Playlist: The Very Best of Gladys Knight & the Pips

Playlist: The Very Best of Gladys Knight & the Pips covers the group's post-Motown Buddah output, as well as some of their Columbia releases, released from 1973 through 1983. While it's not an ideal overview -- it lacks some of the significant singles and severely underestimates the excellent, Ashford & Simpson-driven About Love (1980) -- it shines a necessary light on a significant portion of a bountiful catalog. This contains five number one R&B singles: "Midnight Train to Georgia," "I've Got to Use My Imagination," "Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me," "I Feel a Song (In My Heart)," and "Save the Overtime (For Me)." The last of the lot, released in 1983, showed that Knight and company -- despite being veterans commonly tied to a bygone era -- were able to adapt to modern sounds (just as the Whispers, supported by Leon Sylvers III, were thriving around the same time). ~ Andy Kellman