UB Celebrates 80th Birthday of Legendary Gladys Knight

The great ones endure, and Gladys Knight has long been one of the greatest.

Today we celebrate Gladys on her 80th Birthday, May 28th.

Very few singers over the last sixty years have matched her unassailable artistry.

She has enjoyed many #1 hits in the Pop, R&B, and Adult Contemporary, as well as triumphs in film, TV, live performing, and even in the restaurant industry. She has traveled many different roads, but for Gladys Knight, all have led to enduring success.

At the age of four, she began singing as a guest soloist in church. At age seven she won the Grand Prize on Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour, and the following year, she, along with her brother Bubba, her sister Brenda, and her cousins William and Elinor Guest, formed The Pips.

In 1959, Brenda and Elinor left the group, replaced by cousin Edward Patten and friend Langston George. The group was renamed Gladys Knight and the Pips, and following Langston‘s departure in 1962, the classic line-up was in place.

With Gladys singing lead and the Pips providing lush harmonies and graceful choreography, the group went on to achieve icon status, having recorded some of the most memorable songs of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.

Top 20 hits like “Every Beat of My Heart,” “Letter Full of Tears,” “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” and “If I Were Your Woman,” set the stage for an amazing run in the mid-70’s, when 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 That Ever Happened to Me,” and the #1 smash “Midnight Train to Georgia” established Gladys Knight & The Pips as the premier pop/R&B vocal ensemble in the world.

The party kept rolling with hits like the #5 “On And On,” written by Curtis Mayfield for “Claudine,” the 1974 screen comedy about love in the inner-city. Gladys enjoyed another #1 hit in 1985 when she teamed with Stevie Wonder, Elton John, and Dionne Warwick on the classic “That’s What Friends Are For.”

In 1987, Gladys Knight & The Pips released their final album together entitled “All Our Love.” The #1 album featured the gold Grammy winning single “Love Overboard.” The album was one of the groups most successful albums.

Gladys Knight has recorded over 39 albums over the years, including five solo albums. “Good Woman,”featuring the hit “Men”” in 1991. “Just For You” was released in 1994, both released under MCA. In 1999 she released her inspirational independent album release “Many Different Roads.”

In 2006 Gladys released the heartfelt “Before Me,” via Verve. A homage to the great legends of song who paved the way for her. Many, including the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Lena Horne, were friends, mentors, colleagues, of hers since the beginning of her career, and all gave her immeasurable inspiration, courage, and strength.

Gladys has since released two more solo albums “Another Journey” in 2013 and “Where My Heart Belongs” in 2014.

“I love this industry because it’s ever-changing. Music speaks to people’s spirits; wherever the social consciousness is, that’s where music is going to be.”

Her involvement in other creative undertakings, business ventures and humanitarian activities has been extensive, and has brought her honors from industry and community alike. In 1986 she produced and starred in the Ace Award winning “Sisters In The Name Of Love,” an HBO special co-starring Dionne Warwick and Patti LaBelle. That same year, she proved her acting ability when she co-starred with Flip Wilson in the CBS comedy “Charlie & Co.”

Other early acting roles followed on such TV shows as “Benson,” “The Jeffersons,” and “New York Undercover,” and such films as “Pipe Dreams,” “An Enemy Among Us,” and “Desperado.” She completed a starring run on Broadway in the smash hit musical “Smokey Joe’s CafÈ.” Gladys appeared in Tyler Perry’s “I Can Do Bad All by Myself” and performed “The Need To Be.”

In 1994, Gladys and her daughter Kenya opened Kenya’s Gourmet Bakery, which recently expanded into a 6000 sq. ft. production facility in Las Vegas.

In 1995, she earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the next year she and the Pips were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Gladys published her autobiography, “Between Each Line of Pain and Glory,” in 1997, and the following year, she and the Pips were presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.

In 2008 she received the BET Inaugural Best Living Legend Award, in 2011 the Soul Train Music Awards Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2019, the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Dr. Ben Carson.

As a humanitarian and philanthropist, Gladys has devoted enormous energies into various worthy causes, including the American Cancer Society, the Minority AIDS Project, AMFAR, and Crisis Intervention. She has been honored by numerous organizations as well, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, CORE, and B’Nai Brith.

She is a mother, a performer, and a businesswoman with a spiritual outlook on her life. Her faith in God has been the driving force behind all of Gladys‘ endeavors, and was the inspiration for “Many Different Roads,” her 1999 collection of faith-based songs.

“I love this industry because it’s ever-changing. Music speaks to people’s spirits; wherever the social consciousness is, that’s where music is going to be.” Gladys went on to say; “Doing as much as I do satisfies my creative spirit, because I do enjoy wearing a lot of hats: I’ve been at the board for a long time, producing – many people don’t know that, but I’ve always had a direct hand in the production of all of my projects.”

As for her impeccable standing in the entertainment world, Gladys does not associate her style with any one form of music. “I don’t like being pegged as an R&B artist,” Gladys stated, “Because I want to sing everything. When you pigeonhole me, you say that I can’t sing country western music, or that the moment I put my voice on it, it becomes R&B. To me, it’s all music, across the board music!”

Gladys appeared on “The Masked Singer” in 2019 and in the updated “Coming 2 America” film in 2021.

In 2022, Gladys Knight received a Kennedy Center Honor. In 2023, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

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