The track I Will Survive has done exactly that. Since its 1979 release, it’s been a powerhouse track that’s rarely left radios. On New Year’s Eve, it will be sung live in Dubai at the Masterjam concert by the woman who made it such a hit — Gloria Gaynor. But it’s survived in other ways too; thanks to its uplifting message, Gaynor has turned the stories of survival that people all over the world have been sending her over the years into spoken word album that last month was nominated for a Grammy. Here’s she opens up about the song, the book and her first visit to the UAE — in 1980.
Q. Tell us what we can expect from the show? It sounds like an amazing line-up.
A. Is it? Well, it’s me and a number of my peers who are great, great artists. I think it’s just going to be one big party. I will be doing of course the hits that they expect from me — I Am What I Am, Never Can Say Goodbye, I Will Survive — and they will be doing their hits. So you are going to have a night of hit songs.
Q. Any chance you will perform together?
A. It could. We might do one song together, seeing that everyone knows and the audience can join in with us.
Q. Congratulations on your Grammy nomination.
A. They are stories from people from every walk of life, and all kinds of stories that they have overcome with the help of the song I Will Survive. It has encouraged them to pull together their inner strength, from wherever they get it, and make it through. There are all kinds of stories — of unrequited love, of course — but then there are stories of parents with deceased children, and wives who lost their husbands, and some people lost their parents, suffered with cancer or sexual abuse. One woman is a holocaust survivor.
Q. Why now?
A. It’s something I decided to do almost 10 years ago because I have been receiving these stories, and every time someone tells me one, it’s encouraging to me, and I though how encouraging and inspiring must it be to be going through something yourself that you think is insurmountable, and read about someone who has gone through something just as bad as what you’re going through — or maybe worse — and come out the other side victorious. I thought it was time to share these stories with the world.
Q. What do you think the Grammys saw in this spoken word album?
A. I am hoping they see that it is inspiring, and that I’ve read it in a way that the inspiration comes through.
Q. Was it challenging to be speaking rather than singing on a record?
A. [Laughs] Oh yes very much so. I was not sure whether my voice would be appealing. It’s like acting. I’ve done dribs and drabs of so-called acting here and there, but I was acting as myself. Now I am trying to get across stories of a diversified group of people.
Q. You visited Dubai in 1980, right? What brought you here?
A. It was Sharjah and Bahrain, a mini tour over there. I remember that it was pretty much desolate. There wasn’t very much going on, and there was a difficult visa situation in one place, and they had more servants in the hotel than guests. We were very well taken care of.
Q. Tell us about your memories of working with your fellow Masterjam performers? Nile Rodgers spoke specifically about Chaka Khan.
A. You know what immediately came to mind when you spoke about Chaka — she and I and several other artists did a show in Paris, and we did the finale. As we were lining up to go onto the stage, I was standing right behind her, and I said in a playful angry voice, “you’ve been perpetrating!”. She said “what?!”. I said, “you’re a tiny little person”. She had lost all this weight and was looking so good! She said to me, you’re a tiny little person, too. I said yeah, under all this fat, I probably am.
Q. Looking back over 2014 and forward to 2015, any highs, lows and things you’d like to achieve?
A. The only lows have been the deaths of a few friends. Unfortunately the older you get the more people around you are dying. But it’s a part of life, so you have to look forward to the pleasant things. So I look forward to the recordings I’m about to do, the writing I’ve been doing and what will come of that. I’ve been writing some Christian music with some Grammy award-winning writers in Nashville.
Q. Masterjam has a huge line-up of artists. What do you want to tell people about why they should make sure to see you in particular?
A. At the risk of sounding conceited, I can’t imagine anything that is going to uplift, encourage and spur you on onto a new year than getting with a group of people who are all singing I Will Survive.
