Gloria Gaynor

Gloria Fowles (born September 7, 1943), known professionally as Gloria Gaynor, is an American singer, best known for the disco era hits "I Will Survive" (1978) which is one of the best-selling singles in history to date, having sold over 15 million copies worldwide, and "Let Me Know (I Have a Right)" (1979), "I Am What I Am" (1983), and her version of "Never Can Say Goodbye" (1974). She received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2025.

Gloria Fowles was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Daniel Fowles and Queenie Mae Proctor. Her grandmother lived nearby and was involved in her upbringing. "There was always music in our house", Gaynor wrote in her autobiography I Will Survive. She enjoyed listening to the radio, and to records by Nat King Cole and Sarah Vaughan. Her father played the ukulele and guitar and sang professionally in nightclubs with a group called Step 'n' Fetchit. Gloria grew up as a tomboy; she had five brothers and one sister. Her brothers sang gospel and formed a quartet with a friend.

Gaynor was not allowed to sing with the all-male group, nor was her younger brother Arthur, as Gloria was a girl and Arthur was too young. Arthur later acted as a tour manager for Gaynor. The family was relatively poor, but Gaynor recalls the house being filled with laughter and happiness, and the dinner table being open to neighborhood friends. They moved to a housing project in 1960, where Gaynor attended South Side High School; she graduated in 1961.

"All through my young life I wanted to sing, although nobody in my family knew it", Gaynor wrote in her autobiography. Gaynor began singing in a nightclub in Newark, where she was recommended to a local band by a neighbor. After several years of performing in local clubs and along the East Coast, Gaynor was signed in 1971 at Columbia Records.

Gaynor was a singer with The Soul Satisfiers, a jazz and R&B music band of the 1960s. She recorded "She'll Be Sorry" as Gloria Gaynor in 1965, for Johnny Nash's "Jocida" label. Her first real success came in 1973 when she was signed to Columbia Records by Clive Davis. The fruit of that was the release of the single "Honey Bee".

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.