By Joe Pinchot
Herald Staff Writer

Sure, you have family acts like Ray and Dave Davies of the Kinks and Noel and Liam Gallagher of Oasis, whose brotherly fisticuffs are as famous as their music.

But Gladys Knight and the Pips showed that the members of family acts can not only get along, they can thrive.

"I don't know whether it added to our sound, but it added to our harmony," Merald "Bubba" Knight said of the impact of family ties.

Knight was a Pip with cousins William Guest and Edward Patten, backing his sister's lead.

"We were able to stick and to stay and get over a lot of hurdles because we were family. That tie between our blood made us, I think, have the same kind of passion in what we were doing."

The group, which originated in Atlanta, formed in 1952 at Knight's 10th birthday.

Their sister Brenda and cousins William and Elenor Guest rounded out the group. Another cousin, James "Pip" Woods, encouraged them to perform professionally and managed the group.

Gladys Knight was already known for winning a prize on the "Ted Mack Amateur Hour" television show, and the group toured on the same circuit as Sam Cooke, B.B. King and Jackie Wilson.

Brenda Knight and Elenor Guest dropped out and Patten and cousin Langston George stepped in by the time the group's first hit, "Every Beat of My Heart," became a national hit in 1961.

George left after two more singles -- including the hit "Letter Full of Tears" -- and the quartet remained.

Knight, 59, has a hard time trying to pick a favorite from the band's dozens of hits.

"Now, I have a few," he said, including "Every Beat of My Heart," "Midnight Train to Georgia," "Neither One of Us," "I've Got to Use My Imagination" and "Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me."

Knight said he became pretty good at telling which songs were going to be hits by the feeling he had about them during recording.

"Like, after 'Midnight Train to Georgia,' you kind of felt in your spirit that this was right," he said. "Gladys did one take of 'Midnight Train to Georgia,' man. When you hit it like that and you turn off the machine, you say, 'Oh, that's it.' "

"I Heard it Through the Grapevine" from 1967 and "Neither One of Us" from 1973 carried the same feeling, he said.

"When we left the studio that night, it was like, 'Oh man, do I like that song,' " he said of "Neither One of Us."

The beauty of recording is that the feeling can be shared with others and preserved for all time, he said.

"Like these people that's inducted in the Vocal Group Hall of Fame and any hall of fame -- when you hear their versions and their hit records, it has a special thing about it that makes it a hit: the timing, the everything that's involved, the feeling that was in it. All of that is what makes a hit record. No matter who records that, who tries to sing it, it doesn't have the same magic."

As the hits mounted, the group found that the magic was consistently coming from songs penned by Jim Weatherly.

Weatherly, who also wrote songs that were made hits by Ray Price, was a solo performer who recorded his own songs. But his songs turned out to be "perfect for Gladys Knight and the Pips," Knight said.

"Man, I couldn't believe that he wasn't a Pip. I didn't believe he was an outsider coming in, because he wrote what we felt. His words and his melodies and things like that suited our family, our family's harmonies, so well."

The ceremonial Pip penned "Midnight Train to Georgia" from 1973, "Neither One of Us," "Where Peaceful Waters Flow" from 1973 and "Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me" from 1974.

"We stay in touch with each other," Knight said of Weatherly. "As a matter of fact, he's written some songs that he presented to us, and Gladys is listening to them right now to see if she can find a gem in there."

Patten, 62, and Guest, 60, are unable to perform because of health problems, but Knight still goes out on the road with his 57-year-old sister, whose album, "At Last," has been nominated for a Grammy Award in the Traditional R&B Album category.

"When Gladys goes out as a solo artist, which she is now, I go out with her on many of her engagements as a Pip," Knight said. "There's a part in her show that she does that's 'Gladys Knight and A Pip.'"

jpinchot@sharon-herald.com