Between Each Line of Pain and Glory. - book reviews

Ebony, Oct, 1997

Singer Gladys Knight tells went wrong in her storybook wedding to motivationist Les Brown and talks about her gambling addiction in her new biography, Between Each Line of Pain and Glory (Hyperion, $24.95). Knight makes it clear that Brown was something less than "The Best Thing That Ever Happened To [her]," the title of the song from which the book title comes. She blames "the presence of other women in his life, whether they were just friends or old girlfriends, as he protested," and problems stemming, she says, from the fact that Brown was an abandoned child. Knight also reveals that she had a Las Vegas-sized gambling addiction and that she 7 lost $45,000 one night at the baccarat table. She later kicked the habit with the help of "Gamblers Anonymous." Knight says she is a bigger and better person for all these experiences and that she is "stronger and better" for having known Les Brown.

She is less charitable in appraising the attitudes of Diana Ross who, she says, was responsible for getting Knight and the Pips bounced from a Motown tour, and Aretha Franklin, an old childhood friend who, she says, big-headed her one night. According to Knight, she ran into Aretha and said: "Hey, Ree, how are you .... Aretha just kept on walking. Not a glance. Not a word. She could sing it and spell it, but she wasn't interested in giving any respect to me." She also says that she and her brother Bubba Knight, not "Miss Cute [Diana Ross]," were responsible for discovering Michael Jackson.

Whatever the case, Gladys Knight earned her own respect and is still one of the best things that ever happened to a soulful song.