Memories about music should remain the best when you listen to a song and feel good with someone, that is, when you share it with someone. I have had it before, though I usually talk about things mostly in a collector's viewpoint on this Radi'o'Paper. That was when 'Shibuya traditions' (the collage or revival of old school music or fashion in the '90s in Japan) were popular among the Japanesee music scene, and some of the tunes were acceptable for a fanatic of European or American oldies like me. CDs in such styles were taken on tape, and they came and went between two and the one replied to the other, like, "This is a good tune, you know". However, I felt it like compromising or trying to be someone else. I happened to get an oldies CD in my own taste at a record store during a date. Gladys Knight & the Pips' "Imagination" turned out to be impressed in my memory because it could not reach her ears at last.

Before having this album I had already borrowed and listened to it, and I had been more familiar with their Motown sides including many up-tempo ones. As I grow old enough, however, their biggest hit Midnight Train to Georgia penetrates deeper into me. "Imagination", their first album after leaving Motown and joining in Buddha, was co-produced by Gladys and the trio of her brother and cousins, the Pips. Since Gladys Knight has an exquisite alto voice ranging from hard ones to slow ones, other producers are likely to push her charming voice forward. On this album, however, the Pips don't end with mere side dishes and deliver fine chorus works to us. They not only make soulful grooves on I've Got to Use My Imagination or Window Raisin' Granny, but Johnny Nash-penned I Can See Clearly Now features them and they did so well. Jim Weatherly, who wrote tunes for them including Neither One of Us (Want to be the First to Say Goodbye), the song made before when they left Motown, brings 5 songs including Midnight Train to Georgia which are pre-eminent matches for them. Although On and On from the motion picture soundtrack "Claudine" produced by Curtis Mayfield or the title tune from thier third Buddha album "I Feel a Song" can be heard on some of their compilation bests, I think you better listen to the albums I mentioned because they have other fine tunes. Why aren't the three albums recut soon?

Gladys Knight sings so soulfully and stably, however, she didn't came from church gospel. It is said that she and the Pips would win prizes at talent contests and they polished not only the skill of chorus but that of choreography during on the stage. In the interview written on Nelson George's "Where Did Our Love Go?", Gladys complained such as, "I had hesitated to move into Motown at first" or "I didn't like use others' tunes". However, anybody would admit that their prime time began since joining Motown. Different from singers of Detroit natives who had not been so professional and taught from the first, Gladys and the Pips had already been perfect before Motown. They should have been reliable for the backing Funk Brothers and the producer Norman Whitfield because they responded to any kind of attempts. "The Ultimate Collection" contains hard and cool tunes like I Heard It Through the Grapevine, The Nitty Gritty, Friendship Train or You Need Love Like I Do (Don't You), strained and thrilling ballads like If I Were Your Woman, I Don't Want to Do Wrong or Help Me Make It Through the Night, and the driving and finest Daddy Could Swear, I Declare. Since Diana Ross was the unshakeable queen of Motown even if they sang better or worse, it was good for Gladys that they left Motown and she was sworn in as new queen of Buddha. But I think it is regretable that their songs gradually lost freshness or strain or excitement.

On thier compilation of the early '60s "Soul Aces", you can hear pop R&B just before the soul era such as from doo-wap Every Bit of My Heart, their first hit written by Johnnie Otis, to 'Brill Building' orchestration Letter Full of Tears, Come See about Me, Giving Up. "Gold", the two disc compilation covered from the early hits to ones in the '90s, also has the late Buddha ones and Columbia and MCA ones, whose arrangements don't suit my taste but whose singings are still wonderful. I collected the late Buddha albums like "2nd Anniversary", "Pipe Dreams" or "The One and Only" , and I find their songs from the Motown era through the early Buddha era were in season like a fat fish caught from the sea of winter. They moved from label to label and kept searching for such season. They temporarily found it and we could have their tunes in season. It should be the plenty. (2007/02/12)