On this day in 1949 Gloria Gaynor was born

Gloria Gaynor (born Gloria Fowles) was born on 7 September 1949 in Newark, New Jersey, USA.

She is an extremely well known singer-songwriter who is best known for her hits, I Will Survive, I Am What I Am, Never Can Say Goodbye and, Let Me Know (I Have a Right). This disco era star has been nominated for, and winning Grammy Awards from 1980 all the way to her most recent Grammy nomination in 2015.

Her career started in the 1960s, when she sang in a jazz/ pop band known as the Soul Satisfiers. Her first solo album was released in 1965 but her first notable success came in 1975 with the release of her album, Never Can Say Goodbye. This album officially established Gloria as a disco artist, and the first side of it consisted of three disco songs with no breaks in between them.

The 19-minute dance marathon made up of Honey Bee, Never Can Say Goodbye and Reach Out, I’ll Be There, proved to be an enormous success. All three of these songs became hits after they were released as singles through radio edits. Her second album was released later that same year but was not as successful.

Gloria released a few albums after that but only gained moderate success with each of them, with a few minor hits. However, in late 1978, she blew the public away with the release of her album Love Tracks. The song I Will Survive pushed her album to climb the pop charts and became an anthem of female empowerment. The song also received the first and only Grammy Award for Best Disco Recording in 1980 (shortly after, the category was discontinued due to disco’s fall from favour).

In June 2019, she released a gospel album entitled Testimony, which blew her fans away.

A couple of other people celebrating their birthday today are rapper, Eazy-E and comedian, Leslie Jones.