Seated on a piano bench in her bright, contemporary home in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Gloria Gaynor was talking over plans for her next concert.
For years, she said, she stood alone onstage, singing over prerecorded audio tracks. No more. At the upcoming show, Ms. Gaynor, 81, would be performing with a 10-piece ensemble that included a horn section and a trio of background singers — a level of professionalism she insists on in her contract.
“Gloria Gaynor is a luxury item,” she said. “Either you can afford her or you can’t.”
It has taken Ms. Gaynor a lifetime to deliver such a diva line. The singer who became the embodiment of standing up for yourself — thanks to her signature anthem, “I Will Survive” — said she struggled for years with low self-esteem. As a result, she ended up adrift.
Since making the decision to take charge of her life and career, she has finally become a match for the self-assured vocalist heard on so many recordings, including her latest single, “Fida Known,” a song that harks back to disco’s golden years while sounding very much of the moment.
“I feel like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon,” Ms. Gaynor said.
Born Gloria Fowles, she was raised in a large family in Newark. She didn’t know her father, a nightclub singer. Her mother, whom everybody called Queenie May, was a big-hearted, blunt-speaking woman with a beautiful voice. At age twelve, Ms. Gaynor was molested by one of her mother’s boyfriends, she has said in interviews. She kept the abuse a secret for decades, including from the readers of her 1995 memoir, “Soul Survivor.”
When Ms. Gaynor was a teenager, her mother recognized that she had real talent when she heard her singing the jazz standard “Lullaby of the Leaves.” Queenie May gave her daughter plenty of encouragement back when she was working a string of day jobs while singing in clubs at night, but she didn’t live to see her grand success. She died of lung cancer in 1970, when Ms. Gaynor was 27 and still struggling to make a name for herself.
She had her breakout success in 1975 with “Never Can Say Goodbye,” her remake of a 1971 hit for the Jackson 5. Thanks to its nonstop beat, lush strings and Ms. Gaynor’s impassioned vocals, it became a worldwide smash and the first song to appear at No. 1 in Billboard magazine’s newly created Disco/Dance chart.
Ms. Gaynor set a standard for the genre, according to the critic and music historian Vince Aletti, one of the first writers to take disco seriously. “Women ruled the dance floor for years, and Gloria was the first to have a powerful sound,” Mr. Aletti said. “You could tell she was going to last.”
She was billed as the Disco Queen — and it wasn’t just some concert promoter’s hype. In 1975, at a ceremony in Manhattan held by the International Association of Discothèque Disc Jockeys, Ms. Gaynor looked radiant in a floor-length gown as a crown was placed atop her head and the organizers bestowed upon her the title “Queen of the Discothèques.”
But it’s hard to stay on top — and her prospects seemed bleak a few years later, when she fell backward over a stage monitor while performing at the Beacon Theater in New York. She underwent surgery and a grueling recovery.
Then came “I Will Survive.”
It was composed by Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren, a pair of songwriters who had formerly worked for Motown, and it suited Ms. Gaynor perfectly. With utter conviction, she sang of being wronged by a lover, breaking free and holding her head high as she moved into an independent life.
She knew the song was good, but the record label relegated it to the B side of her 1978 single “Substitute.” True to its name, however, “I Will Survive” refused to be held down. Disc jockeys flipped the disc, and it went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won a Grammy.
“There was an upbeat excitement when that record came on,” Mr. Aletti said. “It had a real emotional kick. Men and women — especially gay men — had this sense that we will pull through. She was singing for everybody on the dance floor.”
“I Will Survive” became Ms. Gaynor’s signature piece — she says she never tires of singing it — as well as an enduring anthem of overcoming hardship and oppression. To this day, it is regularly included on lists of the greatest dance tracks of all time. In 2016, the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry, a collection of American recordings deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
“Today it’s more of a victory song,” Ms. Gaynor said. “When I sing it now, I’m so singing it for other people. Hoping it will help them get to where I am and beyond. Because I am in a state of thriving right now, as opposed to surviving.”
Back in the ’70s, Ms. Gaynor exemplified the era’s fashions with her flashy jumpsuits and sparkling jewels. But she was never one for the hedonistic lifestyle that went along with mirrored disco balls and four-on-the-floor beats. In her memoir, she describes feeling so lonely at the peak of her fame that she slept in her manager’s office when she got off the road, rather than face her empty apartment.
“First of all, I worked like 300 nights out of the year,” she said. “I didn’t have much energy to be going to parties. Plus, I didn’t want to be seen by the fans. I felt I needed some air of mystique about me.”
She also had a negative body image. At one point she dropped 45 pounds on a starvation diet recommended by a doctor. Meals consisted of a glass of grapefruit juice for breakfast, a glass of grapefruit juice for lunch and tomato juice for dinner. Period.
“I dreamed I saw a fried chicken walking in the yard, I was so hungry,” Ms. Gaynor said with a laugh. “My body was screaming at me. And yet I was so determined I was going to lose this weight.”
As “I Will Survive” began climbing the charts, she married a former New York City Transit officer who became her manager. According to Ms. Gaynor, he enjoyed partying with the “in” crowd and spending the money she earned.
He booked her to perform constantly during the ’80s and ’90s. She was especially big in Europe, where she sang to backing tracks (it was cheaper than hiring a band). She learned to put up a false front and simply endure. When a British TV host pressed her about her grueling schedule, she said she loved to travel. She stayed in the marriage, she has said, because she felt unworthy of love.
Across those long years on the road, she never lost her supple, powerful voice. In 2001, at a concert in celebration of Michael Jackson at Madison Square Garden, she owned the stage, looking fierce in a golden gown and jeweled turban as she delivered a stirring rendition of “I Will Survive” backed by a full orchestra.
While Ms. Gaynor remained a significant concert draw abroad, her standing in her home country suffered under the strain of poor management. “I think she wishes she was more accepted in the United States,” Stephanie Gold, her current manager, said. “It’s hard for us to sell tickets in the United States.”
In 2005, Ms. Gaynor finally got a divorce. She devoted the next decade to rebuilding her life and career from the ground up. Inspired by a spread in the pages of Architectural Digest, she built a new home for herself, the 5,000-square-foot mansion in Englewood Cliffs. It has a grand staircase worthy of a diva, a spacious kitchen (she likes to invent recipes, including Chicken à la Gaynor) and a pair of stone lions guarding the entry door.
“I always wanted lions,” she said.
A regular churchgoer since the mid-80s, Ms. Gaynor had long wanted to make a gospel album. Despite resistance from executives in the world of Christian music, who saw her only as a disco singer, she pressed ahead, paying out of her own pocket for the years of recording sessions that resulted in “Testimony.” It won the Grammy in 2020 for best gospel roots album, making Ms. Gaynor the only singer to have Grammys in the disco and gospel categories.
In June, she will release an EP of dance pop, “Happy Tears,” that fits neatly into her catalog of uplifting songs about beating the odds. It comes amid a period of renewed appreciation for Ms. Gaynor set off in part by the 2023 documentary “Gloria Gaynor — I Will Survive” and the 2024 Lifetime TV biopic “I Will Survive: The Gloria Gaynor Story.”
“The time of staying in the shadows helped me to come out of the shadows and express myself and be myself in a less arrogant way than I might have before,” she said. She laughed gently, adding, “I think I just described humility.”
In 2019, she underwent an 18-hour back surgery. Ms. Gold, her manager, said the pain has returned, restricting her mobility, and her home is equipped with a mechanical lift to help her go down to her finished basement. But when Ms. Gaynor gave me a house tour, she said, “I’m not using that,” and shuffled down the staircase.
She continues to perform around the world. She played to a crowd of 150,000 at Rock in Rio last September, and this year will take her band to Turkey, Spain, Greece, Denmark and England.
Last month, about two weeks after our interview, Ms. Gaynor took the stage of the Bergen Performing Arts Center, a venue about a mile from her home. Wearing a sequined royal blue pantsuit, she sang a mix of dance songs and gospel for an hour and a half to an enthusiastic home crowd.
Her trombone player had called in sick, so the band had nine members instead of the usual 10. Still, the sound was so much richer and more alive than it had been in her backing-tracks era. Her voice has deepened with age — the glittery crescendo of “Never Can Say Goodbye” is no longer reachable — but in some ways it is more emotive than ever.
For much of the night, Ms. Gaynor was limited in her movements onstage, sticking more or less to one spot and taking breaks from time to time in a chair. Then came the closing number.
She sang gently though the first verse as she described a woman who was too “afraid” and “petrified” to leave a bad relationship and live on her own. The band kicked in with that driving, determined beat, and Ms. Gaynor was energized. She moved back and forth across the stage as she belted out the triumphant chorus. The crowd was on its feet and dancing.
Naturally, the song was “I Will Survive.”
Steven Kurutz covers cultural trends, social media and the world of design for The Times.
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