Gloria Gaynor ~ I Will Survive 1979 Disco Purrfection Version

Details

Description

Gloria Gaynor was officially crowned the first queen of disco by The National Association of Discotheque Disc Jockeys in 1975. She electrified the clubs and radio with her 1974 "Never Can Say Goodbye" LP. The album track of that song alone topped the disco survey for four weeks that year and then the entire single side of that LP, "Honeybee/Never Can Say Goodbye/Reach Out, I'll Be There" spent one week at #2.


In 1975, she scored another #1 disco hit with "Casanova Brown/(If You Want It)Do It Yourself/How High The Moon", then followed that up in 1976 with a third trio of segued songs, "Let's Make A Deal/I've Got You Under My Skin/Be Mine" that peaked at #4, a sign that perhaps it was time to change it up a little. A fourth try, "We Can Start All Over Again/Life Ain't Worth Livin'/Why Should I Pay", barely made Top 40 disco reaching #38.


With Donna Summer coming up fast behind her, Gloria's career was on the downswing when she suffered a spinal injury when she fell off a stage while on tour in Europe, and then her beloved mother passed away. The recuperation time gave Gloria a lot of time to think, and she agreed to work with Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris, two pop music producers who were part of Motown's generic production team "The Corporation" for The Jackson Five.


Once she was out of the hospital, they set about programming the album. "I Will Survive" was a heartfelt anthem to self determination that the label felt was too dramatic. "Substitute" had been originally recorded by the South African pop group Clout, who had a #67 pop hit US with it in the fall of 1978. The label, Polydor went with "Substitute" as the A side, and chose "I Will Survive" as the B side. Well, the clubs got a hold of "Substitute", checked out the B side, and made it the A side. It spent the first of 3 weeks at #1 starting the week ending January 27, 1979 disco and then it went on to pop #1 for three weeks starting March 10, 1979.