Source: Olympia Entertainment / Olympia Entertainment
In the more than 60 years Gladys Knight has been recording, she has released nearly 40 albums, slayed every type of stage imaginable, and won more awards and received more accolades than you can shake a stick at. And at age 77, she is not slowing down. As evidence, her recent Verzuz “battle” with sister sanger Patti LaBelle, nearly broke IG, led to more shows and yet another venue named for her.
With all of this success, Knight – known as the Empress of Soul – doesn’t come off as your stereotypical removed and conceited star. Listening to or reading any of her hundreds of interviews, the Atlanta native has consistently given us the sweet girl next door – a giving neighbor who is always happy to share whatever she has to fill your needs.
Let’s not get it twisted, though. Like LaBelle told Knight on their Verzuz – “Your work ethic is phenomenal. You’re always producing” – not only is Knight immeasurably talented, she is also a savvy businessperson, the consummate professional, a bold risk taker, and fierce advocate for herself, and her loved ones and about a range of important issues from voter registration to diabetes, AIDS to Covid vaccinations. This commitment to leading with her soul-deep values seems also to be the underlying strength and authenticity in her legendary songs, searing performances and extensive career.
That stellar career has landed her seven Grammy Awards, a slew of No. 1 songs in the pop, R&B, gospel and adult contemporary categories, dozens of film and television roles, a run on Broadway in the musical hit “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” a season on Dancing With the Stars and a turn as a judge on “American Idol,” where she dubbed Reuben Studdard the “velvet teddy bear.”
Knight, with her rare raspy contralto voice, got her start performing gospel music at age four in the Mount Mariah Baptist Church, singing as a guest soloist with the Morris Brown College Choir, and recording her first Top 20 hit, “Every Beat of My Heart,” at age 16. She is perhaps the only performer in the history of Motown Records who had hits before joining the label and after leaving it, according to NPR.
At Motown, she and the Pips were more than outstanding performers laying down the lush vocals that audiences could not get enough of – they were forecasters and innovators. Knight was the first to introduce Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 to Motown’s founder, Berry Gordy, who returned the brothers’ demo with no comments, before being reintroduced to them by Diana Ross. She’s recounted more than once her belief that the Temptations were in the wings of her shows with the Pips watching the Pips’ quick steps, and then receiving recognition for the signature dance moves because the Temptations garnered national visibility before she and the Pips.
When they joined Motown in 1966, she was barely in her twenties advocating for their group to record original music and voicing concerns about being asked to record hand-me-down songs that other Motown artists had already released. She describes the first song she and the Pips recorded on Motown, “Everybody Needs Love,” as a song the Temptations had already worn out.
“It was a big hit for them,” she said on NPR. “So we had our job cut out for us just to even get any recognition on it because songs start to belong to people after a while.”
But that didn’t last long because Knight–with and without the Pips–went on to record a bevy of songs that belong to her.
The arrangement of “Heard it Through the Grapevine,” a song previously recorded by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and Marvin Gaye, was reimagined by them with the engaging back up lyrical storytelling by the Pips that gave more context and literary life to the lead lyrics Knight was belting out.
More timeless hits from the group followed: “If I Were Your Woman,” set the stage for an amazing run in the mid-1970s, with Top 10 gold-certified singles like “Neither One of Us (Wants to be the First to Say Goodbye),” “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination,” “Best Thing to Ever Happen to Me,” and the No. 1 smash “Midnight Train to Georgia.” They kept the party going with the Academy Award-nominated 1974 soundtrack of Curtis Mayfield’s “Claudine.” In 1985, she teamed with Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Dionne Warwick for another No. 1 song, “That’s What Friends are For,” and she recorded the title theme for the James Bond movie “License to Kill” in 1989.
Knight has released 12 solo albums, and won Grammys for a duet with Ray Charles, the album “At Last,” and a collaboration she led with the Saints United Voices gospel choir.
There doesn’t seem to be a venture Knight hasn’t tried and in most, she’s succeeded. A restauranteur, author, and writer-performer of a theme song for the Olympics, she has had multiple showruns on the Las Vegas strip, including in a theater named for her in the famed Tropicana Hotel, making her the first African-American performer to have a venue named after her in Las Vegas.
In 1986, she produced and starred in the Cable Ace Award-winning “Sisters in the Name of Love,” an HBO special co-starring LaBelle and Warwick. Her acting credits include co-starring with Flip Wilson in “Charlie & Co,” playing Jamie Foxx’s mother on his show, and roles on “Benson,” “The Jeffersons,” “New York Undercover,” “30 Rock,” “Empire,” and “Jag.” She’s had film roles in “Pipe Dreams,” “An Enemy Among Us,” “Desperado,” Tyler Perry’s “I Can Do Bad All By Myself,” and more recently, Lifetime’s “Seasons of Love,” with Taraji Henson and Harrison Ford’s “Hollywood Homicide.”
Of course, Knight has earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was inducted with the Pips into the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame, and is the recipient of lifetime achievement recognitions from the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame, BET and Soul Train.
The roots of Knight’s success can be traced to the foundation of the lyrics of her songs, which she spoke about when closing out her Verzuz performance with LaBelle: Most of the stories that we have been singing about in our lives, “are surrounded with love. That is what we try to send out to you,” she said. “We sing about it. We talk about it. And now we have to live it. We have to understand and appreciate and be so grateful for this thing called love…It can fix anything.”
Source: Urban One Honors / TV One
