Category: Gladys Knight

MOTOWN SNAPSHOT MEMORIES: GLADYS KNIGHT ’70s

RECORDED LATE -1972, ‘NEITHER ONE OF US‘ would become the last album Gladys Knight and the Pips would record for Motown. By March 1973, when this LP was released, the group by that time had signed to record with Buddah Records in February. Their 1973 single, “Daddy Could Swear I Declare,” would become the second single taken off the album by the group, having made the top 20 (pop #19; R&B #2) after it’s release in April. The first single from the LP, “Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye),” would become the last single prior Gladys Knight & The Pips departure from Motown. But it would become one of their biggest. The single peaked at #2  (2 weeks) on Billboard, April 4, 1973. The single (Soul S 35098) was released on December 26, 1972.
GLADYS KNIGHT
GLADYS KNIGHT and the PIPS

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MOTOWN SNAPSHOT FLASHBACK: GLADYS KNIGHT ’67

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A MOTOWN SNAPSHOT FLASHBACK! Gladys Knight & The Pips, 1967
A MOTOWN SNAPSHOT FLASHBACK! Gladys Knight & The Pips, 1967
Released by Motown (SOUL SS 706) in September 1967, it was the debut album for Gladys Knight & The Pips. The LP featured their million-seller single, "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," made No. 2 on the Billboard chart, December that year.
Released by Motown (SOUL SS 706) in September 1967, “Everybody Needs Love” was the debut album for Gladys Knight & The Pips. The LP featured their million-seller single, “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” peaked No. 2, December, on the Billboard HOT 100.

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GLADYS’ KNIGHT DEBUTS THE ‘COPA… JULY 20, 1968

From the MCRFB news archives:

Gladys Knight & The Pips Put On One Pip Of A Show In NYC

 

 

 

 

By ED OCHS

 

NEW YORK — Gladys Knight & The Pips, another one of Motown’s crack soul squads, proved once again in their Copacabana debut on Thursday night, July 18, 1968, that, in the Motor City, the motor is soul – powered and gassed up with Motown premium. Bongos and blues flavored with that old-time rock harmony struck the right cord for perky Gladys Knight and her three Pips.

Gladys Knight and the Pips circa 1967.

A shade shorter than Martha Reeves and a hair-do higher than Diana Ross, Gladys Knight switched from R&B to clean pop vocal as easily as she changed gowns mid-show from red to green. Whether whipping the beat in “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” their biggest hit thus far, or cooing the blues in “By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” she proved fluent in either language. Singing support for Miss Knight came from the Pips, whose driving sounds were tempered with straight-forward harmony and answering echoes. In “Girl Talk,” the Pips, minus Gladys Knight, cooled off the beat with a folksy, street-corner session.

Gladys Knight and the Pips in 1969. (Click on image for larger view).

Sandwiched in between their latest chart winner, “It Should Have Been Me,” the group stomped through “Every Road Leads Out Of Here,” followed with “Just Walk In My Shoes” and a soulful “Fever,” which dropped to funky part-way before it was rescued by the bluesy Miss Knight. The group, heard on the Motown Soul record label, charged up the opening-night crowd with their fancy footwork, burst of choreography and rally-round-the-microphone in sync while harmonizing. Even Al Foster and the Copa band reeled with the festivities, often overwhelming the voices with blaring horns and a beat falling like sequoia trees. END.

 

(Information and news source: Billboard Magazine; July 20, 1968).

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