangement of “Every Breath You Take” that is completely different than anyone has ever done, It’s a big band version [and] I get great responses when I do it.”
She will also be unveiling three new songs – “Only You Can Do,” “Talking about Jesus,” and “Singing Over Me” – that preview her upcoming new CD which will include duets with Christian music singer Jason Crabb, and Bart Millard from the band “Mercy Me.”
That CD, Gaynor said, will have her heading back into the studio to record those duets in between engagements through the spring. She’ll also try to add a few pages to her latest book – “an array of general subjects just sharing the wisdom I’ve acquired over the years” – which follows on the heels of her first book, “We Will Survive,” which is a compilation of 40 stories “fans, friends and family members have written to me about how the song, ‘I Will Survive’ has uplifted, encouraged and empowered them to make it through difficult times in their lives.”
And she’ll be squeezing in time to tap her fashion sense – “I used to make my own clothes when I had the time,” Gaynor explained – to work with her costume designer to finish her line of casual sportswear. Targeting the 18 to 54-year-old market to start, she hopes to have her first designs in production and available online by Thanksgiving.
But if someone calls, and the gig feels right, Gaynor said she’d be back on the road for her fans.
“I don’t know who the wise man was who said a person who loves what they do never works a day in their lives,” Gaynor said. “I always leave my shows hoping that the audience has had as much fun as I did.”
