Gloria Gaynor

She survives!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
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?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
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.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
So what do you want to share?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
I want to share hope. I want to share encouragement.
I want to share empowerment and self esteem.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Are these issues that you've wrestled with personally?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, absolutely?

Speaker 1 (00:54):
So how do you maintain hope?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
I maintain hopeful my faith? I'm an avid Christian?

Speaker 1 (01:02):
And have you always been a believer?

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well since I was sixteen years old?

Speaker 1 (01:07):
And was there a special event that triggered you?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
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

(01:31):
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,

(01:53):
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

(02:14):
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

(02:37):
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

(02:58):
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.

(03:18):
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

(03:39):
let me be baptized, and she did, and I've been
a believer ever since.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Well what did your parents think about you becoming a believer?
Were they believers?

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yes? Yeah, they were glad for the decision.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Okay, so you start going to the church. Do you
go to church still?

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah? Yeah, I still go to church every Sunday that
I'm at home, and well.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
And did you sing in church?

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (04:07):
I did.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
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.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
And she just.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
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

(04:47):
incident that happened to me out in California that sent
me running back to church.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
So what happened there, Well, I was.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
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.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
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?

Speaker 2 (05:27):
I have no idea. I cannot answer that one for
you because I don't know what I would do without
my Lord.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
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?

Speaker 2 (05:47):
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.

(06:09):
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

(06:31):
became a young woman in my early twenties, I had.
I was very low on self esteem.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
So how did you build up your self esteem?

Speaker 2 (06:42):
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.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Okay, you mentioned weight. How did you end up losing
the weight? Did you still struggle with body issues?

Speaker 2 (07:03):
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.

(07:25):
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.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
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.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
So when you stop that diet, how did you maintain
your body?

Speaker 2 (07:58):
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.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
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

(08:37):
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.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
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

(09:15):
just how I want to be presented to public, to
the public.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
And do you tend to be recognized?

Speaker 2 (09:23):
No, okay, not here anyway. I'm recognized outside of the
United States, but not here.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
That's interesting. So if you're outside the United States, why
do you think that is?

Speaker 2 (09:37):
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.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
So why are you going to physical therapy?

Speaker 2 (09:59):
I'm having problem with my back. I've had problems with
my back since I was a kid.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
What's the diagnosis?

Speaker 2 (10:07):
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,

(10:27):
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.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
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?

Speaker 2 (10:53):
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.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
And then stop there. Because you wrote with some very
successful people, how did you hook up with these people?

Speaker 2 (11:11):
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.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
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.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Well, no, we just we sat in the room together
and said we're going to write a song Glory gainnerstyle.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
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.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Have written a country song. I have written a country song.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
So you were in the room, had these messages you
wanted to get a out.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
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

(12:24):
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.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
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.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
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.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
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.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
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

(13:36):
already have feelings about it.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
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

(14:01):
the difference in writing with all these different people, Well, each.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
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

(14:28):
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.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
It was.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
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.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
And is it different writing with a woman as opposed
to a man.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
No, No, not really.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Okay, so the songs are written, what's the next step.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
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.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
But sometimes with their phone.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
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

(15:39):
a while I come up with a melody that that
works and is pleasant to someone besides me.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Okay, So he cut everything and then you just came
in to sing mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
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?

Speaker 2 (15:59):
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.

(16:20):
I kind of pick people who I feel are the
best that are available to me and then let them
do their thing.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
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?

Speaker 2 (16:45):
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.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
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.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
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.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
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.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
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.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
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,

(18:13):
when i'm singing, when I'm doing a recording.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
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

(18:37):
know a lot of other people's music. So what are
your expectations for the recordings?

Speaker 2 (18:43):
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

(19:05):
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.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
Okay, you mentioned your phone. Are you someone who is
on the internet a lot? Are you only using your
phone for phone calls?

Speaker 2 (19:32):
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.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
Gopy birthday. Thank you who would she have been oof.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
One hundred, one hundred and something that she was twenty
something years older than I am.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Okay, you put a post on TikTok. Did you do
it yourself or did somebody help you? Oh?

Speaker 2 (20:04):
I did myself.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
So how'd you learn how to do it?

Speaker 2 (20:08):
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.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Okay, well, you'll be amazed how many people from our
age group can't do that. It's how often I know.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Please don't remind me. I keep telling my friends coming
to the twenty first century for crying out loud.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
You're speaking my language. You know. People say I hate TikTok,
it's the worst. Have you ever been on?

Speaker 3 (20:35):
No?

Speaker 1 (20:36):
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?

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Oh yeah, I've got some I've followed a few people
because I love dancing, so I follow some dancers on TikTok.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
And you post this stuff. But to what degree do
you interact with your fans?

Speaker 2 (20:59):
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.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
So what does your normal day when you're not on
the road look like?

Speaker 2 (21:13):
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

(21:35):
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,

(21:56):
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

(22:18):
put on onto social media. Even if I don't do
it myself, I'll give it to my social media person
to post.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
You know, So, what do you watch on TV?

Speaker 2 (22:32):
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

(22:56):
all the superheroes.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
How did you get into that?

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Since I was a kid.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
So you used to read those comic books? Oh yeah,
so you've seen all the movies, the Superman, the Adventure.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yes, yes, yes, Smallville even Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
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?

Speaker 3 (23:27):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (23:28):
I'm only doing like thirty shows a year, not a lot.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
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.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
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.

(24:05):
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

(24:28):
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.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
So you love to cook. What are a couple of
your specialties.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
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

(25:12):
like you've been cooking for hours, but it's really quick
and simple to pull together, and they use it often.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
How do you make it?

Speaker 2 (25:22):
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

(25:45):
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.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
So when am I coming over?

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Whenever you're feelful?

Speaker 1 (26:06):
Okay, So how did you learn how to cook?

Speaker 2 (26:10):
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

(26:31):
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

(26:55):
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?

Speaker 1 (27:10):
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?

Speaker 2 (27:19):
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,

(27:42):
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

(28:03):
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.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
They did have that. Oh I'm sorry. So were your
parents from Newark?

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yes, well they were. My mother was from Alabama, my
father was from Newark.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
So how'd your mother get from Alabama to New Jersey?

Speaker 2 (28:26):
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.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
And how did your parents meet?

Speaker 2 (28:40):
I don't know, I honestly don't know. How they meant.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
And what did they do for a living.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
My mother was a seamstress and my father was a
fireman and a musician.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
How many kids in the family.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
Five boys and two girls?

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Are you in the hierarchy?

Speaker 2 (29:02):
I had a younger brother and a younger sister and
four older brothers.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
So that's a lot of kids. Did you feel like
you were lost in the shuffle or no?

Speaker 2 (29:14):
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

(29:35):
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.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
How old were you when you did it?

Speaker 3 (29:50):
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.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
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.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
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

(30:39):
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.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Be when you say we? Who is we?

Speaker 2 (31:03):
My manager?

Speaker 1 (31:06):
So you've been around the world? Where have you not been?

Speaker 2 (31:09):
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.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Is there any place you haven't been that is on
your bucket list.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
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

(31:46):
get into the crux of it Africa.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
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.

(32:11):
So where are some of the places you've gone and
had great experiences?

Speaker 2 (32:16):
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.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Really, How long ago was that your experience. Leven has
been through a lot of changes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
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.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
So you were there to play a gig.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
I was there to do several shows.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yeah, Okay, in the back of your mind you say, well, no,
should I be here?

Speaker 2 (33:12):
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.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Okay, So you're growing up. What kind of kid are you?
You're a good student. You have a lot of friends.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
No, I didn't have any friends. I didn't have any
friends because I was a neighborhood conscience.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Tell me more.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
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,

(34:09):
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.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
And you said you were tom Boy. Were you playing
ball et cetera in the show?

Speaker 2 (34:23):
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.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Yeah. And so how were you in school?

Speaker 2 (34:39):
Well, I had a teacher say I can always if
no one else, I can always depend on Gloria giving
me her undivided attention.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
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.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
So how did the lives of your siblings play out?

Speaker 2 (35:07):
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.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah, so you wanted to have children and you didn't
have children Is that a big regret?

Speaker 2 (35:28):
Not a regret anymore. It was a regret when I
was a child bearing age, Not a regret anymore. Something.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
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.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
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

(36:15):
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.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
So what were your first steps?

Speaker 2 (36:38):
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

(37:00):
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.

(37:22):
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

(37:49):
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

(38:10):
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

(38:32):
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

(38:53):
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

(39:15):
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

(39:38):
back the next night and started singing with them and
never looked back.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
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?

Speaker 2 (39:56):
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,

(40:17):
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.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
How long did that go on?

Speaker 2 (40:39):
Oh, about two or three years.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
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?

Speaker 2 (40:53):
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

(41:13):
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.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
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?

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Five years? By five years?

Speaker 1 (41:38):
Five years? So how do you maintain your optimism? Oh?

Speaker 2 (41:42):
I was just loving what I was doing. I was
just loving it.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
So playing in clubs you were loving it? Oh?

Speaker 2 (41:49):
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.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
And how many nights a week would you sing? Six
six nights a week? How many cents.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
Nine to two am, every hour forty five minutes performing
fifteen minutes rests?

Speaker 1 (42:12):
And how did you maintain your voice?

Speaker 2 (42:16):
Well? I didn't drink or smoke, and I vocalized consistently
and just took care of my throat.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
Okay, what'd you give up first beauty school or Bamburgers.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Bamburgers Okay, yeah, And did you.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
Ever work in a salon like as a regular job.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
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.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
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?

Speaker 2 (43:09):
I don't remember, honestly, don't remember if I thought anything
about it at all.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
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?

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah? I said no, no. I never believed in it anyway.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
Okay. So this one contest you win. Were there a
lot of contests?

Speaker 2 (43:41):
No, that was the only one.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
So tell me exactly how you end up beating Johnny Nash.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
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.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Okay, so they say, should record. What was the next step?
You went to meet Johnny Nash.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
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.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Okay. So how did you decide what material to record?
And what happened then?

Speaker 2 (44:19):
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.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
And it did. And at what point do you change
your last name.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
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

(45:06):
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.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
And on your passport does it say fouls or Gainer?

Speaker 2 (45:21):
It says Gainer fowls.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
Okay, So you make this record with Johnny Nash, the
record comes out and what.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
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

(45:56):
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,

(46:19):
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

(46:41):
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.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
Okay, so ultimately it ends with you in Columbia. Why
is that what you mean?

Speaker 2 (47:15):
It ends with me at Columbia.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Okay, you're on Columbia Okay?

Speaker 2 (47:20):
Ye did that end?

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Oh? Yeah? I mean how do you end up moving
to MGM?

Speaker 2 (47:26):
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,

(47:51):
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.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
Okay, And what were the first steps there.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
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

(48:30):
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

(48:51):
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.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
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?

Speaker 2 (49:17):
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.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Okay, what's it like to have a hit?

Speaker 2 (49:41):
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.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
And how did your life and opportunities change with a hit?

Speaker 2 (50:04):
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

(50:24):
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.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Okay, And you wrote a song on that album and
co wrote another, So what point did you begin writing songs.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
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

(51:04):
let Me Go Baby. I think kind of corny song,
but yeah, it's a start.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
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?

Speaker 2 (51:26):
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

(51:48):
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.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
Okay. How do you end up moving from MGM.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
To they merged or one bought the other and something
like that, so you're.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
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

(52:31):
think about disco?

Speaker 2 (52:33):
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.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
Okay, how do you end up recording? I will survive.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
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.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
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

(53:42):
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

(54:04):
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

(54:26):
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.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Okay, they come in, they say they have this song.
They play a demo for you. How do you hear
the song?

Speaker 2 (54:44):
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

(55:06):
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.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
Okay, he writes down the lyrics. What's the next step?

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Well, I recorded it.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
Did you walk in and they already had a track.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
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.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
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.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
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.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Okay, So the song is recorded, how long after that
is released and how long after that does it catch fire?

Speaker 2 (56:17):
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

(56:38):
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

(56:58):
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

(57:20):
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

(57:41):
next time they released it, they made it the A side.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
Okay, going back to Studio fifty four, were you a
club rat or were you just aware are these clubs? No?

Speaker 2 (57:51):
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

(58:12):
guy behind the velvet rope, came over to my car
and said, Mims, Caanna, you don't want to come in
here tonight?

Speaker 1 (58:18):
Steve.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
No, it wasn't Steve. It was someone he had hired.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
And he said, why didn't you want to come that night?

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Because it was too much debauchery going on inside? And
I said, thank you, very much and drove off.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
And at that point, where were you living?

Speaker 2 (58:37):
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.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
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?

Speaker 2 (59:10):
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.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
Yeah, So how did you meet your rex's husband?

Speaker 2 (59:29):
That's a long, wonderful story. Actually short, long story short,
his mother introduced us.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
We'll tell it to give me a little bit more
than that.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
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.

(59:58):
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

(01:00:19):
home and that started there.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
Okay, it was literally love at first sight for you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
How about oh yeah, well that's what he said.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
No, not really. I went out a couple of times
with a couple of guys, but I know I didn't really.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Okay, and then you want children. Why did you not
end up having children?

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Well it was just wasn't in the cars for me,
I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Okay, so you meet this guy. How did he become
your manager?

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
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

(01:01:42):
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,

(01:02:02):
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

(01:02:23):
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

(01:02:45):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
Okay, was your boyfriend soon to be husband a good manager?

Speaker 3 (01:03:15):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
No, he was not.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
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

(01:03:40):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
And how long did it take you to learn that
he wasn't good?

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
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

(01:04:17):
a good manager.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
That was what I was going to ask. So how
did you find out he wasn't a good husband? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
Well, he was cheating on me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:25):
How'd you find out?

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
And how long you been married at that point.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
When I first found out? Twenty years? Twenty years?

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
Okay, so you found out? How long from when you
found out till the end of the marriage?

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
Another five years?

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
And why another five years?

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
And how did it end?

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
It ended with me divorcing him.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
But when you said I'm done, did he say give
me one more chance, No, I'll be good.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
So it ended with him, how'd you find a new manager? Ah?

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
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?

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
It was.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
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.

(01:06:22):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
And is she still your manager?

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
She's still my manager?

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
Okay, looking back, were you ripped off?

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
There was.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
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

(01:08:07):
the duration of my concert.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:08:28):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
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

(01:09:18):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Okay, you did not write I will survive. No, So
subsequent to that and today are you working to survive?

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
And oh no, no, I'm working because I love it absolutely.
I could stop right right now.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Okay, So In the New York Times article about you,
they start talking about you doing tours singing to tape.
How did that start?

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
How did you feel about it?

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
I hated it. I hated it, but he was my
manager and I felt like I didn't have control.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
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

(01:10:46):
an American pie. People always know what, people always are
calling you, always working. Is it like that?

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
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

(01:11:12):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
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

(01:11:47):
who has this amazing career, what kind of doors does
that open?

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):
I don't know. I never thought about it because I
don't really use my name like that, you know, to
open an.

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:12:19):
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,

(01:12:42):
it's always nice.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
Tell me about a couple of famous people you met
that impressed you a couple of well.

Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
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

(01:13:14):
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

(01:13:35):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
How about non musicians.

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):
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.

(01:14:20):
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

(01:14:43):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
It was the premiere of The.

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
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

(01:15:23):
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?

(01:15:52):
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,

(01:16:18):
So no pictures.

Speaker 1 (01:16:20):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:16:29):
No? Never, I've never done anything like that before.

Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
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

(01:17:09):
know the song I Will Survive? Yeah, well this is
the one who's saying. Oh. They then they light up.

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
And how about young people? Young people know I will
survive too?

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
Right from A to eighty. My audience is from A
to eighty.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
Okay, let's say I come to see you. What am
I going to expect?

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
Well, the same thing I always say to my audience.
Something old, something new, something borrowed, nothing blue.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:17:59):
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.

(01:18:24):
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,

(01:18:46):
and we will have a wonderful time this evening. You're
already getting me excited, and that would just tay down
the barriers.

Speaker 1 (01:18:55):
And yeah, okay, you've done thousands of shows. Tell me
two shows that were really memorable for you, and why.

Speaker 2 (01:19:05):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
What were the circumstances that you were playing. Was it
a multi act bill? What was the bill?

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
Okay, did they know why I Will Survive in Rio?

Speaker 2 (01:19:46):
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

(01:20:09):
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

(01:20:33):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
I believe that. Okay, so you're divorced. Any romance since then? No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:21:02):
Okay, if you bumped into somebody and you felt something,
would you run with it or would you say no?

Speaker 3 (01:21:09):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:21:09):
Well, listen, I'm open to whatever God has for me.

Speaker 1 (01:21:13):
Okay, are you going to die on stage?

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):
I probably will.

Speaker 1 (01:21:19):
Is it any harder to do it now?

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
Physically?

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
But otherwise absolutely not.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
Well you're talking about physical therapy, how about vocally? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:21:31):
No, no, not at all and.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:21:47):
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

(01:22:07):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:22:18):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
No, I don't rehearse. We rehearse whatever's new.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
Put most of your energy into becoming the best version
of you that you can possibly be.

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
Thank you so much. It's been a leisure.

Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
Until next time. This is Bob left sets playh