With Knight singing lead and The Pips providing lush harmonies and graceful choreography, the group went on to achieve icon status, having recorded some of the most memorable songs of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The group debuted their first album in 1960, when Knight was just sixteen. The group was renamed Gladys Knight & The Pips, and following George’s departure in 1962, the classic line-up was in place. In 1959, Brenda and Elenor left the group, replaced by cousin Edward Patten and friend Langston George. They called themselves The Pips in honor of their cousin/manager, James Pip Woods. Three years later, she won the grand prize on television’s “Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour,” and the following year, her mother Elizabeth Knight created the group consisting of Gladys, her brother Bubba, her sister Brenda and her cousins William and Elenor Guest. Georgia-born, Knight began performing gospel music at age four in the Mount Mariah Baptist Church and sang as a guest soloist with the Morris Brown College Choir. Adored the world over, Knight then toured across the UK, performing at packed arenas that included a sold-out performance at Wembley Stadium. In February 2011, Knight reunited with Elton John, Dionne Warwick, and Stevie Wonder for the first time in 25 years to perform their Grammy-winning song, “That’s What Friends Are For” at an AIDS research benefit at the downtown Cipriani in New York. This followed a successful four-year show run at The Flamingo, which the Las Vegas Review-Journal praised as “the number-one show on the Strip.” A tireless humanitarian, Knight is an iconic supporter of the Boys & Girls Club of America, to which she donated a Randy Jacksonproduced song, “The Dream.” As the celebrated singer of the timeless song “Midnight Train to Georgia,” Knight was a natural fit as national spokesperson and host of Amtrak’s National Train Day, the celebration of which took place Washington, DC’s famed Union Station. Knight, known as the “Empress of Soul,” 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. 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. Very few singers over the last fifty years have matched her unassailable artistry. The great ones endure, and Gladys Knight has long been one of the greatest. Tickets starting at $35 are on sale now and are available online at AXS.com or in person at the Pikes Peak Center box office. All tickets are subject to sales tax, facility and ticketing surcharges. Tickets go on sale Tuesday, February 7th at. Danny Zelisko Presents welcomes Gladys Knight to Pikes Peak Center at 7:30 p.m.
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