Music Review: Gladys Knight and the Pips - The Beautiful Ballads

In the world of popular music from the classic era of the sixties and the seventies, there are only a few unmistakable female voices. These are the kind of talents that, even if you only hear a second or two of a song, you know who the singer is immediately. The names that come to mind are Cher, Dusty Springfield, Patsy Cline, and Aretha Franklin. Perhaps the most unique voice of them all and the most beautiful belongs to Gladys Knight.

The way she phrases a melody with such feeling, emotion, and - dare I say it - soul makes her stand out in a musical crowd of hundreds of other talents. It’s not as much how she sings a lyric but what she sings between the lyric with her woah-ho-ho’s and the cries of anguish that touch your heart.

If Gladys is the sentence, then her Pips are definitely the punctuation and one without the other just doesn’t work. The Pips are her brother Merald “Bubba” Knight, and her cousins Ed Patten and Bill Guest. These three talented men make it possible to sing along with Gladys even the first time you hear the song.

And what songs! I’ve listened to this CD for two days now and constantly find myself singing or humming “Neither One of Us” written by J. Weatherly. This song brought the hurting soul to Motown and it’s been there ever since. If there were only one track on this CD, that tune would make it completely worth the price. The heartbreaking song is about a couple that wants so bad to stay together but both know it won’t work, even though “... we just go on hurting and pretending, and convincing ourselves to give it just one more try.”

Article Author: Jet Gardner

Jet likes to collect books, music, chess sets, and friends. He runs a Gay Worldwide Headline service that is updated constantly, and runs an A-store called Jet's General Store

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