Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Lefsett's podcast. My guest today is Gloria Gainer, who has a new EP. Gloria, why are you recording? Why now?
Well, because I have some things to say. I have some things that I want to share with my audience that I think will be enjoyable for them but also valuable for them.
So what do you want to share?
I want to share hope. I want to share encouragement. I want to share empowerment and self esteem.
Are these issues that you've wrestled with personally?
Oh? Yeah, yeah, absolutely?
So how do you maintain hope?
I maintain hopeful my faith? I'm an avid Christian?
And have you always been a believer?
Well since I was sixteen years old?
And was there a special event that triggered you?
Then it's a silly event that triggered it. I was. I was at home and you remember the old Inquirer newspaper still left the still anyway, there was a they ran an article that they're saying that the Earth was going to collide with the moon. And you know how sometimes you can see the moon and it looks because of atmospheric changes. Get does look bigger right well, as
a child, I didn't know about that. So when I saw that, I thought it was true that the Earth was moving closer to the Moon and eventually they were going to collide. And one night I during that period, I went to bed and woke up the next night that night to go to the bathroom, and on the way back to my bedroom, I looked out my window
and I saw this red, thick fog. I went to the window, and the fog was so thick I couldn't even see the ground, and I couldn't see the neighbor's adjacent window, and so I determined that it was going to be happen. It was about to happen. And then I heard this noise louder than any noise I ever heard in my entire life, and I was certain it
was going to happen. So I was going to go and wake up my parents and decided to know if if we were all going to die, then they didn't need to suffer the pretension with me that I just go to bed. I went to bed, and I prayed that the Lord would take us into heaven. And I woke up the next one, of course, and found out the sun was shining on both sides of the street
and everything was fine. But I found out that the reason why I heard that noise, that this loud noise that I thought was the earth crashing with the moon was the first ever play to take off from the New Newark International Airport and we were in a flight path I'd never heard a plane pick off before. And the reason why, well, they even were talking about that the plane was delayed because of the fog that had this terrible fog that had rolled into Newark that morning.
And the reason why the fog was read was because the bar across the street had forgotten to turn their neon sign off that night, the night before. So it was said up a perfect storm for a sixteen year older to suddenly find her faith and decide that it was time to give my heart to the Lord. So I asked my mother to take me to church and let me be baptized, and she did, and I've been a believer ever since.
Well what did your parents think about you becoming a believer? Were they believers?
Yes? Yeah, they were glad for the decision.
Okay, so you start going to the church. Do you go to church still?
Yeah? Yeah, I still go to church every Sunday that I'm at home, and well.
And did you sing in church?
Yes?
I did.
I didn't. When I was a kid, I didn't. I didn't go very much. I went for a few weeks, and then I stopped going as a kid because my mother didn't go to church. She was in and dated with church as a child and made a silent vow that if her children didn't want to go to church, she wouldn't make them go because she had to go like four times a week.
And she just.
Decided I wasn't going to do that. So after a few weeks, I just stopped going. I lost interest in what was going on in the church, but I didn't lose interest in God, and so I kept my faith. I just didn't participate in church until later years. I really started going back to church. And I had an incident that happened to me out in California that sent me running back to church.
So what happened there, Well, I was.
About to long story short, about to indulge in something new, various things with that we were very common out in California with drugs and stuff, and I felt the Holy Spirit grab me in my collar literally felt him, grabbed me in my calling and say that's enough.
Wow. Okay, going back, So we live in a crazy world right now, politically, climate weather. For those of us who are not believers, how do we maintain hope?
I have no idea. I cannot answer that one for you because I don't know what I would do without my Lord.
Okay. Another thing you said you wanted to accomplish with the new ep IS address people's self esteem. Is this also something you've struggled with?
Oh? Yeah, yeah, I stuff it with self esteem as a child because I had some very difficult things that happened to me when I was a child out and uh, and those things really chipped away at my self esteem. And so I had a and plus I was overweight. I had a huge appetite as a skinny little child, and decided to stuff myself until I started gaining weight and then couldn't stop. And then they went from calling me skinny Minnie and Lolo chopsticks to fatty arbuckle and
porky pig. And so all of that chipped away at my self esteem. And so that at the time I became a young woman in my early twenties, I had. I was very low on self esteem.
So how did you build up your self esteem?
I built up my self esteem again with my faith. I really got involved in my faith and came to the conclusion that if God loved me, why should it matter what anyone else thinks.
Okay, you mentioned weight. How did you end up losing the weight? Did you still struggle with body issues?
Well? I was still struggling with that. And then I was told by my management that I was going to be elected Queen of Discos and I said, Oh, that must mean I'm going to be a star, So I think I better try to look like one. And I went to a doctor and he put me on this ridiculous diet that actually worked, but it was so so dangerous. I mean it was ridiculous. He put me on ups to shake my appetite. He put me on downs because
the ups made me nervous. And I say he gave me a sideways because he gave me a thyroid tablet. And I lost forty five pounds in six weeks.
Wow.
The diet consisted of a glass of grayfood juice for breakfast and glass of grayfuo juice for lunch, and a glass of tomato juice for dinner. Period, I dreamed I saw fried chickens walking around in the yard.
So when you stop that diet, how did you maintain your body?
Well? I set some hard fast rules. Never eat after eight o'clock at night, never overeat, never eat more than one starch at a meal, and make sure you have six to eight glass of the water a day. As long as I maintain that, I kept the weight off.
You know, I have a friend who was on television consistently, and on Christmas, he went to order takeout and he was sitting outside and a person came up to you and said, aren't you so and so? And he goes, yeah, he goes and the person said, you look like shit. And so what do you feel that when you leave the house that you have to have a certain appearance to what degree? Since you are a famous person, do you feel pressure to have a physical image commensurate with the image in people's mind.
Well, there's not a whole lot of pressure on me for that. I mean, I just came back from from physical therapy. This is how I look when I go out of my house, no matter what doesn't have anything to do with my my stardom. It's just my own just how I want to be presented to public, to the public.
And do you tend to be recognized?
No, okay, not here anyway. I'm recognized outside of the United States, but not here.
That's interesting. So if you're outside the United States, why do you think that is?
I think they have They don't have as many artists, you know, not inundated with with with stars in other countries and uh and certainly not black stars in other countries, and so they're more likely to, you know, pay attention and take notice.
So why are you going to physical therapy?
I'm having problem with my back. I've had problems with my back since I was a kid.
What's the diagnosis?
Just muscular things. I just need some muscle strengthen. You know, when you get to be a certain age, if you haven't done things, you know, to say a body in motion, stays in motion, and certain things. When you get older, you just stop doing because it's just not a part of your day. And then when you go to do that, for whatever reason, your body is like, oh, oh no, we're not doing that anymore, don't we don't do that, And so you have to retrain and that's what I'm doing retrainings.
So physical therapy is a working for you. Yeah, I just have physical therapy this morning. So we're on the same page. Yeah, okay, let's go back to the EP. So you say you want to get these messages across. How do you start or what did you do first?
Well, the first thing I did was write the songs. And well, actually the first thing I did was get together with some pe people that I wanted to write with, and then we wrote the songs.
And then stop there. Because you wrote with some very successful people, how did you hook up with these people?
Through my producer Chris Stevens. He knows a lot of writers because he's a multi multi multi Grammy Award winner and so he knows a lot of He's in Nashville, which is a music town, and so he knows tons of writers and singers and musicians and he hooked me up.
So everybody has a different style. What was it like, did you sit in the room together they say, Okay, we're going to write a song Nashville style.
Well, no, we just we sat in the room together and said we're going to write a song Glory gainnerstyle.
Well, I meant that's how they do it. Na. Oh yeah, yeah, not that you couldn't write a country song, but having heard the song, I.
Have written a country song. I have written a country song.
So you were in the room, had these messages you wanted to get a out.
I had to start, Well, you start with an idea. I start when I write. I start with an idea, what do I What do I want to talk about? And then what do I want to say about it? And then we start to figure out how to put those thoughts and feelings into into sentences, and then how to make them rhyme and uh yeah, and then we you know, separate them into verses and chorus. What what? What? What? What is the main point? The main point is what you want to repeat and make the chorus.
So how long did it take to write these songs? And how many songs did you have to write to get the ones who are on the record.
Uh, well, the ones that were on the record are the only ones we wrote. Actually we wrote. Uh it took us maybe three weeks, three four weeks.
Yeah, I'm interested. You work with Liz Rose, who co wrote all the songs on the first couple of Taylor Swift Records, because you know there were multiple people you wrote with. Yeah, and I assumed they had different styles. Yes, Yeah, tell me what it was like working with Liz Rose.
It was great working with her. The song that she came up with the idea for this song, and I loved it because I immediately thought of someone in my life that I felt that the song her idea reminded me of. So it was pretty easy for us to come up with the lyrics for that song because I already have feelings about it.
Okay, you worked with people Michael Pollock worked with Marie Cyrus, Sam Tana who worked with Fits in the Tantrums, Matt Brownleo who worked with Michael W. Smith and Aliambrullia, Caitlin Smith, Miley Cyrus, and Meghan Trainer, Christi who had success with country artists like Jason Alden and Kenny Destiny. What was the difference in writing with all these different people, Well, each.
One of them had each one had a different style, but uh, they all were lending themselves to what I wanted because they knew it was going to be my music and my my recording. The difference was getting used to their sort of slant on things and their uhh ideas about what the subject matter and and and and how it should be expressed and exactly what you wanted to express in each thing, and so.
It was.
It was a little bit different with each one, but the great thing was that they were all accommodating to me what I was looking for and what I wanted and what I wanted to end up with.
And is it different writing with a woman as opposed to a man.
No, No, not really.
Okay, so the songs are written, what's the next step.
The next step is the music, and so I have nothing to do with that. I the only musical instrument I can play is my phone.
But sometimes with their phone.
Now, so yeah, well I've got some recordings on my phone, but but not not not with musical and not as a musical instrument. So I leave that to them. I gave, you know, we give. I give the lyrics to Chris and uh and and I don't even I really even do melodies. I'm a strictly a lyricist. I once in a while I come up with a melody that that works and is pleasant to someone besides me.
Okay, So he cut everything and then you just came in to sing mm hmm.
Yeah.
So when you first heard the tracks, who say, okay, let's go or do you hear them and you go, that's not exactly what I envision? Can we change this?
Sometimes? Sometimes I change a thing or two, or want to add an instrument or or I want something one thing to be more prominent than the other, and isn't the way. It isn't like that when he first presents it to me. But that's very rare. I kind of leave I Throughout my life, I've been working with people. I kind of pick people who I feel are the best that are available to me and then let them do their thing.
Okay, And are you the type of vocalist do you sing it once or you have to warm up singing a million times? And they're comping among some number of tracks? How does it work?
Generally? I don't have them, don't have a lot of takes. In fact, I have some recordings that have been released with first takes.
Wow.
So I don't generally have a lot of takes. I have more takes to Chris than I have with any other producer because he's very very don't want to stay picky exactly yes, that's better word.
Okay. So when you're singing the songs in the studio, you know, some people insist that it be dark. Some people are self conscious, some people are in the mood. What's going through your head when you're singing.
What's going through my head is what's going from my mouth into that microphone, and nothing else matters. I just want some water nearby, and that's it. I don't care about the lighting. I don't care about the space that I'm in. I don't care. I don't care.
So how do you let yourself be free? Or you're such a pro you can just stand up and sing it, how do you get your state of mind in the right place.
I just concentrate on what the song is about and the message that I'm trying to get across, and imagining people hearing it and what they're feeling getting the feelings that they're getting from the music and from what I'm singing. And that's where I am. I'm in concert, when i'm performing, when i'm singing, when I'm doing a recording.
Okay, so the record is done. The record business is very different than it was in the pre internet era. When you have these gigantic kits and some of the most well known acts put out music and it's not known by many, even the biggest acts. We mentioned Taylor Swift, she may be very big, but a lot of people don't know her music. I only mentioned her. They don't know a lot of other people's music. So what are your expectations for the recordings?
Well, my expectations is for the fans that I already have to hear the music and love it and then try to share it with their friends who don't know me or having heard these particular news songs, and that it was spread that way. I also hope that we'll get more exposure from the internet, you know, from the internet platforms, musical platforms on the Internet, and that will be spread throughout the nation and hopefully throughout the world that way.
Okay, you mentioned your phone. Are you someone who is on the internet a lot? Are you only using your phone for phone calls?
I'm not on the internet a lot. I go on occasionally. I've done some things on TikTok and I go on it, like this morning, I put on a message about my mother because it's my mother's birthday today.
Gopy birthday. Thank you who would she have been oof.
One hundred, one hundred and something that she was twenty something years older than I am.
Okay, you put a post on TikTok. Did you do it yourself or did somebody help you? Oh?
I did myself.
So how'd you learn how to do it?
I just went on and checked it out. Oh yeah, yeah, I don't think anybody taught me. I just figured it out, followed the directions.
Okay, well, you'll be amazed how many people from our age group can't do that. It's how often I know.
Please don't remind me. I keep telling my friends coming to the twenty first century for crying out loud.
You're speaking my language. You know. People say I hate TikTok, it's the worst. Have you ever been on?
No?
I said, at least go on see what it is. So you post on TikTok? Will you ever scroll on TikTok see what's going on?
Oh yeah, I've got some I've followed a few people because I love dancing, so I follow some dancers on TikTok.
And you post this stuff. But to what degree do you interact with your fans?
Not a whole lot, not a lot, Because I'm on there along. I feel like I'm on there too long when I'm posting, and then I don't have toime to hang out on there.
So what does your normal day when you're not on the road look like?
Hmm, normal day when I'm not on the road, Well, I've go to physical therapy nowadays, physical therapy, looking over my wardrobe and making sure that I'm ready and have what I want and my clothes have been taken care of, any cleaning or alterations that need to be done for things that I might want to wear, and checking my makeup, and then all of those things that I need on
the road, praying, studying the Bible, reading, watching television. I'm an avid TV fan and and and as I live alone, I'm often eating alone, and I don't like eating alone, so I watch TV while I eat, which I don't don't think it's very good, but I do it anyway. And uh yeah, changing things, decorating my home, writing, writing songs, writing just thoughts, some things that I plan to soon put on onto social media. Even if I don't do it myself, I'll give it to my social media person to post.
You know, So, what do you watch on TV?
I'm in love with Equalizer, that the series with that's her name, just right out of my head, Queen Latifa, I like, I like, I like Detective stuff pretty much what I want and I and I love Marvel comics. I love Marvel. I'm a Marvel Yeah yeah, yeah, like all the superheroes.
How did you get into that?
Since I was a kid.
So you used to read those comic books? Oh yeah, so you've seen all the movies, the Superman, the Adventure.
Yes, yes, yes, Smallville even Yeah.
So if I wanted to discuss the Marvel universe, you could participate in them, I think so. Yeah. Okay, So how many days a year are you on the road these days?
Oh?
I'm only doing like thirty shows a year, not a lot.
Okay, So you're talking about being home the glory gainer. Business is business unto itself. To what degree do you socialize with friends, go to dinner, talk on the phone.
Well, I go. And I have a vacation place in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and I love it there because that's where my social life really comes to life because everyone there is either retired or on vacation, so they're always up for fun. And so that's a great place.
Matter of fact, I'm playing and go down this summer and spend a few weeks there here, not so much because everybody's busy and running, and most of my friends at my age, of course have grandchildren and they're all involved with their grandchildren and all of that, and I don't have any children, so it's not as much. But I do, you know, go to plays and and once in a while go to the movies and sometimes have friends over to watch a movie in my home theater.
I have some dinners at home because I love to cook, so I have friends over for dinner. And yeah, that's pretty much.
So you love to cook. What are a couple of your specialties.
Well, there's one that my that that's probably my my friend's favorite. That's that I call chicken a lah gainer, and it's a it's a chicken dish that I came up with years ago when my husband called me with forty five minutes he was gonna arrive in forty five minutes with company for dinner. Came up with this quick meal and my friends love it because it really tastes like you've been cooking for hours, but it's really quick and simple to pull together, and they use it often.
How do you make it?
Well, you roast chicken parts at four hundred and twenty five degrees so that the skin is crispy. While that's happening, you make a sauce of cream of chicken, soup, sour cream, and milk. And when the chicken is crispy and done, you pour the soup over the chicken so that it gets a little bit on the skin, but mostly it's the meat of the chicken is soaking and it goes back crispy again. But with the flavor now of this sauce, and then you serve that with saffron rice and some
colorful vegetables. You have her delicious.
So when am I coming over?
Whenever you're feelful?
Okay, So how did you learn how to cook?
With my mother? My mother was a great cook, and she had to be a well, she didn't have to be a good cook. But I'm praise God that she was a good cook because we were very poor. And what I remember my mother sending me an off and telling story of my mother sending me to the store
for dinner. With the quarter she told me to get fifteen cents worth of bacon skins and ten cents worth of beans, and she made a delicious dinner at which we had two or three people for company from my friends came to eat because my mother made dinner fun. She made the she made She said she didn't have the the she couldn't afford baking powder to make bread rice.
So she made crackers like animal crackers. She made them in animal shapes, and she let us play with them at the table and use our imagination and just have fun eating and enjoying one another's company. And so they love to come over for dinner. Okay, So where did you grow up in Newark, New Jersey?
You know Newark in the sixties, there were riots in Newark. There was a lot of racial tension. What was it like when you were growing up there?
Yeah, riots and racial tension, but it was fun and it was I tell you something we used to have. Something used to happen in my neighborhood. I don't know how far it went, but it happened in my neighborhood.
And when I grew up and found out that it wasn't happening in other neighborhoods or in other cities, I really felt a sense of sadness for the rest of the world, because what would happen is in the summer, spring and summer, one kid would come out with a set of bongos and he sits there on the corner playing the bongos, and another kid would come out with acoustic guitar, and somebody would come out with a horn,
and we'd have a band. And then people would come out and sing, and before you knew it, the whole neighborhood stand out on the corner singing and playing songs together and dancing and having great fun. And I thought that happened everywhere in the spring and summer. And when I found out it didn't, I thought, oh my god, they did.
They did have that. Oh I'm sorry. So were your parents from Newark?
Yes, well they were. My mother was from Alabama, my father was from Newark.
So how'd your mother get from Alabama to New Jersey?
Her mother brought her to Newark when she was five years old. She said. The first thing is the biggest thing she remembers, with all the yellow buggies, which were yellow taxicabs.
And how did your parents meet?
I don't know, I honestly don't know. How they meant.
And what did they do for a living.
My mother was a seamstress and my father was a fireman and a musician.
How many kids in the family.
Five boys and two girls?
Are you in the hierarchy?
I had a younger brother and a younger sister and four older brothers.
So that's a lot of kids. Did you feel like you were lost in the shuffle or no?
No, not really. I kind of blended in being tom girl. I was a tomgirl. My brother and I used to climb thing. Well, you got such a thing for climbing, and I still have a thing for heights, taking pictures from great heights and craziness like that. I took a picture at Grand Canyon. It was so dangerous it took me two hours to go to sleep that night. I thought, what were you thinking? I was hanging off for a cliff that was a mild drop. It was a beautiful picture, but what a stupid thing to do.
How old were you when you did it?
This was just a few years ago, So what were you thinking? I don't know, I don't know, just that it was going to be a great picture, you know.
I was at the Grand Canyon like fifteen years ago and on the south rim, you know, you can walk. The path was like a little dirt path and you could reach to your left and that was a mild drop. I mean I was scared walking on the.
On. Yeah, there was a there was a there was a spot there. We saw a girl taking the picture as we were walking by. We decided we want to come back and take a picture, and we did. And this is this one spot where there's about a one foot I don't know what a step and beyond and right on the outside of that step was it was it was like almost like a stool, but that's all
there was, and we would step down. We stepped down on that step, held onto the ground, stepped down on that step, sat on the stool and took the picture. There was a whole canyon behind you. And it's a beautiful picture. But how stupid can you.
Be when you say we? Who is we?
My manager?
So you've been around the world? Where have you not been?
Oh, there's a lot of tons of places I haven't been. I've only been to ninety countries. And there's how many countries are there in the world, like four hundred or something.
Is there any place you haven't been that is on your bucket list.
I want to go to probably like Nigeria. I haven't been to that kind of part of Africa. The parts of Africa that I've been to are like Egypt and Cape Town, Johannesburg, Bapuda, Swana, But those are like really well known places. I just want to go like real get into the crux of it Africa.
Are you the type of person who's into genealogy, your history, et cetera. Not really, okay, So what are a couple of the place you know? I certainly haven't traveled as much as you have, but I find, you know, the places where the people don't really speak English that well and more of the beaten path are a better experience. So where are some of the places you've gone and had great experiences?
My best experience the only place I've ever been in the world where you walk down the street and people come out of the stores and say, welcome to our country. When you go into a store, you have to have a coke or a coffee or a tea before you can even tell them what you came in there for. And that's Lebanon.
Really, How long ago was that your experience. Leven has been through a lot of changes. Yeah.
No, the last time I was in Lebanon was probably twelve years ago. The first time was in nineteen eighty five, during the war, right, Yeah. Matter of fact, they had me on sixty minutes and they said, on one street there's Gloria Gainer, the next street there's the war.
So you were there to play a gig.
I was there to do several shows.
Yeah, Okay, in the back of your mind you say, well, no, should I be here?
Well, not until after they told us they bombed the place that we were supposed to work in the night before the show. That was all right up until then.
Okay, So you're growing up. What kind of kid are you? You're a good student. You have a lot of friends.
No, I didn't have any friends. I didn't have any friends because I was a neighborhood conscience.
Tell me more.
I was practical to a fault, and so I believe that it made sense to obey your parents rather than go along with what your friends wanted to do, even though if you thought it was gonna be fun, because you were gonna get found out, you were gonna get punished, and you're gonna get spanked and it wasn't gonna be worth it in the end. So I just wouldn't do things, and I would try to talk to them out of it.
And so they didn't like me very much until they got in trouble and then they called me to come and talk their parents out of the punishment.
And you said you were tom Boy. Were you playing ball et cetera in the show?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of kickball. I was just talking about that recently with a friend of mine. I love playing kickball Hopscotch double Dutch.
Yeah. And so how were you in school?
Well, I had a teacher say I can always if no one else, I can always depend on Gloria giving me her undivided attention.
Wow.
And that was because of being practice. Was just being practical. I got to pay attention. So when when school is over, I can go home quickly do my homework and have time to go out and play.
So how did the lives of your siblings play out?
Well, they all grew up and I was the only one that wanted children. I'm the only one that doesn't have any. So they all grew up and had children. My brothers went to the armed forces one at a time and came out, got married, had children and.
Yeah, so you wanted to have children and you didn't have children Is that a big regret?
Not a regret anymore. It was a regret when I was a child bearing age, Not a regret anymore. Something.
This is my life. Okay. So you're in school, say people are singing out on the street. At what point do you say, hmm, this is interesting and might like to do this for a living.
Oh, very early on, probably when I was in fact, as matter of fact, I know when I made it the stage the decision that I was going to be a singer. And I was thirteen years old. I was standing in the stairwell of my building waiting for my friend to come down and play, and a neighbor came down. A woman came down the stairs and I was standing there singing, And when she reached me, she said, glory, was that you singing? I said, yes, ma'am. She said,
oh my god, I thought that was the radio. And I was singing a song by Frankie Lyman, why do Foods Fall in Love? And he was the same age as I am, and so I thought if he could do it. I can do it too, So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna be a singer.
So what were your first steps?
It was hard. I really wanted to be a singer, and I had no idea how to go about it. And I thought I was going to just run over to New York and run bust into a record company and just stand there and start singing. And of course I never did that, but got took cold, and so one night my brother and I, Well, first thing that happened was that I happened to be babysitting for a friend of mine. I was on vacation for my job. She needed somebody for a couple of weeks, and I
went to babysitter for her. And while I was babysitting for her, I heard somebody walking in the apartment upstairs, and I reasoned that if I could hear them walking, they could hear me singing if I sang loud enough. I just wanted somebody to hear me sing. At that point. I didn't want accolades or anything. I just wanted someone to hear me sing, to recognize that I could sing. Because my brothers weren't paying attention to me because I
was a girl. So I did that for a couple of weeks and then went back to work, and my brother and I went to this school. I was a sales auditor at at Bamberger's department store. Yeah, so my brother and I passing by this club on the way to the bus stop, and I said, I heard about this group. Let's go in and see them, and so we did. And while I was sitting there, they played a song that I knew, and so I'm singing it to myself, not where anyone could hear me, but singing
it to myself. And then someone went on the stage and said, ladies and gentlemen, as a young lady in the audience, she has a wonderful voice. We don't know her last name, but her first name is Gloria, and if we give her a great round of applause, maybe we can get her up to do a number for us.
And so at first I was afraid. I was petrified, but I went up and sang this song that I had heard them play earlier, which was Save Your Love for Me by Nancy Wilson, and got a standing ovation, and they came over and asked me if I wanted to sing with them because the singer that they had was unreliable. She hadn't showed up that night, and I said, yeah,
I would love to. And in that I recognized the wisdom of my mother, who had told me, you need to prepare for war in peacetime, which I translated to mean that if I was going to be a singer, I need to be prepared for So I'd had her make me some dresses, and so I was already and I went home that they asked me that they wanted me to sing with them, and I said, well, we
can get together for a couple of weeks. And the other thing that I had done was that I'd written down in an autograph album from high school all this every song that every time I learned the song, I would write it down in that book. And by this time I had like nearly two hundred songs. So I said, I'll get my book and come back, and you can choose a repertoire because any songs that you want from
from my songs because I know them all. And came back the next night and started singing with them and never looked back.
Okay, you start to sing with them first, night. You know, you get this supplause, but playing can be a grind. How long did you do? What happened? Could you quit your day job? What was going on?
Well? First, I was working three jobs. I singing. I was working at Bamburgers from nine to five, working in the beauty culture because I had told my mother I wanted to be a singer. She said, that's nice, but in case you don't make it, you need to have some work under your belt because if you don't something, because if you don't, nobody's going to want to hear ten years from live from now that you never had
a job. So I went to beauty culture school and so I was working at Bamburgers from nine to five, working in the beauty shop from five to ten, and then working in a nightclub from ten thirty to two in the morning.
How long did that go on?
Oh, about two or three years.
That's a tough schedule, it was, It was okay. So was there any upward mobility at Bamburgers or you were just one of many people working there?
Well, No, what happened was I did a cop I was just one of many people working there, and then I got into a contest at a club one night when Deal and Walwould happened to be one of the contestants. But I won the contest and two of the people there were a couple of guys that were recording for Johnny Nash on his label, and they took me to Johnny Nash and I did my first recording there.
Wait, wait, wait, a little bit slower from the time that you step on stage with the band to the time you go to Johnny Nash's house. How long is that?
Five years? By five years?
Five years? So how do you maintain your optimism? Oh?
I was just loving what I was doing. I was just loving it.
So playing in clubs you were loving it? Oh?
Yeah, I was loving it. And then of course I hoped that one day i'd record. But in the meantime I was loving what I was doing.
And how many nights a week would you sing? Six six nights a week? How many cents.
Nine to two am, every hour forty five minutes performing fifteen minutes rests?
And how did you maintain your voice?
Well? I didn't drink or smoke, and I vocalized consistently and just took care of my throat.
Okay, what'd you give up first beauty school or Bamburgers.
Bamburgers Okay, yeah, And did you.
Ever work in a salon like as a regular job.
Yeah, I was saying I was working from Bamberger's at nine to five, beauty shop from five to ten, and then the club. I did that for five years.
So you're in a contest with Dion Warwick. So, Dion Warwick, this is before she signs the scepter. She has no hits, right, I think not? So how did you feel when she had success before you?
I don't remember, honestly, don't remember if I thought anything about it at all.
Okay, And you know she ultimately had the Psychic Network on TV. Oh okay, I remember that if someone came to you, would you take a check for that or say no? Not for me?
Yeah? I said no, no. I never believed in it anyway.
Okay. So this one contest you win. Were there a lot of contests?
No, that was the only one.
So tell me exactly how you end up beating Johnny Nash.
I was. I did that contest and two of the people in the audience were singers, and they had they recorded for Johnny Nash. They liked my voice and thought that he should hear me singing that they should record me.
Okay, so they say, should record. What was the next step? You went to meet Johnny Nash.
And I went to meet Johnny Nash. I went to meet Johnny Nash and he listened to me singing. He said, yep, you shet, They're right, You're great, and he recorded me.
Okay. So how did you decide what material to record? And what happened then?
Well, he kind of decided he had somebody write a song for me and didn't like the song. It's kind of corny. But I had an opportunity to record. I thought, if I recorded, this is the only opportunity I have to record. If I dropped this, I may not never have another opportunity. If I take this, it might lead to something more.
And it did. And at what point do you change your last name.
With Johnny Nash? He told me, Gloria Fowls is not a stage name. Nobody will be able to pronounce it, nobody'll be able to spell it. No, you need another name, And I think he said, I think you should use a name that starts with a G, because then your fans will probably give you a nickname. They'll call you Gig And I said, well, that's that sounds nice, but I don't know any names that start with G. He said, well, let me see. There's Gainer. I said, that's good.
And on your passport does it say fouls or Gainer?
It says Gainer fowls.
Okay, So you make this record with Johnny Nash, the record comes out and what.
The record comes out? And I began to do a little touring and did a few performances, you know, with on the tours, and came back and the record didn't really do anything. It did absolutely nothing, And so I just got with a band. I got a band and got first I got an agent, and the agent got me a band, and I began and to stop singing that song because I never liked it anyway. And the
band we did top forty songs with my band. So we're traveling up and down the East coast doing top forty songs until I was discovered by a go go girl, actually discovered me again. She was working in the club where I was performing, and she took me to her well.
She brought her manager, told her manager to come and hear me sing, and then He took me to Paul Leka at Columbia Records, who took me to Clive Davis who had me do some auditions for him, and I sang for him, and he decided he would record me. So he had this two brothers, Marvin and Mervin Steele write my first, well my second recording, which was Honeybee.
Okay, so ultimately it ends with you in Columbia. Why is that what you mean?
It ends with me at Columbia.
Okay, you're on Columbia Okay?
Ye did that end?
Oh? Yeah? I mean how do you end up moving to MGM?
Well, Clive Davis left the company to form his own company, but I was signed to the company. I wasn't signed to him, so he couldn't take me with him. So I was left at the company and then a company nobody was interested in an artist that had been brought there by somebody was no longer there, so I was just kind of just hanging out there. And then, praise God, the president of MGM Records heard Honeybee that I had recorded at Columbia decided he wanted me on his label, so he bought the contract.
Okay, And what were the first steps there.
Well, first of all, I had to if you see my documentary, you see me my what do you call it, my docky drum, you'll see me running across New York to get the contract and sign it before six o'clock that night so that I could be moved over to MGM Records, and I recorded Never Can Say Goodbye I Never Can Say Goodbye album there. They wanted cover song for the album, and I thought that the version that my band and I were doing was good and that
I should record that. And so I told the president that and he sent someone to see my show because I said, used to send someone to see the show and see the response to this version of Never Can Say Goodbye, And he did, and they agreed and it became this covered the title song of my first album.
Okay, that was very successful. After all these years in the trenches, you know, in excess of a decade, did you you had a lot of ups and downs? Did you still believe?
Oh? Yeah, But I was doing what I wanted to do. And that's why I tell people all the time, if you you know, they say, if you if you work, if you work at what you love, you never work a day in your life, and that is just so true. It's so true. I was loving what I was doing and the progress as I was making doing it was kind of incidental.
Okay, what's it like to have a hit?
It's awesome, It's wonderful. I remember the first time I was in a public place and heard my song playing. I wanted to go around saying, that's me, that's me, that's me, that's me. Of course, I didn't just stood around trying to see people's reactions to it, if anybody was reacting to it.
And how did your life and opportunities change with a hit?
Well, my opportunities to buy nice things certainly did change, because I was for making more money and doing more performances and making more money and loving you know it even more, and getting an opportunity to travel, something I'd always wanted to do but hadn't had an opportunity. So now I'm traveling, and then, you know it expands and I'm not only traveling in the country, but now I'm traveling the world.
Okay, And you wrote a song on that album and co wrote another, So what point did you begin writing songs.
I began writing songs while I was working with Johnny Nash, I wrote a song. As matter of fact, I wrote a song, and I can't remember now. I think that the song that I wrote, the first song that I wrote, is on the B side of Honeybee and it's called let Me Go Baby. I think kind of corny song, but yeah, it's a start.
Okay, you continue to record for MGM, you don't have a hit as big as that initial hit. What's the experience for you?
I'm loving what I'm doing. I'm loving what I'm doing, and I always say, you know, people say, well, do you always try to make sure that the song that you the new recording that you're doing, is better than the last. No. I try to make sure that everything I do, when I do it, i'm doing my best. Then may not be as best as good as my best was last week, but it's my best now. And my mother would say even an angel can't do better than her best.
Okay. How do you end up moving from MGM.
To they merged or one bought the other and something like that, so you're.
Working with different people now that it was Polydor or the same people, same people Okay, disco, depending who you listen to, rock the boat in nineteen seventy four, there are all these disco songs. Then, of course, in seventy seven seventy eight through Saturday Night Fever, the world becomes reware a disco. While this is happening, what do you think about disco?
I think disco is great. I think like about disco then, as I think about disco now, and keep saying, because I know it to be true, Disco music is the only music in the history of music ever to bring together people from every race, creed, color, nationality, and age group.
Okay, how do you end up recording? I will survive.
Well? I had had an accident on stage. I fell backwards over a monitor and finished the show, went out to breakfast with the group afterwards, went home, went to bed, woke up the next morning paralyzed on the waist down.
Wow.
Ended up in hospital for three months, and during which time the record company told me they were not going to renew my contract. And so I'm praying, really calling on my faith and crying out to God. Left the hospital with nothing but knowing that God was going to do something, just didn't know what. And sure enough, within a week or so, the record company called and said that they weren't renewing my contract because they had gotten a new president over from England, where I was popular.
He'd had a hit with a song there that he wanted to repeat the success with here in the United States. He specifically wanted me to record that song. Sent me out to California to record this song, and while I was there, I asked the producers what would be the B side, and they said they didn't know, or asked me what kind of songs I like. I said, I like songs that are uplifting and encouraging and have good
melodies and lyrics. And so they had a little pow wow and came back and said, we think you're the one we've been waiting for to record this song we wrote two years ago. And that was I was sur vive.
Okay, they come in, they say they have this song. They play a demo for you. How do you hear the song?
They give me the words they've written down X matter for He didn't have anything. He wrote the verds down for me and I looked at it and I thought, in fact, I said, then, what are you nuts? You're gonna put this on the B side? Said this is a hit song. I'm standing here relating the fact to this song, the fact that I'm in a back brace and hoping I'll survive that. I'm relating to the fact that my mother only passed away a few years ago,
something I never thought, I said, vived. Everybody's going to relate to whatever they're going through and hoping they'll overcome. They're going to relate it to this song. I said, Well, that's the deal we made. I said, well, if it's left to me, it won't stay on the B side.
Okay, he writes down the lyrics. What's the next step?
Well, I recorded it.
Did you walk in and they already had a track.
And you just said no, No, they had to No, they just had the they I don't know what they had. They just gave me the words, but I suppose they had a demo of it, and then they recorded it. They got my key, I sang it, They got my key. They they made the track and they and I recorded it.
Okay, you're there. You see the lyrics, you saying this is a hit? Yes? Are you singing and going? Man, this is my tick? This is great.
No, I'm just thinking this is a hit song. I'm gonna have a hit song. That's what I'm thinking. I'm gonna have his song.
Okay, So the song is recorded, how long after that is released and how long after that does it catch fire?
Well, it was released on the on the B side about I guess about three months later, and they gave me a box of the CDs and me and my management team took took the who who at the time was my husband slash manager. We took it to Studio fifty four and as a matter of fact, he wasn't my husband yet, he was just my manager and boyfriend and had it played there and the audience immediately jammed the dance floor. And I'm thinking, this is a New
York jaded audience. Okay, if they're immediately responding to a song that they're hearing for the first time like this, I am absolutely right. This is a hit song. So we gave him the DJ the box of CDs, told him to give them to his DJ friends have them play it and their clubs, and they did, and people began to request it, and then people going to call the record company at radio stations asking for it because now they want to hear it in traffic on the
way to work. On the way home from work and all of this, and the record company got calls from the radio station saying, where is this song? We keep asking a requests for it, and they had to say, with much chagrin, I on the B side of that other record. And so then they flipped it and the next time they released it, they made it the A side.
Okay, going back to Studio fifty four, were you a club rat or were you just aware are these clubs? No?
It was definitely not a club rat. I never believed in working where I performed. I didn't hang out where I performed a matter of fact, I tried to go to the Studio fifty four one night with some friends of mine who had come over from England and wanted to experience it because they'd heard all about it. And the guy that I call the casting director was the guy behind the velvet rope, came over to my car and said, Mims, Caanna, you don't want to come in here tonight?
Steve.
No, it wasn't Steve. It was someone he had hired.
And he said, why didn't you want to come that night?
Because it was too much debauchery going on inside? And I said, thank you, very much and drove off.
And at that point, where were you living?
I was living at that point and back in New Jersey because I had moved in with my ex husband, who actually wasn't my husband yet, moved in with my husband after being released from the hospital just before doing I Will Survive.
Okay. The dream back then, certainly is to go to the big city. So what point do you leave Newark and live in the city before you move back?
No, I left there. I've left New York and moved into the city. I think I've moved into the city right after recording. Never can say goodbye.
Yeah, So how did you meet your rex's husband?
That's a long, wonderful story. Actually short, long story short, his mother introduced us.
We'll tell it to give me a little bit more than that.
His sisters was singing background for me in my shows, and they showed me pictures of him, of showing pictures of they were sharing picture family pictures, and I saw his picture and I said, that's my husband. She said what I said, that's my husband. I'm going to marry him.
Of course she laughed it off, and some weeks later I was at their house waiting for them to go to do a show with me, and he came in to visit his father who's ailing, and his mother introduced us and we invited him to the show that night. He came to the show and ended up taking me home and that started there.
Okay, it was literally love at first sight for you.
How about oh yeah, well that's what he said.
Okay, you're living in nightclubs. You're an entertainer before you meet your ex husband, you know, because you portray yourself as a goodie goodie. Okay, you're always blowing the whistle. So did you have relationships with other people who just didn't meet the right person?
No, not really. I went out a couple of times with a couple of guys, but I know I didn't really.
Okay, and then you want children. Why did you not end up having children?
Well it was just wasn't in the cars for me, I guess.
Okay, so you meet this guy. How did he become your manager?
Well? He I started going out with him, but he had managed his sisters, the girls who were singing with me, He had they had a group on their own before they started singing with me, and he was their manager. So I figured he and plus he was a policeman and told me that he had gone to John Jay's School of law. And what really made me decide to make him my manager was that my manager had We
were on our way out going somewhere. One day, my boyfriend and I and my manager came running downstairs with these papers for me to sign, and I signed the papers and gave them to him, and my boyfriend said, what was that? I said, I don't know. He said, why did you sign it? He said, because he told me to. He asked me to. He said, you signed papers without telling without reading them. I said, he's my manager.
He's not going to have me do anything wrong. He said, he may not have anything you do anything wrong, but there's such a thing as conflict of interest. And he started telling me all about that and how the things in my contract could be good for my manager and not good for me. And with all of that, I started questioning my manager and asking him about things, and he was like really reluctant to tell me about with things, you know, he just didn't want to explain things to me.
And so I got the idea to get my papers from the lawyer that my manager used. That was our lawyer, and he said, you shouldn't be our lawyer, you should be his lawyer, and you're a lawyer. Anyway, I got the papers and found out that some things were not right and decided that I was going to fire him as my manager and make my boyfriend my manager. So that's what I did.
Okay, was your boyfriend soon to be husband a good manager?
No?
No, he was not.
He wasn't knowledgeable enough, and he he had some character flaws that did not allow him to learn. Tell me a little bit more, well, he had low self esteem, and so he was afraid to be around I believe he was afraid to be around the other managers for fear that they would show him up, and therefore he couldn't learn from them because he wasn't around them.
And how long did it take you to learn that he wasn't good?
It took me quite a while to learn that he wasn't good, because the first manager that I had was cracked, and I wasn't around any other managers to know what he didn't know, or to know what he wasn't doing that was right or that he should have been doing. So it took me quite a while to find out that he wasn't a good manager. I found out he wasn't a good husband before I found out he wasn't a good manager.
That was what I was going to ask. So how did you find out he wasn't a good husband? Oh?
Well, he was cheating on me.
How'd you find out?
I caught him? I mean I didn't actually catch him in the act, but I found evidence in the house when I came home, you know.
And how long you been married at that point.
When I first found out? Twenty years? Twenty years?
Okay, so you found out? How long from when you found out till the end of the marriage?
Another five years?
And why another five years?
Because I was hoping that he would change. I would hoping that he was. I was, you know, trying to talk to him, and as a Christian, I know that God hates divorce, and so I was trying to honor my faith and hoping that he would, you know, become a Christian. Would well, he would say he was a Christian. But I was hoping that he would, you know, just do the right thing, you know.
And how did it end?
It ended with me divorcing him.
But when you said I'm done, did he say give me one more chance, No, I'll be good.
Mm hmm.
So it ended with him, how'd you find a new manager? Ah?
Well, I had been working in this agency with him that he fired unbeknownst to me. But I the girl who worked in the agents, one of the well the girl, it was only one girl working in the agency. What was it?
It was.
Ideal Entertainment. And after working with her for a few weeks, I bought her a sign to put over her desk that said, do you want to talk to the man in charge of the woman who knows what's going? And so I decided to contact her. I contacted her to be a personal assistant while I looked for a manager. I could not find a manager. And during the time that I was looking for a manager, we were working
together and I realized she was managing my career. She was doing all the things that a manager was supposed to do and doing them, you know, upfront and right out in the open and looking out for me. And so I finally made her my manager.
And is she still your manager?
She's still my manager?
Okay, looking back, were you ripped off?
Oh poof, Yes, yes, terribly, terribly. Tell me a little bit more well, there was some advances taken from royalties you know, that I didn't know about.
There was.
Monies used that I didn't know had been that had been used. When the divorce came and the moneies weren't available, I first found out they were, you know, had been misappropriated.
Yeah, okay, let's go back. I will survive because that and we are a family or probably the two biggest, longest sustaining disco hits. It is beyond belief successful. What's it like being at the center of that.
It's wonderful. It's wonderful for me because I what I take from that is that I will forever have something that helps me to accomplish what I always wanted and always will want to accomplish with every show, and that is to give my audience something that lasts them beyond the duration of my concert.
Okay, you have this scar gansu and hit. You don't have a hit of that level. You don't have a big hit after What's going through your mind? You're saying, well, I haven't got the right song, the record company is not working, the time moved on. What are you thinking.
I'm thinking I'm going to continue doing what I do because whether my the level of my career goes up or down, I am always going to be able to perform and I'm always gonna love it, and so I'm always going to be successful.
Okay, are you the type of person because you work with a lot of people? Are you the type of person who maintains relationships with all the other acts? Are you more of a singular loaner type person.
Well, I'm the kind of person that would would maintain friendships if we weren't ships passing in the night. We're just ships passing in the night, and a few people that I have passed, you know, and wanted to become friends with. Littlev on the other coast. Everybody lives on the west, on the East coast, you know, and I'm over here on the West coast. So I don't really have long term friends in the business. I have long
term friends outside of the business. Friends that are people that I've been friends with for twenty thirty forty years.
Okay, you did not write I will survive. No, So subsequent to that and today are you working to survive?
And oh no, no, I'm working because I love it absolutely. I could stop right right now.
Okay, So In the New York Times article about you, they start talking about you doing tours singing to tape. How did that start?
My ex husband decided that it would be cheaper if we didn't have a band and we didn't have because we wouldn't have the salaries and we wouldn't have the airfares for them, and I could sing to tracks.
How did you feel about it?
I hated it. I hated it, but he was my manager and I felt like I didn't have control.
Okay, the peak of disco was almost fifty years ago. Has there always been a need for I will survive such that? Really you never fall below the radar screen, You're not the trams with disco inferno? Whatever? Is it such that it's so iconic, kind of like dominic Lean an American pie. People always know what, people always are calling you, always working. Is it like that?
It's absolutely like that. It's absolutely like that. And really I really feel that this song is like they said, we think you're the one we've been waiting for to record this song that we wrote two years ago. I always believe that God told them, sit down, write a song, hold on till I'm going to send you somebody because he told me. God told me, no one can keep you from getting what I have for you except you. So I believe that this song is a gift from God and will carry me through to the end.
Now there's a docu drama, there's a footage, there's one where somebody's playing your role. There's a book in terms of legacy. Do you feel you get the respect and acknowledgment you deserve? I do. Yeah. So, being Gloria Gainor who has this amazing career, what kind of doors does that open?
I don't know. I never thought about it because I don't really use my name like that, you know, to open an.
Let me put it in a different way. You pull up the studio fifty four, the guy who's the bouncer comes, j I'll goes not tonight. He's doing that for you. He's not doing that for every car that pulls up. Okay, So how much of that do you experience? Oh?
Well, that kind of thing I experienced quite a bit. I mean, if I go to a restaurant and I have done that a couple of times, not a lot, but I've done it a couple of times where I really want to get into this restaurant because I have people from out of town that I want to experience it, and we can't get in, so I send one of them, tell them you have Glory Gainner outside and and yeah, and they'll let us and they'll make room for us. Yeah, it's always nice.
Tell me about a couple of famous people you met that impressed you a couple of well.
Michael Jackson, of course impressed me. He not only impressed me with his talent, but he impressed me with his kindness. And and my impression of him actually didn't come through my meeting him. It was nice to meet him after having heard accounts from people who worked with him about how kind and generous he was, So it was wonderful meeting him, and I was impressed with him. And then he called me and told me he was impressed with me because you see me perform, and that he truly
enjoyed my performance. We did a show at Madison Square Garden the night before that, Faithful nine to eleven, and I was on that show. So he called me the next day and told me how much he was impressed with my performance. And I had done his song. Never could say goodbye, And but I dedicated. I will survive to him. So yeah, not a lot.
How about non musicians.
Non musicians, Oh yes, yes, actors and of course I'm gonna lose the names right now. I met Jeffrey Wright, who I was very much impressed with. Love his work. I met Harry Belafonte, love his work and told him so. In fact, I told them both and just saw a movie with what was the one who played? Oh god, h Samuel Well. I met Samuel L. Jackson. That was
wonderful meeting him. Charles Barklay, great meeting him. And one one one really great experience I had was I was over in Spain and we're doing a show and I was at this event that I didn't really know what the event it was.
It was the premiere of The.
Expendables, okay, and they were out, the cast were outside taking I was outside building around and with with the people who were in attendance, and they were taking pictures and I wanted to meet them because I'm a big fan of those at that series of show of movies. And uh so I gathered my nerve and walked over to them and I said, gentlemen, Glory Ganner, may I take a picture with my American toys and spun around in front of them and stretched my arms out to
take this picture. And they were like, oh my god, glory Ganer glory again, which I never expected. I never expected them to know who I was. And so there was Wesley Snipes and Arnold Swarzenegger and who else was there? Like I said, names always escaped me, but you know the whole cast of those guys, and it was just great taking a bitch of But I was so disappointed to find none of the pictures showed up in the
papers the next day. And my tour manager who took pictures had a car accident that night and ended up in the hospital with broken ribcage and the camera was smashed, So no pictures.
I don't know what the God's message is on that. I don't either, But that's a pretty bold move. Are you normally that bold?
No? Never, I've never done anything like that before.
Since Okay, you're in America, forget Europe, and it comes out that you're a Gloria Gainer? Does anyone not know who you are?
You know what? People know the song? Far far more people know the song than know the name. Because I've had you know introduced me. This is Gloria Gaynor. And the people they're looking like, oh, nice to meet you. This is Gloria Gaynor. And they're like, okay, do you know the song I Will Survive? Yeah, well this is the one who's saying. Oh. They then they light up.
And how about young people? Young people know I will survive too?
Right from A to eighty. My audience is from A to eighty.
Okay, let's say I come to see you. What am I going to expect?
Well, the same thing I always say to my audience. Something old, something new, something borrowed, nothing blue.
Nothing blue. Wow. Okay, it's a business, it's a skill. Every once in a while you're there and the audience is so enthusiastic, they're with you the whole time. Other times you have to win them over. So what are some of the skills you use?
I talked to them. I talked to them. You know, I used to go to England a lot. I haven't been in England that much recently, but I used to go to England a lot, and because they're so laid back, I came up with this speech that I used to say before every show. Because I knew they were going to be non responsive, so in order to get them to be responsive, I would say, welcome to my show. It's wonderful to have you here. I understand that the
British are very reserved. We will have no reserve this evening. You will remember that everyone in front of you, behind you, to the side of you is the very soul of discretion. No one will tell that you had a wonderful time this evening. So clap your hands, stump your feet, sing along, and do whatever makes you happy without knowing anyone else, and we will have a wonderful time this evening. You're already getting me excited, and that would just tay down the barriers.
And yeah, okay, you've done thousands of shows. Tell me two shows that were really memorable for you, and why.
One show that was merely memorable for me was not that long ago, just a few months ago, and that was in Rio where my audience was one hundred and fifty thousand people.
What were the circumstances that you were playing. Was it a multi act bill? What was the bill?
It was a multiac bill. Yeah, it's a multiac bill, and I thought that several acts were on at once. They had several stages, but only one stage was lit up and in use at a time, so each act had one hundred and fifty thousand people. It was incredible. It was really incredible.
Okay, did they know why I Will Survive in Rio?
Oh yes, oh yes, and they sing along and I sing it in Spanish, which I'm disappointed to know find that they don't really want to hear it in Spanish. Well, they don't want to hear it in Spanish and real because they speak Portuguese, right, But in Spanish speaking countries they don't want to hear it because they've bothered to learn it in English, so they want to sing. But it was wonderful hearing them sing it in English along with me one hundred and fifty thousand people at one time.
It was incredible. The other show outstanding show for me was that show at Madison Square Garden the night before nine to eleven. And because the response to me in New York, which was practically my hometown, was incredible. I was told by a number of people that nobody got the response that I got except Michael Jackson.
I believe that. Okay, so you're divorced. Any romance since then? No, no, no, no.
As I told my friends, one let's bill to answer and one let's the egg to fry. Don't sound like a sad song to me.
Okay, if you bumped into somebody and you felt something, would you run with it or would you say no?
No?
Well, listen, I'm open to whatever God has for me.
Okay, are you going to die on stage?
I probably will.
Is it any harder to do it now?
Physically?
Yes?
But otherwise absolutely not.
Well you're talking about physical therapy, how about vocally? Yeah?
No, no, not at all and.
All this experience. Are you basically in the glory of gainer business or are you a student of the game. You're listening to new stuff, You're aware of what other people are doing. What's your viewpoint?
To some degree, I listen to what other people are doing. I don't like a lot of what other people are doing, so I'm not listening to a lot of it. But I do try to keep up and fresh, and I add songs to my show that I know the young audiences will know, like I sing Seas and Unstoppable, and my background singers do some stuff from Bruno Mars, and you know, we add stuff to the show current stuff to the show. You know from time to time, do you have.
To rehearse on the road to go on the road where everybody's done it so many times? Well, o, old machine, we just show up.
No, I don't rehearse. We rehearse whatever's new.
But other than that, No, Okay, you have survived. Okay, you're in your ninth decade. What advice do you give to everybody else to survive?
Put most of your energy into becoming the best version of you that you can possibly be.
I think we'll leave it at that. That's Gloria Gainor she's got a new EP. Very honest and open. Gloria, thanks so much for taking this time with my audience.
Thank you so much. It's been a leisure.
Until next time. This is Bob left sets playh