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Gladys Maria Knight (born May 28, 1944 in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American R&B/soul singer and actress. She is best known for the hits she recorded during the 1960s and 1970s, for both the Motown and Buddah Records labels, with her group Gladys Knight & the Pips, the most famous incarnation of which also included her brother Merald "Bubba" Knight and her cousins Edward Patten and William Guest.
Biography
Gladys Knight & the Pips
Main article: Gladys Knight & the PipsGladys Knight was born to Merald Woodlow Knight and Sarah Elizabeth Woods. She first achieved minor fame by winning Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour TV show contest at the age of 7 in 1952, due to her powerful singing voice. The following year, she, her brother Merald, sister Brenda, and cousins William and Elenor Guest formed a musical group called The Pips. By the end of the decade, the act had begun to tour, and had replaced Brenda Knight and Elenor Guest with Gladys Knight's cousins Edward Patten and Langston George.
Gladys Knight discovered she was pregnant in 1960, and married her boyfriend Jimmy Newman. After a miscarriage, Knight returned to performing with the Pips. In 1961, Bobby Robinson produced the single "Every Beat of My Heart" for the group, which became a #1 R&B and #6 pop hit when released on Vee-Jay Records. In 1962, Langston George left the group, which at that time renamed itself Gladys Knight & the Pips and continued as a quartet.
In 1962, after scoring a second hit, "Letter Full of Tears", Knight became pregnant again, and gave birth to a son, Jimmy, Jr., that year. She retired from the road to raise a family, and The Pips toured on their own. After giving birth to a daughter, Kenya, in 1964, Knight was forced to return to recording and the Pips in order to support her family.
Gladys Knight & the Pips joined the Motown roster in 1966, and, although regarded as a second-string act, scored several hit singles, including "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (1967), "The Nitty Gritty" (1969),"Friendship Train" (1969), "If I Were Your Woman" (1970), "I Don't Want To Do Wrong" (1971), the Grammy winner "Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye)" (1972), and "Daddy Could Swear (I Declare)" (1973).
The act left Motown for a better deal with Buddah Records in 1973, and achieved full-fledged success that year with hits such as the Grammy-winning "Midnight Train to Georgia" (their only #1 pop hit), "I've Got to Use My Imagination", and "Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me".
During this period of greater recognition, Gladys Knight made her motion picture acting debut in the film "Pipe Dreams," a romantic drama set in Alaska. The film failed at the box-office, but Knight did receive a Golden Globes Best New Actress nomination.
Knight and the Pips continued to have hits until the late 1970s, when they were forced to record separately due to legal issues, resulting in Knight's first solo LP recordings--Miss Gladys Knight (1978) on Buddah and Gladys Knight (1979) on Columbia. During this period, Knight divorced Jimmy Newman, and in 1976 married record producer Barry Hankerson (future uncle of R&B singer Aaliyah). Knight and Hankerson remained married for three years, during which time they had a son, Shanga Ali. Upon their divorce, Hankerson and Knight had a heated custody battle over Shanga Ali.
In the early 80s Gladys was invited to record two duets with her friend and superstar Johnny Mathis who is one of the largest record sellers in the world. The songs were When A Child Is Born (previously a mega hit for Mathis) and The Lord's Prayer which have become Christmas chestnuts. They always wanted to record together and their two voices sound magical.
After a dry spell, they returned to the charts in the 1980s with the #1 R&B hits "Save the Overtime (For Me)" (1983) and another Grammy winner--"Love Overboard" (1987). During this period, Knight became addicted to gambling and the game baccarat. She finally called Gamblers Anonymous when she lost $45,000 in one night and was near bankruptcy.
After a successful 1988 tour, the Pips retired and Gladys Knight began a career as a solo artist. Gladys Knight & the Pips were later inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.
Solo career
While still with The Pips, Knight also joined with Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, and Elton John on the 1986 AIDS benefit single, "That's What Friends Are For" which won a Grammy for Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal. In 1989, Gladys Knight recorded the title track for the James Bond movie Licence to Kill, a top 10 hit in the UK.
Knight made guest-starring television appearances throughout the eighties and nineties with roles on Benson, The Jeffersons, A Different World, Living Single, The Jamie Foxx Show and New York Undercover. In 1985, she co-starred on the CBS sitcom Charlie and Co. with comedian Flip Wilson. It lasted for one season.
Gladys Knight's third solo LP, Good Woman, was released in 1991. It rose to #1 on the R&B album chart and featured the #2 R&B hit "Men". Her fourth solo LP, Just for You, went gold and was nominated for the 1995 Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. During this period, Knight was briefly married to motivational speaker Les Brown. It was also during this period that tragedy struck: in 1999, her eldest son, Jimmy, Jr., died in his sleep at the age of 36.
Awards
Knight's 2001 LP, At Last, won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance.
In 2005, Knight won a Grammy for Best Gospel Performance for "Heaven Help Us All," her duet with Ray Charles, taken from Charles' album, Genius Loves Company. She was also among the 25 African-American women honored for their accomplishments and influence by daytime television star Oprah Winfrey at a "Legends Ball." In that same year Knight was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the BET cable network.
In 2006, Knight won her seventh Grammy award in the category of Best Gospel Choir or Gospel Chorus for the "One Voice" CD with the Saints Unified Voices.
In 2006, Knight was honored with a Legendary Award by the Las Vegas Music Awards.
Trivia
- Knight is ranked number eighteen in the 2005 Guinness Book of World Records' list of the most successful female musical artists of all time.
- Knight is ranked number eighteen on VH1 network's list of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock.
- In 1995, Knight was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles.
- Gladys Knight sung "Georgia On My Mind" at the 1996 Atlanta summer Olympics
- Knight owns a chain of chicken and waffles restaurants based in Atlanta.
- Knight joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1997. She has occasionally teased the LDS Prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley, that his flock needs to inject some "pep" into their music. Ms. Knight created and now directs the LDS (Mormon) choir Saints Unified Voices . SUV has released a Grammy Award-winning CD entitled One Voice, and occasionally performs at LDS stake firesides.
- Knight is an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
- Following a turn as a celebrity guest-judge on the popular TV talent show American Idol, Knight served as one of three regular judges on the spin-off American Juniors for the Fox television network in the summer of 2003.
- From February 2002 until November 2005, Knight performed five nights per week as headliner of her own showroom at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. The show was voted Best Show on the Las Vegas Strip in 2003 by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
- Knight is late singer Aaliyah's aunt by marriage. After Aaliyah died in a plane crash in August of 2001, Knight was devastated.
- In 2006, Gladys Knight performed on Fox's TV show Celebrity Duets with Jai Rodriguez and Hal Sparks
Solo discography
Singles
- 1978: "I'm Coming Home Again"
- 1978: "It's A Better Than Good Time"
- 1979: "Am I Too Late"
- 1989: "Licence to Kill" (#6 UK)
- 1991: "Meet Me in the Middle"
- 1991: "Men" (R&B #2)
- 1992: "Where Would I Be"
- 1994: "End of the Road" Medley: "If You Don't Know Me by Now"/"Love Don't Love Nobody"
- 1994: "I Don't Want to Know" (R&B #32)
- 1995: "Next Time" (R&B #30)
- 2003: "Feelin' Good (Vacilon)" (Jazz/Salsa/R&B)
Albums
- 1978: Miss Gladys Knight
- 1979: Gladys Knight
- 1991: Good Woman
- 1994: Just For You
- 1998: Many Different Roads
- 2001: At Last
- 2005: One Voice (with Saints Unified Voices)
- 2006: Before Me
- 2006: A Christmas Celebration (with Saints Unified Voices)
Filmography
- Save the Children (1973) (documentary)
- Pipe Dreams (1976)
- Twenty Bucks (1993)
- Hollywood Homicide (2003)
- Unbeatable Harold (2005) (still without distributor)
- The Young Messiah - Messiah XXI (2006) (DVD)
External links
- Official website
- Gladys Knight at the Internet Movie Database
- Saints Unified Voices
- Article explaining the creation of Saints Unified Voices
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- 1944 births
- African-American actors
- African-American singers
- Alpha Kappa Alpha sisters
- American female singers
- American Juniors
- American rhythm and blues singers
- American soul singers
- American television actors
- Gladys Knight & the Pips
- Grammy Award winners
- Latter-day Saint singers
- Living people
- People from Atlanta
- Mormon composers
- Hollywood Walk of Fame