Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. XXXIV--Gladys Knight and the Pips: Midnight Train to Georgia

Kind of goofy factoid:  I've always thought it would be really cool to stand with the Pips behind Gladys Knight (aka, "The Empress of Soul") just once as she sang "Midnight Train to Georgia."  Doing a hand roll, shimmy shimmy shake left, shimmy shimmy shake right, intoning "woo-hoo" as part of the greatest backing vocals ever recorded would be right up there with hitting a home run in the majors.  Alas, I can't sing or dance, and my sense of rhythm is limited at best so the odds of it ever happening are just slightly better than hitting the home run...

Gladys Knight and the Pips (her brother Bubba Knight and their cousins Edward Patten and William Guest were the longest running incarnation of the Pips) formed in 1953 in Atlanta, Georgia  and continued through 1989 when Ms. Knight embarked upon a solo career.  Along the way they enjoyed 21 top twenty singles on the Billboard Hot 100, 12 top forty albums, three Grammys, and an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  And they also recorded one of the most iconic R & B songs ever in "Midnight Train to Georgia."

The song was originally a Country tune called "Midnight Plane to Houston" but a very wise producer decided that a train and the state of Georgia were a better fit..  Released in 1973 on their Imagination album it would hit #1 (most assuredly with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100 and garner the band their very first Grammy Award.  It would eventually end up at #432 (really folks? 432?) on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The story of a young man who went to L.A. to become a superstar. didn't get far, and headed back to his home in Georgia to pick up the pieces, and, more importantly, the woman in his life who's giving up her life, too, and heading to Georgia with him grabs you right from the get go with the rat-a-tat-tat of drums followed by a rat-a-tat-tat of horns.  There's a back and forth between Ms. Knight's lead vocals and the backing vocals of the Pips, from the minute she begins singing until the end of the song that is utter vocal and lyrical magic.  The words are never forced and the vocals complement each other in a way I've never heard in another song.  Ms. Knight's confident contralto does not waver and you can feel the love from both her and the Pips omniscient backing tracks.  And it closes with one of those soulful crescendos that emaycee loves so much--Ms Knight bares the protagonist's soul and I still get chills forty some odd years down the road as she does it.

And when she sings "For love, gonna board the midnight train to Georgia," I know I've got to get me a ticket, too.

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee