Gladys Knight Brings Magic To Lehman

With Number 1 hits in pop, R&B and adult contemporary, Gladys Knight has had a career that very few singers have matched.

[Entertainment: Music]

 

With one of the most beloved voices in popular music, seven-time Grammy Award-winning soul icon Gladys Knight makes an exclusive New York City appearance on Saturday, April 5, 2008, at 8pm at Lehman Center for the Performing Arts. 

She will perform from her treasury of hits that includes “Midnight Train to Georgia,” “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” “Neither One of Us” and “Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.”  

Opening the show will be violin phenoms Nuttin’ But Stringz, teenage brothers Tourie and Damien Escobar, who grew up in Queens and attended Juilliard School of Music.  Their debut CD Struggle from the Subway to the Charts, released  through Koch Entertainment, combines the classical sound of the violin with pop, R&B and Hip-hop. 

The brothers have opened for legendary artists such as Al Jarreau, Patti Labelle, Chaka Khan, and The Isley Brothers.  They performed on the Tonight Show, The Ellen Show, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and were featured in the film “Step Up.” 

Their music video is in constant rotation on Nickelodeon’s Noggin channel for kids.  Volunteers with YMCA Strong Kids and Save the Music Foundation, the Escobar brothers spend their free time playing at public schools and talking to kids about music and staying in school.

With Number 1 hits in pop, R&B and adult contemporary, Gladys Knight has had a career that very few singers have matched.  At age four, the Georgia-born singer began singing gospel music in church and as guest soloist with the Morris Brown College Choir. 

At seven, she won the grand prize on TV’s “Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour,” and the following year she formed The Pips with her siblings and cousins.  After a personnel change in 1959, the group became Gladys  Knight & The Pips, releasing its debut album in 1960, when she was only sixteen. 

With The Pips providing lush harmonies and graceful choreography, the group went on to achieve icon status, recording some of the most memorable songs of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. 

Top 20 hits “Every Beat of My Heart,” “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” and “If I Were Your Woman” set the stage for such mid-‘70s, Top 10 gold singles as the Grammy-winning “Neither One of Us (Wants to be the First to Say Goodbye),”  “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination” and “Best Thing That Ever Happen to Me.” 

1973’s Grammy-winning, #1 smash hit “Midnight Train to Georgia” established Gladys  Knight and The Pips as the premiere pop/R&B vocal ensemble in the world.  Gladys   earned her third Grammy Award in 1986 teaming with Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Dionne Warwick on the #1 hit “That’s What Friends are For.”  And in 1988, Gladys  Knight and The Pips received the Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Group for “Love Overboard.”

Since her 1960 debut, Gladys  Knight has recorded more than 40 albums, including five solo albums in the past two decades alone.  Her most recent Grammy wins include her duet with Ray Charles, from his posthumous album Genius Loves Company (2004), on the song “Heaven Help Us All”, which won for Best Gospel Performance. 

Gladys  Knight & The Saints Unified Voices’ One Voice (2005) won for Best Gospel Choir Album; she followed that up by directing her 100-member, multi-cultural choir on 2006’s A Christmas Celebration.  Her most recent album, Before Me (2006), pays homage to the legends of song – Ella, Duke, Billie and Lena. 

A legend in her own right, Gladys  has her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and, with The Pips, has been inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. 

She starred on Broadway in the smash musical hit “Smokey Joe’s Café”  in 1999, two years after publishing her autobiography, “Between Each Line of Pain and Glory” (a line from her hit song “Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me”). Gladys  Knight dedicates herself to several causes, including the American Diabetes Association, for which she is a national spokesperson, and the American Cancer Society.

Lehman Center for the Performing Arts is on the campus of Lehman College at 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West, Bronx, NY 10468. 

Tickets for Gladys Knight on Saturday, April 5, 2008 at 8pm, are: $100, $85, $75 and $55 and can be purchased by calling the Lehman Center box office at 718.960.8833 (Monday through Fri., 10 AM – 5 PM, and beginning at 12 noon on the day of the concert), or through 24-hour online access at www.LehmanCenter.org.  Lehman Center is accessible by #4 or D train to Bedford Park Blvd. and is off the Saw Mill River Parkway and the Major Deegan Expressway. Free attended parking is available.

Lehman Center receives support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.


For additional information contact: Leah Grammatica  (212) 243-6052 or 
[email protected]

 

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