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Interview
by SashaS
20-3-2003
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| Gloria Gaynor wishes us all love: gimme! |
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Disco Queen returns
Gloria Gaynor on being ‘Queen Of Survival’
Gloria Gaynor has been the official Queen Of Disco – and the only one as there’s never been another bestowing of the kind – since 1975 when the then NYC Mayor Abraham D. Beame ‘crowned’ her. She calls herself ‘Queen of Survival’ and not only after her greatest hit, ‘I Will Survive’, that is officially the Best Disco hit of all times… well, the past 30 years.
Disco diva is back with ‘I Wish You Love’, an album that is her first international release in 15 years. That includes a long, dry spell in the US – while she continued to record and perform around Europe and Asia – and thus the decision was made for her to concentrate on the American market. Having made a splash on Broadway in the longest running musical review, ‘Smokey Joe’s Café’, appeared in TV series ‘’That 70’s Show’ and ‘Ally McBeal’, as well as ‘I Will Survive’ being included on the ‘Men In Black II’ film last year (joining half a dozen other soundtracks), ‘I Wish You Love’ has been doing rather well in the Uncle Sam’s aggro-playground, ever since its release in September.
“This album feels really great,” Gaynor speaks in her measured way, “and it was great to see people react to the new songs with the same passion as to the old hits. Making an album is a success in itself but to be able to make album like this, where I was involved in all aspects of creating, it is an even greater success and I can truthfully say that this is the best album I’ve made to date…”
On the moonwalk
It is difficult to believe that Ms Gaynor has been around for 30 years when facing her as she doesn’t look her age (fifty-something); now slimmed down and dressed in an elegant but simple trouser suit, she talks with passion and openly about her life, addictions, comeback, et al, in a hotel room on Park Lane, overlooking the London’s famed Hyde Park. She’s such a huge icon who was even appointed the French World Cup Football Team’s ‘Godmother’ (!?) because of her inspiring, uplifting music.
Being in the business for such a long time, with the usual ups and a fair bit of downs, the album’s theme is love; do you reckon it to be the most important thing in life?
“Yes, definitely. I was tempted to re-do the song ‘What The World Needs Now Is Love’ because I think it is such a great sentiment. Even the President Bush believes in love, I don’t think we wants to go to war but feels he needs to. I’m anti-war but what if he and Tony Blair are right?”
You’ve met some great men of our time, the Pope, President Clinton, Mr Mandela and yet, when someone asked you, ‘Whom were you the most impressed with?’ your reply was – Michael Jackson!?
“He is so completely different to his public persona, he is a warm, friendly, personable, very nice guy. But that is not what people buy… Michael told me a story once about a journalist who came in to interview him backstage, saw a hand-written note on the dress-table, asked if he could read it and then to keep it. It got published and it only said, ‘I’ve been sent for the children’.”
“He told me once that, ‘I know that the press don’t want my life, they want my blood but, forgive me, I’ve been bleeding a long time now’. Media are vampires and all they do is feed off information supplied, then extract bits to make it interesting to their readers, so to sell copies, attract viewers… Michael is a very nice, a gentle man… I also heard he’d constantly been put as an example to his brothers and sisters, so how much resentment is there? I think it was emotionally devastating to him…”
Life’s lectures
A life of joy and lowdowns, including a divorce and re-marriage, is well documented in her autobiography, ‘I Will Survive’... One has to wonder how difficult was it to remember it all because so many things have happened and one’s brain has a limited capacity (before starting to compress and erase/replace memories), not helped with her chemically altered states, over the years?
“It was relatively easy to remember because these were the things that shaped my life. I didn’t want to make it a personal expose but have things in that would help people. A couple of things I wanted to bring forward and the most important one was to the young people, that they can’t point at Gloria Gaynor and say, ‘She was an addict, she was an alcoholic, she did too much of everything and therefore she is different from me, I’m only doing a little bit.’ My message is that I wasn’t an alcoholic, I didn’t overindulge, I had a very little self-esteem and I wanted to fit in with the in-crowd.”
“My conclusion is that, first, it doesn’t help you to fit in; number two, you don’t really need to fit in with those people; number three, they are probably doing the same thing you are doing and, number four, they are not your friends, anyway. You can’t get from them what you are looking for. Even to do a little bit…”
Unfortunately such wisdom is out of print and, even worse, the copyright is owned by her (British) publisher. But, as her comeback continues to gather pace, expect to find it in a nearby hypermarket…
Gloria Gaynor is playing one-off, G.A.Y., show at London’s Astoria on 05 April 2003.
SashaS
20-3-2003
Gloria Gaynor’s album ‘I Wish You Life’ is released 14 April 2003 on Logic/BMG
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