Gloria Gaynor did more than just survive the disco days of the 1970s when she came out with the mega dance hit single I Will Survive, a song that can still be heard in night and karaoke clubs decades after the fact.
She made the number one spot on the song charts in 1979 when put the piece together and brought a whole new interest in disco and female emancipation as a result.
But her career wasn't always that successful.
In the years leading up to I Will Survive or even just before when Never Can Say Goodbye hit the charts, Gaynor was just getting by with her jazz and pop band the Soul Satisfiers who were making the circuit in the 1960s.
By 1965, Gaynor knew she would have to make some changes in order to become more popular so she released her first solo single that year. Success was slow in coming though and it wasn't until almost a decade later when she released the album Never Can Say Goodbye that she started being recognized as a serious disco artist.
Three years later she was to make an even bigger breakthrough with the release of her album Love Tracks and its most popular track of all I Will Survive. The song won the first and only Grammy award for Best Disco Recording in 1980.
Despite winning the award, Gaynor was still a target for fans who decided disco was ridiculous around this time so she stopped recording all together for a period. In 1983, she released an album that had no hint of disco with its rhythm and blues influence. In later years, however, when disco made a pronounced comeback, Gaynor was to perform again the song that made her a legend.
On September 19, 2005, the world's appreciation of the song became apparent when Gaynor and I Will Survive were inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame.