Gladys Knight (born May 28, 1944) – It's A Better Than Good Time (1978)

An acetate-only Walter Gibbons remix of this epic jam by the Empress of Soul became a Larry Levan favorite at the Paradise Garage and underground disco hit.

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The legendary Gladys Knight, also known as the Empress of Soul, is an award-winning singer/songwriter and actress who during her long career has had eleven #1 R&B hits, six #1 R&B albums, and went to #1 on the pop charts twice, with “Midnight Train To Georgia” (1973) and “That’s What Friends Are For” (1985) which she recorded with Dionne Warwick, Elton John and Stevie Wonder to raise money to fight AIDS.

Gladys Maria Knight first came to the world’s attention as an eight-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia when in 1952 she appeared on and won The Original Amateur Hour, a nationally broadcast talent show that was the American Idol of its day.

The same year, she joined with her brother Merald “Bubba” Knight, her sister Brenda, and their cousins William and Eleanor Guest to form a singing group called the Pips.  Their debut performance was at Bubba’s tenth birthday party after the record player stopped working. Brenda Knight and Eleanor Guest were later replaced by another cousin, Edward Patten, and friend Langston George.

They started touring in the late fifties, and recorded their first records in the early sixties, including several early Van McCoy productions.  In 1966 they signed to Motown, and in 1968 toured as the opening act for Diana Ross and the Supremes until Ross bumped them from the tour because Gladys’ vocals were wowing audiences and outshining her own.

Gladys Knight & the Pips had several major hits at Motown, breaking through in 1967 with their fourth single “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”  This classic Norman Whitfield-produced song was earlier recorded by both The Miracles and Marvin Gaye, but the Pips’ version was released first and went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 R&B, selling 2.5 million copies and becoming Motown’s biggest-selling single up to that point.  Gaye’s version, released a year later, sold four million copies and reached #1 on the Hot 100.

Their other notable Motown records included “Take Me in Your Arms and Love Me” (1967), “If I Were Your Woman” (1970), “I Don’t Want To Do Wrong” (1971), and the powerful call for racial unity “Friendship Train” (1969), which was co-written by Whitfield and Barrett Strong and reached #2 R&B.

But as Knight later said on A&E’s Biography, “Diana (Ross) & The Supremes, The Temptations and Marvin Gaye were given all the hits, while we took the leftovers.” By late 1972, the group was tired of being treated like a second tier act. Shortly after completing what was to be their final Motown album Neither One Of Us, they were allowed to leave the label in January, 1973.

The group signed with Buddah Records the next month, just as the title track “Neither One Of Us” was climbing the charts.  Starting on March 17, 1973, it spent four weeks at #1 R&B.  A love song with crossover appeal written by country songwriter Jim Weatherly, it eventually went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won that year’s Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.

That same year, they also won the Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for another song penned by Weatherly.  “Midnight Train To Georgia” was their second single for Buddah Records, released in August, 1973.  This stone cold classic topped both the pop and R&B charts and became their signature song.  Its original title was “Midnight Plane To Houston,” later changed because it was first recorded by gospel singer Cissy Houston.

The song was inspired by a phone conversation Weatherly had in Los Angeles with Farrah Fawcett, who had just begun dating his friend Lee Majors.  Weatherly called Majors one night and Fawcett answered.  He asked her what she was doing and she said she was “taking the midnight plane to Houston” to visit her family.  While writing the lyrics, he wondered why someone would leave L.A. on a midnight plane, and came up with the line “A superstar, but he didn’t get far,” which shaped the song’s storyline about deciding to return home after failing to “make it.”

The group’s first single for Buddah Records was also written by Weatherly. The beautiful, heartfelt “Where Peaceful Waters Flow” stalled out at #28 on the Hot 100, because Motown blocked it by pushing “Neither One Of Us.” Over the years they would record thirteen of his songs altogether.

In 1974 they recorded the soundtrack to Claudine, produced by Curtis Mayfield.  The film’s theme song “On And On” went to #2 R&B and #5 on the Hot 100.

It was an updated version of “Our Love Goes On And On,” which appeared on the Impressions’ album Times Have Changed (1972), their first LP after Mayfield left the group but nevertheless produced by him and released on his Chicago-based Curtom label.  The Claudine soundtrack hit #1 on the R&B albums chart and was certified gold. In 1975, the group hosted their own TV variety show, The Gladys Knight And The Pips Show, which was canceled after four episodes.

Their eighth and final LP for Buddah was released in August, 1978.  Titled The One And Only…, it utilized six separate production teams, including Tony Camillo (who co-produced “Midnight Train To Georgia” with the group), Bruce Hawes, and Van McCoy, who reunited with the Pips to produce three of the album’s ten songs.

Four singles were issued.  The last of them, “It’s A Better Than Good Time,” charted the highest at #16 R&B.  It was written and produced by British songwriter Tony Macauley, best known for writing The Foundations’ two smash soul hits “Baby Now That I've Found You” and “Build Me Up Buttercup.”

“It’s A Better Than Good Time” was described in a Billboard review of The One And Only… as having “hypnotic string and horn breaks which should ensure its success in the discos.”  Sure enough, the track became an underground disco hit, played most famously by Larry Levan at New York City’s recently opened Paradise Garage after the late great DJ and remixer Walter Gibbons created an epic twelve-and-a-half-minute edit at Blank Tape Studios, pressed on acetates through Sunshine Sound’s engineering service.  A shorter Walter Gibbons mix (6:53) was officially released by Buddah the following year as a Canadian-only 12-inch single.

Happy Birthday to the Empress, Gladys Knight!

Further info:

“Gladys Knight's glory days started in Atlanta,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 15, 2009.

“The Misunderstood Talent of Gladys Knight,” The New Yorker, August 13, 2021.

“All in the Family: The Origins of Gladys Knight & the Pips,” by Cillea Houghton, American Songwriter, April 19, 2023.

#soul #funk #disco #GladysKnight