Did you watch the Grammy Awards?  That’s okay, I didn’t either. It’s been a while since I watched them. Possibly getting on to 40 years. The 1980 Grammy Awards are of particular note. That was the year Gloria Gaynor, Freddie Perron, and Dino Fekaris won for Disco Record of the Year* with “I Will Survive.” It was the first year an award category for disco was considered. It was also the last year for disco music to have it’s own category for consideration. Thanks to recently separated singers at karaoke bars “Survive” survives, but the respect for disco didn’t. (Actually, Rodney Dangerfield ‘s “No Respect” won Best Comedy Album that year.) ( Just sayin’)

Disco was born in 1970 when The Loft opened in Manhattan. It took almost the whole of the 70s to reach its peak, slowly building, earning its own hit chart, Billboard Magazine’s Dance Club Songs, in 1974 (its first #1 song was another Gloria Gaynor record, “Never Can Say Goodbye”), and topping out in popularity in 1978 following the release of “Saturday Night Fever.” After years of sharing the Grammy spotlight with the R&B categories, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (more commonly The Recording Academy) gave disco its own spotlight just in time for it to wither and die.

That seems fitting for America. We take forever to recognize something, throw together a quick acknowledgement, and then when it loses favor, drop it like a hot potato. We have little tolerance for what doesn’t give us an immediate benefit, ideally with no work on our part. And yet, like that classic from time gone by, we still survive.

We’ve spent the last year tempting fate with questionably adequate hand washing and poorly worn masks, packing thousands of people into small squares of urban real estate protesting a little bit of everything from everything side then aiming the blame for the subsequent week’s spike in CoViD cases, and making many wonder what year we just lived through when over 60% of Americans polled claom they will refuse to get vaccinated or will get the shot only if required (Kaiser Family Foundation poll, January 27, 2021).

Another thing fitting for America – with so many showing as much respect for our current situations as they had for Rodney 40 years ago, the rest of us will do our best Gloria Gaynor impersonations and still will survive. So there!

* Gloria Gaynor, Freddie Perron, and Dino Fekaris won for Disco Record of the Year with “I Will Survive” with the 12-inch club version. The same song in its commercial release version was nominated for Song of the Year.