Before Me

Gladys Knight | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 3, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Verve
• ASIN: B000F0UZTQ
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #75,354 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

By now, the list of late-career standards-coverers stretches a mile long--in addition to Rod Stewart, Barry Manilow, Smokey Robinson, and a host of less-successful others, add Gladys Knight to the tally. Don't just lump her in, though, because Before Me differs from its forebears in ways that won't let you forget it. Here is a flawlessly selected and executed exercise in nostalgia for all the right reasons: Knight, in a voice entirely undiminished, extracts the elegance from each of these legendary numbers and smears it all over the surface, something most listeners would expect only from a master stylist on the order of Tony Bennett. Yet the former Pip leader presides with a light touch. Replacing the powerful pop-soul that launched her legend with the swankiest, most black-tie jazz imaginable, she whispers her way through George and Ira Gershwin's "The Man I Love" and the candy-sweet lament "I'll Be Seeing You." Elsewhere, she smokes up the Lady Day classics "Good Morning Heartache," "The Man I Love," and "God Bless the Child," unintentionally turning the latter into a master course of vocal restraint. If "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)" is the disc's wild card--Knight plays it light--the Duke Ellington stunner "Come Sunday," made popular by gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, is its five-star clincher: Knight punches her way through tirelessly, with a true believer's fervor. --Tammy La Gorce

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Yeahhhhh, but......, November 10, 2006

By 

Diana B. Revell (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Before Me (Audio CD)

I still love Gladys - whenever and for whatever reason she opens her mouth - but, for some reason, I can't get Gladys and these songs to do justice to each other. There's some verve missing, and it may be technique...or it may be that the orchestration and arrangements here are too "finished" for this gutsy and raw soul diva. There are many other Gladys things I like so much better.

36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A disappointing mixed bag--not quite up to par. . . ., February 9, 2007

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Danniray99 "Danniray" (Expatriate in Germany) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Before Me (Audio CD)

With "Before Me" Gladys Knight's tries her hand at a number of classic pop standards and show tunes from the 30's, 40's and 50's previously sung by legends such as Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday. Despite the album's high production values, the result is a very mixed bag--although Knight is consistently engaged from start to finish. The album kicks off promisingly enough with the lively strut of Duke Ellington's "Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me." But then the rest of the CD slides into mush: the tempos of most of the songs are slow and there is a sameness to her sound here that quickly bores. One MAJOR problem is that when you hear Knight's ill-advised covers of songs like "The Man I Love," and "Stormy Weather," you are constantly reminded of the much better renditions by Ella Fitzgerald and Lena Horne. It's an unfair but inevitable comparison. More than anything, "Before Me" exposes Knight's limitations: most of the songs require a kind of lightness, an instrumental smoothness, or at least some facility with jazz vocalizing (i.e., scat singing) that she just doesn't have. At her best, Gladys Knight is a first-class R&B singer with a gospel-inspired soul that can rock just about any house. Her greatest songs--"I heard it through the Grapevine," "Friendship Train" and the riveting "Midnight Train to Georgia"--were powerhouse anthems that were at once feisty and vulnerable. "Neither One of Us" (one of the very best pop ballads from the 70's)also showed off Knight's warm, smoky contralto to wonderful effect. In fact, throughout the 1970's and early 80's, Knight showed that she could be a surprisingly versatile (and effective) stylist within the soul, R&B and pop arenas. However, "Before Me" makes it abundantly clear that she is NOT an effective interpreter of jazz standards. I really wanted to like this CD, but I came away feeling that Gladys Knight is out of her depth here and should stick to what she does best.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Gladys Knight, January 9, 2007

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Kim Norman - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Before Me (Audio CD)

Good, but a little disappointing. She didn't seem to have her whole heart into her singing.