#Gladys knight in the pips full#
So every chance I get to share the gospel or uplift people, I will take full advantage of that opportunity." Knight collaborated with the the Saints United Voices for her 2005 gospel album One Voice, which did well. She once stated, "Since I've been so wonderfully blessed, I really want to share and to make life at least a little better. While no longer a chart-topping success, Knight, known fondly today as the "Empress of Soul," has continued to make records. On the big screen, she had a role in Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself in 2009. Knight has also appeared on Living Single and JAG.
#Gladys knight in the pips series#
In addition to her musical career, she also acted in a recurring role on the 1994 TV series New York Undercover. Throughout the 1990s, Knight continued to tour and record, producing the successful 1994 album Just For You and earning acclaim for her consistently strong vocals and hardworking performance style. Due to legal problems with Buddah, Knight and the Pips were forced to record separately in the last years of the 1970s, although they continued performing together in live gigs.Īfter signing a new contract with Columbia, the group released three reunion albums during the early 1980s, About Love (1980), Touch (1982) and Visions (1983), scoring hits with such singles as "Landlord" (produced by the ace songwriting team Ashford and Simpson), "Save the Overtime for Me" and "You're Number One". She later co-starred opposite comedian Flip Wilson on the 1985-86 sitcom Charlie & Co. Knight and the Pips hosted their own TV special in the summer of 1975, and in 1976, Knight made an appearance in the film Pipe Dreams, for which she and the Pips also recorded the soundtrack album.
In 1974, the group recorded the soundtrack for the film Claudine, with songs written by Curtis Mayfield the soundtrack album spawned the hit single "On and On." Their next album, I Feel a Song (1975), included Knight's hit version of Marvin Hamlisch's "The Way We Were," also popularized by Barbra Streisand the album's title track became a No. 1 crossover hit and a Grammy winner for Best Pop Vocal Performance in 1973. Ironically, their last Motown single, "Neither One of Us Wants to be the First to Say Goodbye," became the Pips' first No.
Knight and the Pips left Motown in 1973 for Buddah Records, a subsidiary of Arista (the group later took Motown to court for unpaid royalties). Their popularity increased with the success of singles like "Nitty Gritty," "Friendship Train" and "If I Were Your Woman," combined with touring performances with the Motown Revue and numerous TV appearances. In 1967, the Pips' version of Whitfield's "I Heard it Through the Grapevine"-later a huge hit for Marvin Gaye-crossed over from the rhythm and blues charts to the pop charts. Meanwhile, About Love also contains its share of gems that weren't released as singles, including the dramatic "Add It Up" and the smooth "Friendly Persuasion." This impressively consistent LP indicated that Gladys Knight & the Pips still had a lot of life left in them as a group, and sure enough, they stayed together for another ten years before parting company for good in 1990.While their first single, "Whistle My Love," was released by Brunswick in 1957, the Pips didn't score a bona fide hit until 1961 when they released "Every Beat of My Heart.” But it was when the group began recording with Motown Records in the mid-1960s, and were teamed with songwriter/producer Norman Whitfield, that their careers really took off. The ballad "Landlord" soared to number three on Billboard's R&B singles charts, and the uptempo dance items "Bourgie, Bourgie" (originally recorded by Ashford & Simpson as an instrumental) and "Taste of Bitter Love" also became hits. The people they can thank for the album's excellence are the husband and wife team of Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson, who wrote and produced all of the material. Both creatively and commercially, About Love was Gladys Knight & the Pips' most successful album since 1974's I Feel a Song. The R&B department at Columbia had very high hopes for this album, and they weren't disappointed. But by 1980, the group itself was their top priority again. Minus Knight, the Pips recorded two LPs as a trio (1977's At Last The Pips and 1978's Callin', both on Casablanca), while Knight provided her first two solo albums (1978's Miss Gladys Knight on Buddah/Arista and 1979's Gladys Knight on Columbia). In 1977, 1978, and 1979, Gladys Knight & the Pips put a lot of effort into recording separately.
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