Gladys Knight at Overture Hall
When soul queen Gladys Knight cut a path through the middle of her backing band at Overture Hall on Friday, every bit of the passion, glamour, and strut that soaked into each of her Motown hits followed closely behind. As Knight’s powerful voice punched through a medley of Michael Jackson’s “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” and Shirley Ellis’ “The Nitty Gritty,” it was easy to forget that the “Empress Of Soul” is a whopping 65 years old. Despite her success over the last five decades, Knight carried herself with monumental humility. “Wow,” she’d gasp at the thunderous applause between songs with her hand covering her mouth in what seemed like disbelief. “We couldn’t have done this without you! Thank you so much, Madison!” After the opening medley, Knight declared, “Work day’s over! Party time!” and led her band through a stunning rendition of “Make A Happy Home.”
Sporting a sparkling pantsuit that one might imagine Donna Summer wearing to a job interview, Knight often tied each of her tunes to a story. She explained how she initially didn’t want to sing “If I Were Your Woman” because the subject matter was in conflict with her mannered Southern upbringing, and how Marvin Gaye’s 1967 rendition of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” commercially overtook the version she recorded with The Pips a year earlier. “I never got a chance to tell him what a beautiful job he did,” Knight said with regret. The soulstress also professed her admiration of the late Ella Fitzgerald, taking on “Someone To Watch Over Me.” Knight and her backing band—complete with four back-up singers, two keyboardists, two percussionists, a guitarist, and a killer bassist—did an excellent job of traversing back to some of her finest moments with the Pips, even though the digital keyboard rearrangements sounded a bit flaccid.
One thing nobody expected was a special appearance from Knight’s older brother and "Pip number one," Merald “Bubba” Knight. The two siblings exchanged some amusing and childish banter on stage for what felt like 10 minutes before anything musical happened. “Since you left us in 1987, it’s been hard on a Pip,” Bubba complained in jest, as his apparent reference to a certain Three 6 Mafia song seemed to grow wings and soar high above the sea of gray hair that covered most of the audience. Bubba then thanked the “Bubba Knight Fan Club” for coming out and asked his sister to take a seat while he jammed with her backing band. “Gimme an A-flat minor with a ‘B’ in it for Bubba and pour some Tabasco sauce on it,” he commanded. The two joined forces as they colored in a rendition of the Beatles’ classic “Yesterday” with rich harmonies, occasionally changing the lyrics ever-so-slightly to take playful jabs at each other.
Once Bubba left the stage, Knight crooned and wailed through the rest of her set, which included a medley of waltzing ballads by Teddy Pendergrass, The Spinners, and even a shimmering take on Boyz II Men’s “End Of The Road." She wrapped up with one of her most famous hits, “Midnight Train To Georgia,” then exited—escorted by two backup singers—waving goodbye and blowing kisses to the crowd as her backing band finished up the song without her. While some of the inspirational grit of Motown may have been lost in some of the new arrangements of her classics, Knight’s earth-shaking voice and glimmering attitude offered more than enough raw brilliance for the crowd to feast on.
