Gladys Knight: Actually it began with my mom and dad because you know at four years old, you have no ambition to do nothing but make mud pies. I guess they recognized some talent in me, and my church supported me first, which was the Mount Moriah Baptist at the time, and I gave my first recital when I was four years old. And then my mom, she believed in keeping us busy, and so we were in the church choir so she let us form a little group and that kind of thing. And then at seven, my aunt Ann and she were talking. And they thought about writing to Ted Mack to get me on the show.
Nick Spitzer: The old amateur hour show.
GK: The old amateur hour show, and the rest is kind of history. I won that show, 1952, and about a year and a half after that, the Pips and I were formed.
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NS: Well you start with family and church and the basic institutions, but you moved out into the big world of soul music. How did you make that decision or was it made for you, was it something you planned?
GK: You know what? I think it was a little of both. We had dreams. When we first came together, we really loved what we did from the beginning as well as all through the time that we’ve been singing. But it just–God had a plan for us, and now that I’m more mature in the spirit, I know that that’s what it was because we were able to last for such a long time, and that’s the only answer I can give for still being around here.
NS: And looking very good, I might add.
GK: Well thank you!
NS: We’re on the radio but you know, I’m sure it’s conveying Gladys.
GK: Thank you very much.
NS: What does “soul” mean to you as a music, as a word? How do you define “soul”?
GK: You know what, it’s really about our spirit. It’s the soul of man, it’s where we are, it’s where we’re touched, it’s where we live. And when they started relating it to, i.e.–and I’m doing my little quotation marks since this is radio–Black music, I thought it was really underplayed, the word itself. Because soul can be in a book, it can be in food, it can be in just a person’s spirit itself, you know, how soulful you are, how deep you are. So that’s really what it means to me, the depth of who we are.
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NS: You were in a business dynasty of soul at one point, Motown Records.
GK: Yes.
NS: All of us from outside of Detroit–and you’re not a native either–we look at Motown, and we go, “Oh my god, that’s the castle.” What was it like inside the castle?
GK: It was an awesome experience, and in my lifetime, I embrace everything about it: the good, the bad, the challenging, the hard and the easy. Motown was all of that. Some of the horrendous stories that you probably heard or wanted to know about, they were true, but then some of the great and wondrous things that happened at that company were also true. We got an education there like you would not believe. We also educated some people there like you would not believe.
NS: Yeah I remember that the Temptations say that you kind of made them have to put their game face on.
GK: Absolutely. Absolutely.
NS: What was that about?
GK: Well, you have to realize, by the time we came to Motown–we were not born there, as most of the artists who were there were. We had a life about twenty years or so worth of life before there was ever Motown. Bringing that experience of taking care of our own business, looking after ourselves, being young on the road, all of those things we brought to the company. And they were used to them doing everything for them to the point where they knew nothing about the business, they didn’t know what was going on around them. All they knew was that they loved to sing, they loved to perform, and they loved being in this industry.
NS: You had more of a downhome approach to this very uptown company, sounds like.
GK: Yes, yes.
NS: Well what were the downhome surrounds of making of “Grapevine”?
GK: Well, Norman Whitfield came to us one day; he used to be all, wearing his little trench coat. He said, “I got a song for y’all.” I said, “Really?” He said, “Yeah!” So he played “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” for us.
To hear the full program, tune in Saturdays at 5 and Sundays at 6 on WWNO, or listen at americanroutes.org.