The Pips

Gladys Knight & the Pips were an R&B/soul musical act from Atlanta, Georgia, active from 1953 to 1989 and most popular during the 1960s and 1970s. Best known its hits for both the Motown and Buddah Records labels, the longest-lived

Gladys Knight & the Pips were an R&B/soul musical act from Atlanta, Georgia, active from 1953 to 1989 and most popular during the 1960s and 1970s. Best known its hits for both the Motown and Buddah Records labels, the longest-lived and best-known incarnation of the act featured Gladys Knight on lead vocals, with The Pips, who included Knight's brother Merald "Bubba" Knight and their cousins Edward Patten and William Guest, as background singers.

At the age of seven in 1952, Gladys Knight won Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour television show contest 1952. The following year, she, her brother Bubba, sister Brenda, and their cousins William and Eleanor Guest started a singing group called "The Pips" (named after another cousin, James "Pip" Woods). The Pips began to tour and perform, eventually replacing Brenda Knight and Elenor Guest with cousins Langston George and Eddie Patten in 1959.