Seven-times Grammy winner GLADYS KNIGHT, aka “The Empress Of Soul”, has long established herself at top table, having carved out a swathe of hit records with her backing group THE PIPS, who included her brother Merald “Bubba” Knight Jr. and her cousins, William Guest and Edward Patten.
But although they are perhaps best remembered for their mid-60s/early-90s hits, they’d actually gotten started in the very late 50s.
This compilation comprises everything they recorded between 1957 and ’62, long before their “glory years”. It includes their earliest hits, ‘Every Beat Of My Heart’, ‘Guess Who’, ‘Letter Full Of Tears’, ‘Operator’, and the “Letter Full Of Tears” LP.
Also featured are a couple of singles which The Pips recorded without Gladys, as well as a pair of her solo 45s. This is a gloriously impressive body of work, easily the equal of a lot of their later, MOR-fied million sellers.