Gladys Knight & The Pips

Gladys Knight & The Pips

"2nd Anniversary", Buddah

Don't be fooled by "Money," the current, hard-rocking single off this album. The guiding aesthetic here was indicated by their last single. a cover of Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were". "2nd Anniversary," entitled in celebration of their ongoing tenure with Buddah, is, tragically, mostly Las Vegas schmaltz. (There are not one, but two songs begun with overblown, spoken introductions.

It sure is a long way from their good gospel roots as captured on "Every Beat Of My Heart" (for Fury in 1961), and from the glorious string of hits Gladys cranked out for Motown from 1967-1973, when she was arguably, the most consistent and most intense female vocalist in the nation.

The most shameful part of this new stance is that Gladys and the guys are directly responsible. They co-produced this slush. And it's not that I have anything against ballads either. But the new material here -by the likes of David Gates, Paul Williams and Jim Weatherly- is thoroughly mediocre, and Gladys's  approach to "Georgia On My Mind" is weakened by its sentimentality. Roberta Flack, not half the singer Gladys is, did a better job with half the effort on "Feel Like Makin' Love". I sure hope this 2nd anniversary isn't an epitaph.