Gladys Knight

The great ones endure, and Gladys Knight has long been one of the greatest. Very few singers over the last fifty years have matched her unassailable artistry. This seven-time Grammy winner has enjoyed #1 hits in Pop, Gospel, R&B and Adult Contemporary, and has triumphed in film, television and live performance. All told, Knight has recorded more than 38 albums over the years.

In 1996, Gladys Knight & The Pips were inducted into the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame. Knight is one of the few Hall of Famers who have continued to make hits from the ‘60s until the present day. The key to this success is Knight’s voice, one of the more remarkable instruments of the rock, soul and R&B eras. A perfect blend of grace and grit has allowed her to record such masterpieces of balladry as “Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye),” “If I Were Your Wom¬an,” “Midnight Train to Georgia” and “Every Beat of My Heart” while also making such funky dance numbers as the original “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “The Nitty Gritty,” “Friendship Train,” “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination” and “Love Overboard.”

In 2011, Knight was honored with a Legend Award alongside fellow recipients Earth, Wind & Fire on the BET broadcast of the 3rd annual Soul Train Awards, hosted by Cedric the Entertainer. Knight, a longtime Las Vegas resident, returned to the Strip in the late-2000s to the famed Tropicana Hotel for a special engagement that ran in the newly named Gladys Knight Theater, making her the first African-American performer to have a venue named after her in Las Vegas.

No stranger to performing, Knight put on her dancing shoes in 2012 when she joined the cast of ABC’s hit reality competition “Dancing with the Stars” for season 14, partnering with Tristan MacManus. As an actress, she’s known for the films License to Kill (1989), Hollywood Homicide (2003) and Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013).