“He got the performance out of Gladys,” recalls Gloria. The meal inspires the pair to pen “If I Were Your Woman,” and put it in the hands of producer Clay McMurray. More hits follow, including “The Nitty Gritty” and “Friendship Train,” then a barbecue lunch washed down with champagne helps songwriters Gloria Jones and Pam Sawyer to serve up the Atlanta quartet’s second R&B No.It becomes their biggest success of the 1960s, No. With Whitfield pointing the way, Gladys & her Pips turn in a gospel-grounded, brash and gloriously percussive floorshaker. Norman had previously lab-tested “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” with others, but nothing proved fruitful. Norman Whitfield gets busy sourcing and producing a variety of songs for the foursome, such as 1967’s slow-burning “Take Me In Your Arms And Love Me.” This barely bothers the Billboard pop charts, but the British buy in: it’s a Top 20 torch song over there. At first, finding the sweet spot of sales is tough.“I voted ‘no.’ I got out-voted.” The quartet puts pen to paper in Detroit and is placed under the banner, logically, of the company’s Soul label. “The guys voted to sign,” Gladys says years later. When Motown Records comes calling in ’66, the quartet – by now featuring Gladys, Bubba and cousins Edward Patten and William Guest – exercise their democratic right.Hard work and good luck combine with talent and, eventually, deliver an arresting hit in 1961, “Every Beat Of My Heart.”
Gladys and older brother Merald (“Bubba”) Knight embark on a singing career in their Atlanta hometown in the 1950s, enlisting various relatives and calling themselves the Pips.
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