Journalist, Political Reporter, Cultural Critic, Editor/Proofreader
Alex V. Henderson
Philadelphia, PA
vixenatr
September 2013
Gladys Knight & the Pips
Gladys Knight [Expanded Edition]
In 1990, Gladys Knight & the Pips’ 38-year run finally came to an end when the Empress of Soul became a full-time solo artist. No one can accuse them of failing to go out with a bang: their last album together, 1987’s All About Love on MCA Records, went gold in the United States for sales of more than 500,000 copies and boasted the #1 R&B hit “Love Overboard” and the #3 R&B hit “Lovin’ on Next to Nothin’.” And Knight’s solo career took off in a big way when her 1991 release Good Woman reached #1 on Billboard’s R&B albums chart and her next solo album, 1994’s Just for You, reached #6 on that chart.
In 1991, some people assumed that Good Woman was her first solo album, but in fact, it was her third—and one could say that she was laying the groundwork for a solo career as early as 1952, when a seven-year-old Knight performed the Nat King Cole hit “Too Young” as a solo act on “Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour” (a 1950s/1960s equivalent of “American Idol”). It was also in 1952 that the first lineup of the Pips was formed, and the combination of Knight’s lead vocals and the Pips’ distinctive background harmonies was heard on countless hits in the 1960s and 1970s. But at the end of the 1970s, a legal dispute with Buddah Records temporarily prevented Gladys Knight & the Pips from recording as a group. 1978’s The One and Only became their last album for Buddah, and they reemerged on Columbia Records in 1980 with the Ashford & Simpson-produced About Love.
The fact that Knight and her three Pips couldn’t record together during their dispute with Buddah didn’t prevent them from recording separately. The Pips (Merald “Bubba” Knight, William Guest and the late Edward Patten) recorded two obscure albums for Casablanca Records without her: 1977’s At Last…..The Pips and 1978’s Bunny Sigler-produced Callin’. And Knight’s first solo album, Miss Gladys Knight, was released by Buddah in 1978. Her second solo album, 1979’s Gladys Knight, marked the beginning of her associaton with Columbia—although it wasn’t until About Love that she recorded for Columbia with the Pips.
Neither Miss Gladys Knight nor Gladys Knight were big sellers. Miss Gladys Knight stalled at #57 on Billboard’s R&B albums chart, and Gladys Knight stalled at #71 on that chart. Nonetheless, both albums contained minor hits: Miss Gladys Knight included the #54 R&B single “I’m Coming Home Again,” and this album, Gladys Knight, gave us “Am I Too Late” (a ballad that went to #45 on Billboard’s R&B singles chart).
Given how much commercial success Gladys Knight & the Pips had enjoyed with ballads in the 1960s and 1970s, it made sense for Columbia to release “Am I Too Late” as a single. Yet they had plenty of uptempo smashes as well, ranging from “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” in 1967 to “Friendship Train” in 1969 to “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination” in 1973—and on this solo outing (which was produced by Knight and Jack Gold and mostly arranged by the late Gene Page), she favors a healthy blend of ballads and uptempo material.
Knight the ballad singer is represented not only by “Am I Too Late,” but also, by soul/adult contemporary performances that include “My World,” “You Loved Away the Pain” and a cover of the Bee Gees’ 1972 hit “My World.” The melancholy “The Best Thing We Can Do Is Say Goodbye,” another ballad, recalls Gladys Knight & the Pips’ early 1973 single “Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye),” which was their last major hit before leaving Motown Records for Buddah.
While those ballads are all very 1970s-sounding, Knight favors a more retro approach on a remake of Leiber & Stoller’s ballad “I (Who Have Nothing).” Page’s arrangement of that song (which was a moderate hit for Ben E. King in 1963 and a bigger hit for Tom Jones in 1970) is overtly 1960s-minded, and Knight’s dramatic performance recalls the 1964 single “Giving Up” (a Van McCoy song that became one of the biggest hits of Gladys Knight & the Pips’ pre-Motown period).
“You Don’t Have to Say I Love You” and the single “You Bring Out the Best in Me,” meanwhile, are the opposite of ballads: both are energetic disco-soul songs aimed at fans of dance divas such as Gloria Gaynor, Linda Clifford, Thelma Houston and the late Loleatta Holloway. In the late 1970s, disco was by no means monolithic. The European disco sound was exemplified by artists like Cerrone, Love and Kisses, Silver Convention and the Munich Machine, while Gaynor, Clifford, Holloway, Houston, the Trammps, Moment of Truth, Sylvester and Double Exposure were known for a soul-drenched style of disco—and the disco that Knight favors on “You Bring Out the Best in Me” and “You Don’t Have to Say I Love You” clearly falls into the second category.
“It’s the Same Old Song” (not to be confused with the Four Tops’ 1965 smash) is an uptempo groove with a strong Earth, Wind & Fire influence. That track isn’t unlike something EWF leader Maurice White would have produced for the Emotions in the late 1970s.
FunkyTownGrooves’ expanded 2013 edition of Gladys Knight contains all ten selections from Columbia’s original 1979 LP as well as nine bonus tracks, which include the 7” and 12” single versions of “You Bring Out the Best in Me” and the 7” single version of “Am I Too Late.” Also included are four previously unreleased recordings from the 1979 sessions for this album: “Am I Losing You,” “It’s Me Again,” “For All We Know” and “Maybe, Maybe Baby.”
Twenty-three years after Gladys Knight & the Pips’ breakup, her fans have long since gotten used to hearing her perform as a full-time solo artist. And Knight, who turned 69 on May 28, 2013, continues to maintain a busy schedule and command a loyal following. But it’s important to remember that the concept of Knight being a solo artist existed long before the early 1990s—and in 1979, this album became an underexposed but likable footnote in her solo career.
—Alex Henderson, September 2013
Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Creem, The L.A. Weekly, JazzTimes, Jazziz, Salon.com, AlterNet, Cash Box, HITS, CD Review, Skin Two, Black Beat, The Pasadena Weekly, Black Radio Exclusive (BRE), Music Connection, Latin Style, The New York City Jazz Record and many other well-known publications. Henderson (alexvhenderson.com) has also contributed several thousand CD reviews to The All Music Guide’s popular website and series of music reference books.
Copyright 2022 Alex V. Henderson. All rights reserved.
Alex V. Henderson
Philadelphia, PA
vixenatr