Gladys Knight & The Pips (Atlanta, Georgia)
(The Doo wop years)

Personnel :

Gladys Knight (Lead)

Merald "Bubba" Knight

William Guest

Edward Patten

Langston George

Discography :

Singles :

The Pips
1958 - Ching Chong / Whistle My Love (Brunswick 55048)
1961 - Every Beat Of My Heart / Room In Your Heart (Huntom 2510/Vee Jay 386)
1962 - Darling / Linda (Fury 1067)

Gladys Knight & The Pips
1961 - Every Beat Of My Heart / Room In Your Heart (Fury 1050)
1961 - Guess Who / Stop Running Around (Fury 1052)
1961 - Letter Full Of Tears / You Broke Your Promise (Fury 1054)
1962 - Operator / I'll Trust In You (Fury 1064)
1963 - Come See About Me / I Want That Kind Of Love (Fury 1073)

Lps :

1962 - Letter Full Of Tears (Fury FULP 1003)
Letter Full Of Tears / You Broke Your Promise / Operator / I’ll Trust In You / Morning, Noon And Night / I Can’t Stand By / Every Beat Of My Heart / Room In Your Heart / Guess Who / Stop Running Around / What Shall I Do ?

Biography :

Gladys Knight was born May 28, 1944 in Atlanta, Georgia. At the age of seven in 1952, she won Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour television show contest. The following year, she, her brother Bubba, sister Brenda, and their cousins William and Eleanor Guest started a singing group called "The Pips" (named after another cousin, James "Pip" Woods). The Pips began to perform and tour, eventually replacing Brenda Knight and Eleanor Guest with cousins Langston George and Edward Patten in 1959.

The Pips scored their first hit in 1961 with "Every Beat of My Heart", a cover of a Hank Ballard & The Midnighters song written by Johnny Otis. The group had recorded the song for a friend in Atlanta, who promptly sold the master to Vee-Jay Records and cut the group out of the record's profits. The Pips recorded a second version of "Every Beat" with Bobby Robinson as the producer, and the song became a #1 R&B and #6 pop hit.

  
The Pips (1959)                                                                                                          

Shortly afterwards, Langston George left the group, and the remaining members continued as a quartet, now billed as Gladys Knight & the Pips. Typically, most of the act's recordings featured Knight's contralto on lead vocals and the three male members of the group, usually referred to as "The Pips" by themselves, providing characteristic background vocals.

After a second Vee-Jay hit, "Letter Full of Tears", in 1962, Knight quit the group to start a family with husband James Newman, giving birth to James Gaston Newman III in August of that year. Her second child Kenya Maria Newman was born in November the following year.The Pips toured on their own for two years, until Knight returned to the act in 1964 in order to support her two children.
http://www.soulfulkindamusic.net/gknight.htm

Songs :

Gladys Knight & The Pips

   
Letter Full Of Tears                        Operator           

   
You Broke Your Promise               Every Beat Of My Heart

The Pips
(Merald  Knight, William Guest & Edward Patten)

   
Linda                                           Darling

 ...