Knight, Gladys

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Gladys Knight

Singer

“Of all the voices in the pop pantheon, one of the richest, warmest and most comforting belongs to Gladys Knight…. Knight’s husky, raw honey vocals are full of heat and miles deep. From the beginning, Knight’s was a strikingly seasoned voice, dark and smokey, intense but contained, more glowing than explosive.” Vince Aletti’s praise for the vocal power of Gladys Knight is only one of the many such descriptions that she has received over her more than thirty years of performing and recording with the Pips. Together, Gladys Knight and the Pips are one of the classic R&B and crossover groups whose sound has grown in popularity from the heyday of Motown in the early 1960s to the present day.

Born in Alabama in 1944, Gladys Knight was a gospel singer from childhood. Her debut was made at the Mount Mariah Baptist Church in Atlanta at the age of four. She was a prize winner on the Ted Mack “Amateur Hour” in 1952, singing popular solos. The Pips were invented when she joined with her bother Merald (”Bub-ba”) and cousin William Guest to perform at a family party. Knight told the New York Times that their first professional engagement was singing “Canadian Summer” and “In the Still of the Night” at a Y.M.C.A. tea. They performed pop music as the Pips, opening for such soul stars are Sam Cooke, and maintained the gospel audience by singing as the Fontaineers. Their first single, “Whistle My Love,” was released by Brunswick in 1957. Their first hit, “Every Beat of My Heart,” although reaching the Top 20 Rhythm and Blues chart, was pirated and earned them no money.

Knight told Ebony that her status as lead vocalist developed by accident, but theirs was a contemporary sound in the early 1960s, when male and female close harmony groups were popular. The creative dance routines and exquisite harmonies of the Pips evolved in time, along with Knight’s own voice, influenced by the song stylists whom she heard on recordings. In a 1983 interview in the New York Times, she defended the unified sound of the group: “Throughout our career, people have tried to break us up. Because my voice is out front most of the time, they tend to want to separate that personality. But we know differently. People don’t know why the picture is being painted so beautifully. One reason is that the background voices—the ‘oohs and ahs’ against the powerful lines I’m singing—work on the subconscious. They make the picture complete.”

In 1965, Gladys Knight and the Pips (by now Merald Knight, William Guest, and their cousin Edward Patten) joined Motown Records, home of the black close harmony sound. They soon began a string of successes for the R&B and crossover markets with such songs as “Just Walk in My Shoes,” “I Heard It Through the

For the Record…

Full name, Gladys Maria Knight; born May 28, 1944, in Atlanta, Ga. ; daughter of Merald, Sr., and Elizabeth (Woods) Knight; married Barry Hankerson, October, 1984; children: (previous marriage) Kenya, James; (second marriage) Shanga. Education: Graduated from high school.

Made singing debut at age four at Mt. Mariah Baptist Church, Atlanta, Ga.; toured with Morris Brown Choir, 1950-53, and performed at numerous recitals at local churches and schools; member of vocal group Gladys Knight and the Pips (originally known as just the Pips), 1953—; began recording 1957; has toured throughout the world, and has made a number of television appearances.

Awards: Two Grammy Awards; NAACP Image Award; numerous awards from magazine readers polls.

Addresses: Office –c/o MCA Records, 445 Park Ave., New York, NY 10022. Agent— Sidney A. Seidenberg, 1414 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019.

Grapevine,” and “The End of the Road.” Touring with the Motown Revue, along with television appearances, helped bring the unique performance style of Knight and the Pips to the general audience.

Unhappy with their status at Motown (which then featured the Supremes, the Temptations, and Marvin Gaye), they switched to Buddah records at the conclusion of their contract. Ironically, their final Motown recording, “Neither One of Us,” became their first number-one crossover hit single. The mid-1970s was a period of personal triumphs for the group, which had a hit album, Imagination, four gold singles, “Midnight Train to Georgia” (1973’s number 1), “Imagination,” “On and On,” and “Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.” They won Grammy awards for “Neither One of Us” (Best Pop Vocal) and “Midnight Train” (Best R&B Vocal Performance). I Feel a Song, although not as succesful as Imagination, featured a performance of the Oscar- and Grammy-winning Marvin Hamlisch song, “The Way We Were,” putting Knight in direct competition with Barbra Streisand. Knight’s version reached number 11, despite the tremendous publicity campaign for Streisand’s single and the soundtrack album. The group was featured on a television special on NBC in the summer of 1975.

Contractual problems between Buddah and Columbia Records forced Knight and the Pips to record separately in the late 1970s, although they continued to perform together in person. Their “reunion” albums, About Love (1980), Touch (1982), and Visions (1983), produced a new string of hit singles, among them “Landlord,” “Save the Overtime for Me,” and “You’re Number One.” They currently record for MCA, which released their album All Our Love and most recent hit single, “Love Overboard.”

Knight has acted in films, such as “Pipe Dreams” (1976), and on television, including a season as Flip Wilson’s wife on the comedy series “Charlie and Company” (CBS, 1985-1986). She has also produced television musical specials, among them the highly acclaimed “Sisters in the Name of Love” (HBO, 1986), which featured the voices of Patti LaBelle and Dionne Warwick.

The continuity of the Pips is unique as both a back-up group and a close-harmony trio. Their voices mesh perfectly, and the rhythm that they maintain on stage with their dance routines is perceptible even on recordings. Although Knight and the Pips record music by a variety of artists, many of their songs have lyrics by Pip William Guest. He told Ebony his feelings about the group’s image: “We dig being funky, but we will never exploit that to the point of lewd bumps and grinds. Our roots are in our culture, so that’s where our future lies.”

The group tours constantly in the United States and Europe. Despite their unquestioned popularity around the world, Gladys Knight and the Pips have always been considered an act that was unable to reach its full professional potential. An article in Rolling Stone, for example, asked in its sub-head “Why can’t [Gladys Knight] score with a mainstream audience?” The recordings she made with the Pips that were in direct competition with other artists’ seem to bear out her claim that they were not allowed to cross over as did Marvin Gaye’s “Heard It Through the Grapevine.” Their continuing success, however, makes their fans hope that they, at least, will be able to continue buying records—no matter how they are marketed.