#miss gladys knight

[tha-wrecka-stow]

Gladys Knight Discography

[billboard-hotties-tourney]

Gladys Knight (1944-) Gladys Knight and the Pips - lead vocals; solo Songs: "Midnight Train to Georgia," "Every Beat of My Heart" Defeated Opponents: Janis Ian Propaganda: see visual

Barbra Streisand (1942-) solo - additionally an actress Songs: "Don't Rain On My Parade," "The Way We Were" Defeated Opponents: Belle Baker Propaganda: "DON'T tell me not to LIVE just SIT and PUTTER life's candy and SOMETHING i don't know the lyrics BUTTER something else i don't know rAIN ON MY PARAAAAAADE"

Visual Propaganda for Gladys Knight:

Visual Propaganda for Barbra Streisand:

[submareena]

This show was a gem

[peaceinthestorm]

Harold Knight (1874-1961, British) ~ Miss Gladys on the Veranda, n/d

[Source: Christie's]

[heathersdesk]

Gladys Knight joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1997. If anyone is familiar with a black member of the Church, it's usually her.

My favorite story about her comes from my husband. He served his mission in Las Vegas, where she was living at the time, and ended up getting assigned to her ward. One of the assignments the missionaries had at the time was to cut costs to the mission by finding living arrangements with members of the Church wherever possible. He was serving in her ward and was present in the ward council meeting when they brought up the need to find a source of cheaper, safe housing.

Without missing a beat, she chimed in helpfully with, "I'll just buy them a house." To which she was met with a loving, yet exasperated "Sister McDowell, you can't do that."

He said she was incredibly nice and would do anything to take care of the missionaries.

If you didn't know she had a choir for a time that was doing gospel music inspired by African and African American traditions, those albums are worth every penny. I have both of them and they're my favorite worship music I own.

[leonardcohenofficial]

ok sorry sorry another question!! i hope this doesn’t sound annoying but even if i’m not black i get so excited getting to talk about black artists in music because a lot of people i meet never know anything and it makes me sad because i just feel there’s so much incredible stuff. like they are really missing out and it makes me wonder if that’s why they’ll be impressed by a basic short piano solo in a kind of mediocre song like… have they never heard a jazz pianist??

(oh not a black musician but have you ever heard “uncertain smile” by the the? it’s a rad 80s song with a great jazz piano solo by jools holland that was improvised in studio)

anyway what are your top ten black female artists pre-1990? i always have a special place in my heart for billie holiday :)

if they asked me i could write a book (really an encyclopedia) about black women's impact on twentieth century music but to name just a few that have had major impact on me: nina simone, odetta, billie holiday, diana ross, roberta flack, aretha franklin, abbey lincoln, alice coltrane, tina turner, dorothy ashby, anita baker, whitney houston, gladys knight, mavis staples, merry clayton, chaka khan, celia cruz, donna summer, sylvia (robinson), the pointer sisters, carla thomas, the emotions, mahalia jackson, minnie riperton, bettye lavette, sade, gloria gaynor, carmen mcrae, dionne warwick, betty wright, sade—these are off the top of my head, i'm sure i could name more

[hit-song-showdown]

Year-End Poll #37: 1986

[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: Dionne Warwick, Lionel Richie, Klymaxx, Patti LaBelle, Mr. Mister, Whitney Houston, Eddie Murphy, Survivor, Mr. Mister, Robert Palmer. End description]

More information about this blog here

R&B is having its moment, as is the rise of adult contemporary, a genre with stylistic roots in soft rock and easy listening. The charity single is also continuing to be a popular staple of the decade, with Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, and Gladys Knight coming together to record That's What Friends Are For to raise money for the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Adult contemporary tracks have been charted by Billboard since the 1960's, but the genre will really reach its commercial peak in the 1980's. We even see some of the characteristics of the genre (slow tempo, lush production, specific keyboard/synth sounds, etc) appearing in some new wave tracks.

1986 also marks the rising popularity of "The Voice", Whitney Houston. While there was a lot of hype behind her in the music industry, her earlier singles found some difficulty taking off in the States. As I mentioned in a previous poll, MTV had an issue with refusing to play videos by Black artists, and Whitney's music was victim to that. Although, she has stated that the rejection was mostly from her music being too R&B for the channel. However, How Will I Know was released and the colorful music video was put into MTV's heavy rotation, introducing Whitney to a much wider audience.

[kickmag]

Common & Pete Rock Release The Auditorium Vol. 1

Common and Pete Rock have released their collaboration album, The Auditorium Vol. 1. The Chicago legend and producer king share their admiration for hip-hop and each other's work on a journey that defies ageist critiques of rap. They open the album with the jazzy "Dreamin,'" and it is quickly apparent that Common's warm word alchemy still moves spirits and the crowd. Rock's brilliant sample of Aretha Franklin's "Daydreaming" glides in its support of Common's sunlit musings that acknowledge but are not limited to Dr. Maya Angelou, MLK, J.Dilla, Prince, and Gladys Knight. Rock's hands help tell Common's stories with chemistry that compliments and never tries to override the MC's ideas.

The Auditorium Vol. 1 keeps things engaging with rhythmic calm, straight rap, and poetry. "So Many People," featuring Bilal, describes hope and faith as a woman Common has been entwined with throughout his life. The pro-woman imagery is presented again in "A God (There Is)," with a guest appearance from Jennifer Hudson, who brings her gospel chops to the fold. Rock produces and gets behind the microphone on "All Kinds of Ideas" to brag about his limitless creativity with Common and Rakim's sampled voice from "Eric B. Is President." It's been three years since Common and Pete Rock released their individual albums, and it was long enough for them to have been missed. The Auditorium Vol. 1 is a solid welcome back and further proof that Gen X is far from being done with hip-hop. 

[bebepac]

Six Sentence Sunday / Mood Music Monday 03/19/23

Guess who’s back, back again! Bebe’s back, tell a friend, coming at you with another six sentence sunday.  Work is still busy yes, but I’ve still managed  to do some writing.   I did finish Twenty Five Twenty One, and I loved it.  Now Shadow and Bone is back and that’s another of my favorites, for Season Two, which inspired some things:

As Usual here’s what I’ve posted in the last little bit in case you were wondering:

School Dayz: Tornado Taylor 🌪

The Cordonian Arrangement:  Shattered Heart 

Original Post: 03/19/23 at 9:26PM EST. 

Part 7: Memories of You

The Book: TRH/TRF

The Series: The Cordonian Arrangement

Pairings: Riley x Nico (Riley x M!OC ) past pairing Liam x Riley

Mood Music Monday Song Submission: Here Without You by 3 Doors Down

Status: Still in the Writing Process

He didn’t even notice her watching him, well not at first.  Nico was sitting up in bed reading a book.  She rested her body against the door frame, watching him.  Finally his eyes slowly drifted up from the book to her.

“What?”  He inquired.

She giggled at him.  Nico smiled back, shaking his head, not understanding.  “Tell me,  what's so funny?”

Riley giggled.  “You’re so cute, Nico.”

Nico set the book on the night table.

“I’m cute?”

Riley nodded her head.

“Very cute. Did you know that your lips move when you are reading to yourself?” 

Nico's smile widened, and he nodded in affirmation.

“Yes, I know, but only when I'm reading a book in English.  I like to sound out the words in my head while I’m reading, to practice my English.”

“You can barely detect your accent at times when you speak English.”  

“I learned it very young and because I practice! A lot of doors have opened for me in my life knowing multiple languages. I know we’re doing the right thing  teaching Angelo both English and Greek at the same time.  He speaks perfect Greek already.”

“He’s only two.”  

“Well he speaks perfect Greek for a two year old. I want all of our children to know multiple languages.  It’s important. I want all of our children to have every opportunity they can possibly have.”  

“All of our children?”

He jumped out of bed walking over to her, pulling her into his warm embrace.

“Yes, all of the children we’re going to have together, but we have to make them first. We have work to do Wife, come on!"

Riley squealed as Nico picked her up, carrying her over to their bed.

Based on her due date, that night three weeks before they found out about his diagnosis, Riley had finally gotten pregnant. 

They had created life together, before they knew Nico's life would be ending.

Riley blinked away the tears.  When she opened her eyes, their bed was empty. Nico passed away almost two months ago. It... was just a memory. A memory of when they were happy, before cancer invaded their lives.

The Book:  TRR

The Series: The Vampires Live On

Part 4: The Vampires Live On

Pairings: Liam x Riley (in this decade)  (Gabriel x Alice) in the past

Mood Music Monday Submission: Missing You: By Brandy, Tamia, Gladys Knight , Chaka Khan

Status:  Still in the writing process

"Do you know where we're going?"

"Yes, the older part of the cemetery is in the back.  We should be able to find their graves rather easily.  I’ve been paying the groundskeeper to keep their graves maintained.”  

“All of this time?”  

Liam nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know.  It just never came up in regular conversation.  You never talked much about what happened to her, to them, I didn’t want to push you. It was hard for you.  Every year on the anniversary, I don’t even have to look at a calendar to know, you pull away completely from me and you mourn for her.”  

“I miss her terribly Gabriel.”

“I know.”  

He pulled me close to him in a calming embrace.

“What do you think she would have liked the best about this century we are living in?”  

I laughed.

“What?”  

“The music.  She loved music and she loved dancing.  She would have loved it all.  She would have wanted to try it all. Every form of dance. I wasn’t as talented with dancing and singing as she was.  She created all our routines and painstakingly taught me all the movements.  She said I had two left feet.”

“I would have never known that, from the way you dance.”  

“I still count the beats of the music in my head to this day to stay in perfect time, thanks to her.”

“We’re here.”  

“I really didn’t think it would be this clean here. I know what you said, but looking at the other graves along the way here, I expected the same condition.”  

“You know,  I can be very persuasive.”  

The Book: TRR

The Series:  The Blue Honey Cafe

Chapter 5: Moonlight Rendevous

Pairings:  None TRR MC is currently single. 

Status: Still in the Writing Process

“Pops believed in the hustle, I typically only  run it in the summers, because there are so many opportunities for extra outdoors events.  It’s more light snacks and some sliders sort of thing.  Are you here alone?”

“I didn’t know you had a food truck!”  

“Yep, I didn’t feel like staying in tonight and I saw the advertisement for the movie on the lawn.  I’m trying to put myself out there more, even if I go out alone. You know? Try to be more social, maybe I’ll make some new friends. That sort of thing.”

“I know I get it.  I have been thinking the same thing too.  Some of my school kids are home for the summer and want to run the food truck and I might let them so I can have more free time.”

“Have you heard anything about this movie?”  

“Yes, I heard this movie was crazy, but I haven't seen it yet, I've been wanting to.”

“Yeah I have wanted to see The Rotten Apple 🍎 too.”  

“Maybe you’ll get to have a break,  come find me, you can sit with me for a bit. Help me not feel like a loser sitting by myself here.”  

“Riley you’re definitely not a loser, and yes I’ll come find you when I can.”  

She smiled at him.  “I’d like that a lot.”

He noticed Riley picked a spot on the lawn that was in his eyeline from the food truck.  Did she do that on purpose so he could easily find her?

About thirty minutes into the movie the crowd had died down and everyone was engrossed in the movie  Elle, the main character of the movie was something else.

“Who’s this large buttered popcorn for?”  Mason asked his part time worker Todd.

“For you,  I can handle the crowd, you go sit with that cutie you were flirting with.”  

He glanced out over the lawn, Riley was still sitting alone.

“If the line picks back up crazy, I’ll text you. Go.”  

Mason grabbed two more drinks and headed out to the lawn where Riley was sitting on a blanket.

“Is this seat taken?”  

Riley smiled.  “It is now, and you brought snacks!”  

The Book: TRH/TRF

The Series The Rotten Apple🍎

Finale:  The Last Part

Pairings:  Eleanor x Nico / (Eleanor x M!OC)

Status: Still in the writing process because I apparently don’t want this to end. I really love this story line.

Elle rolled back over in bed, It was barely dawn. When she moved, she felt Nico's grip tighten around her. He softly kissed her earlobe and whispered in her ear.

"Go back to sleep, she's not up yet."

"Just because she's still sleeping doesn't mean that we have to."

"Mmmmm….wonder what's on your mind?"

Nico gently kissed her neck, nipping at her skin, grinding his hips into hers.

"Feels like the same thing that is on your mind."

Elle licked her lips pulling Nico's shirt off.

"A little delight to keep you in a good mood at work?"

"Yes, I love that idea."

“Then maybe you should lock the door?”

[tha-wrecka-stow]

[billboard-hotties-tourney]

Gladys Knight (1944-) Gladys Knight and the Pips - lead vocals; solo Songs: "Midnight Train to Georgia," "Every Beat of My Heart" Propaganda: see visual

Janis Ian (1951-) solo Songs: "At Seventeen," "The Man You Are In Me" Propaganda: see visual

Visual Propaganda for Gladys Knight:

Visual Propaganda for Janis Ian:

[moodmusicmonday]

We've got some great songs this week! Thank you to our writers for submitting! All the details are below the cut.

Can't wait to see what you all have in store for your Luck of the Draw pieces! You have until the end of the month(ish) to post your work. Don't forget to tag us, we want to see it all!

@bebepac

"Here Without You" - Three Doors Down; The Cordonian Arrangement, Part 7: Memories of You (TRR; MC x OC)

"Missing You" - Brandy, Tamia, Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan; The Vampires Live On, Part 4 (TRR; Liam x MC)

@ao719

"Unbreakable" - Jamie Scott; Vancross, Chapter 13: Show Her What Her Heart Is For (TRR; Liam x OC)

"Easy On Me" - No Resolve; Best Kept Secrets, Chapter 12: What I Chose To Do (TRR; Liam x OC)

"The Stranger" - Ingrid Andress; Us Again, Part 5: Trace the Steps (TRR; Liam x MC)

[alleannaharris]

Today's Black History Month illustration is of James “Jimmy Jam“ Harris III & Terry Lewis, one of the greatest producing duo in the history of music.

They’re known for their funky synth heavy grooves and their melodic basslines as well as their dark sunglasses, black suits, and black fedoras.

Both Jam and Lewis grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and they first met in high school (early 1970s) at the University of Minnesota through their Upward Bound program. They grew up listening to different genres. Jam was a pop fan, so he listened to artists such as Seals and Crofts, America, and Chicago. Lewis like artists like Parliament-Funkadelic and Earth, Wind and Fire.

After their time in the Upward Bound program, they stayed friends and played in rival bands against Prince and Morris Day. In the early 80s, Jam convinced Harris to join his band Flyte Tyme. Soon after, Morris Day and Lewis agreed to form the group The Time because of a deal Day made with Prince. While in The Time, they became innovators of the Minneapolis sound, a blend of jazz, soul, R&B, funk, disco, early punk, new wave, and dance.

After The Time’s spot as the opening act on Prince’s Controversy tour was over, Jam and Lewis decided to go to LA and begin creating demos. Their demos eventually landed at Solar Records with Dick Griffey. While Harris and Lewis were busy producing the SOS Band in LA, they ended up missing an important gig with The Time in Atlanta, GA. Because of this, Prince fired them.

After this, they decided to form Flyte Time Productions in 1982. After forming Flyte Tyme Productions, they produced and wrote a string of R&B hits for artists including Gladys Knight, Cheryl Lynn, Force MDs, and Cherelle.

When they were looking for the next artist to work with, they both agreed on the one and only Janet Jackson. While working on her album Control (1986), they continued to refine their songwriting and production skills and also created the basis of the genre “New Jack Swing.”

Here’s a clip of Jam and Lewis in studio with Donnie Simpson:

After the success of Control, they had over three decades of chart topping Billboard singles and albums over various genres. Together, Jam and Lewis have earned more than 100 gold, platinum, multi-platinum, and diamond albums and they have more Billboard number ones than any other songwriting and production team in history.

I’ll be back tomorrow with another illustration and story!

[mariacallous]

Carronne Sawyer took the week off work to get her husband Alonzo out of jail. She knew he was asleep on the couch with her at the time police alleged he assaulted a bus driver near Baltimore and stole their smartphone. But an intelligence analyst using face recognition software had labeled him a possible match with the suspect seen on CCTV footage from the bus, police records show, and an officer had confirmed it.

At a police station and in a meeting with her husband’s former parole officer, the person who had confirmed the software’s suggested match, Carronne drew attention to details in photos on her phone taken recently by her daughter. Her husband is taller than the suspect in the video, she explained, and has facial hair and gaps between his teeth. His right foot slews out when he walks, something she did not see in video footage of the attack.

“I said my husband is 54 years old. This guy looks like he could be our son,” Carronne says. Alonzo was eventually released after nine days in jail, she says, during which time he missed his wife’s Gladys Knight tribute show and his work as a barber, and could not complete a construction contract he had secured. “I’m just grateful I was able to do all the labor and running around, because had I not he would still be sitting there for something he didn’t do,” Carronne says. The Sawyers’ ordeal took place in spring 2022 but has not previously been reported.

Around the time Alonzo was released, the victim in the bus incident identified another man as the suspect in the video, Deon Ballard, who is 7 inches shorter and more than 20 years younger than Sawyer, according to charging documents. Ballard’s mother and a police officer who arrested him confirmed that identification, one document shows, and he is due to stand trial in April.

Maryland Transit Administration Police did not respond to repeated requests for comment and deputy state’s attorney for Baltimore County John Cox declined to confirm Ballard and Sawyer were arrested for the same crime. WIRED was unable to speak with Alonzo Sawyer, who is serving time in a Maryland jail on a charge unrelated to the bus incident.

The Alonzo Sawyer case adds to just a handful of known instances of innocent people getting arrested following investigations that involved face recognition misidentification—all have been Black men. Three cases came to light in 2019 and 2020, and another last month, in which Georgia resident Randal Reid was released from jail after a judge recalled an arrest warrant linking him to thefts of designer purses in Louisiana.

Carronne Sawyer recalled her husband’s experience in public this month, calling in to the Maryland State House by video chat to speak in support of a proposed law to restrict police use of face recognition. The technology is largely unregulated in the US, but a wave of local restrictions and even bans have been passed in recent years.

Debates that led to those policies have often focused on discussions of harms from police use of face algorithms, such as the chilling effects on free speech and protests, or the consequences of surveillance tools being disproportionately used against communities of color. In Baltimore, Sawyer’s case provided a more tangible reminder of the reasons to restrict the technology.

Charles Sydnor, a Maryland state senator for Baltimore County, says that learning of Alonzo Sawyer’s case in fall 2022 inspired him to reintroduce the senate version of the proposed bill regulating face recognition, after a version failed to pass last year. “Not only is it in Maryland, but it’s in my backyard, my home jurisdiction,” Sydnor says. “My suspicion is you may have some in law enforcement say, well, the man got freed in nine days, so the system works. If face recognition kicks off investigations that land innocent people in jail, there’s a problem.”

Sydnor has been trying to put guardrails on face recognition for years. In 2020 he introduced a bill that would have placed a one-year moratorium on state and local government use of the technology. False arrests of Black men after incorrect matches by face recognition software that began to come to light later that year brought a renewed sense of urgency.

Face recognition systems have a history of misidentifying people with dark skin, and more than 60 percent of Baltimore residents identify as Black. Sydnor says he feels a pressing need to get regulation into place to protect their rights. He pivoted to proposing restrictions on face recognition that fall short of a ban after concluding that the technology was too widespread for a ban to be practical.

Sydnor’s proposed bill and an equivalent introduced in the Maryland legislature’s other chamber, the House of Delegates, would limit police use of face recognition to cases involving violent crimes, human trafficking, or “ongoing threat to public safety or national security.” They would also restrict police to searching for face matches in only databases of driver’s license and mug shot photos, putting off-limits services like that of startup Clearview AI, which scraped billions of face images from the web, including from social media.

The bills also require annual reports detailing police use of the technology, proficiency tests for the human analysts who pick possible matches from a list chosen by an algorithm, and police to have evidence beyond just a face recognition match to make an arrest.

Sydnor concedes that the proposed bill may not prevent the next case like that of Alonzo Sawyer, but he hopes it will still lead to better outcomes. “This bill was introduced as a compromise. It certainly isn’t as strong as I wanted it to be,” Sydnor says. “They’re not going to stop using [face recognition]. So long as there’s nothing in place, they’re going to continue using it unregulated.”

The proposed Maryland bills were developed with input from a working group that saw state lawmakers meet with prosecutors and public defenders, law enforcement agencies, and civil liberties groups like the ACLU and the Innocence Project.

Maryland is a unique place to debate face recognition regulation, says Andrew Northrup, an attorney in the forensics division of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. He calls Baltimore “a petri dish for surveillance technology,” because the city spends more money per capita on police among 72 major cities in the US, according to a 2021 analysis by the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice, and has a long history of surveillance technology in policing.

The use of invasive surveillance technology including face recognition in Baltimore during protests following the 2015 death of Freddie Gray led former House Oversight and Reform Committee chair Elijah Cummings to interrogate the issue in Congress. And in 2021, the Baltimore City Council voted to place a one-year moratorium on face recognition use by public and private actors, but not police, that expired in December.

Northrup spoke in favor of the bill and its requirement for proficiency testing at the same House of Delegates Judiciary Committee hearing addressed by Carronne Sawyer this month. He warned that as use of the technology becomes more common, bad face recognition could replace bad eyewitness identification as a major source of wrongful convictions. Most people are bad at recognizing strangers, Northrup says, even when assisted by an algorithm.

Organizations representing Maryland police and prosecutors participated in the formation of the proposed bill through the working group but have still raised opposition. In the Judiciary Committee hearing, Maryland Chiefs of Police Association president Russ Hamill said that what happened to Alonzo Sawyer was horrifying, but he spoke in opposition to the bill. He said it too tightly restricted the type of cases in which face recognition could be used and also complained about its limitations on which photo databases police can search.

Nick Picerno, a police captain for Montgomery County, an urban area near Washington, DC, also said those parts of the bill would hinder law enforcement. He  said officers in his department have previously used the technology to identify an indecent exposure suspect caught on a doorbell camera and to identify a child abuse victim in a TikTok video. He asked that the proposal be modified to allow use of face recognition to identify both suspects and witnesses in many more categories of crime, including firearm possession, child pornography, domestic violence, and cruelty to animals.

Deborah Levi, a public defender in Baltimore, told the hearing that her public records requests indicated that the Baltimore Police Department alone used face recognition more than 800 times in 2022. In one case, police ran an Instagram photo of a person holding a gun through face recognition software, then secured a no-knock warrant for the address of the person suggested as a match, she said.

Carronne Sawyer supports the proposed law because she believes it stipulation that face recognition “may not serve as the sole basis for positive identification” would have made a difference in her husband’s case. His ordeal changed how she feels around police and took away her faith in due process, she says, leaving her convinced that society urgently needs regulation like that under discussion in Maryland.

“I’m just thinking about how many other people have gone through what my husband had to go through and didn’t have anybody to fight for them,” she says. “How many people are sitting in jail now for something they didn’t do because of facial recognition and law enforcement agencies not doing their due diligence?” The Maryland state legislature adjourns in April and won’t meet again until January 2024. If the proposed bills do not pass before then, police use of face recognition will remain unregulated in the state for at least another year.

[maddsmallow]

tagged by @iwonderwh0 to do the “song for each letter in my username” thing let’s gooooooo

midnight train to georgia-gladys knight & the pips

anthem pt2-philip glass

devil’s advocate-the neighborhood

drink my piss you nasty slut yeah yeah-lil darkie

space girl-frances forever

miss you-bo en

attention!4-kyotaro&rikuo

lent-autoheart

lyin’ awake-steam powered giraffe

opaul-freddie dredd

wo fie-angel maxine

this was fun!!! im pretty much always listening to music and i tried to stick to stuff i either super hardcore like or stuff that maybe not so many people have heard (or, at least not in my circle of irl friends). also iwonderwh0, i loved your songs!!! i was real happy to see nik kershaw on your list uwu

im going to continue the curse of tagging people with long usernames hehehehe @angst-and-fajitas @the0ldmann @extraordinaryandroid >:3

[adevotedappraisal]

Who Is The Living Queen Of Soul?

You can vote on the Queen on the R&B subreddit here

In particular, the death of singer Aretha Franklin in August 2018 left a gash in the collective cultural psyche of America, a deepening crevice that I believe worsens the longer the title of Queen of Soul music is left uninhabited.

Upon reflection, it becomes apparent that what Aretha’s reign of Soul music most importantly did was to codify the musical textures, vocal phrasing and techniques of presentation comprise Soul music and R&B in general.  Since her death, R&B music has given me a curious, rudderless impression, as if waiting for a style to settle upon, or for an emotion clear enough to spin into a groove of sentiment.  What the genre needs, is a refocusing of its strengths, that broad-chested arrogance that imagination brings and the polestar of excellence that only a queen can bring. Therefore, it begs the question: who is the living Queen of Soul?

Four candidates come to my mind when thinking of living embodiments of the genre of Soul music: Gladys Knight, Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan and Mary J. Blige.  These women have each created multiple classic Soul, R&B and Disco records, spanning multiple generations, each one with enough lasting resonance to be sampled in prominent Hip-Hop records.  They exemplify the genre, but with their own idiosyncratic strong points, and would chart a disparate course for the future of R&B if one was chosen as Queen of Soul over the other.

To many, especially in the American South, Gladys Knight would be their reflexive choice, the Southern Georgia bred voice that, between 1957 and 1987 powered her group The Pips 19 top 20 R&B hits with 16 of those becoming top 20 Pop hits. She imbued a deep pathos of longing on songs “Help Me Get Through The Night,” “If I Was Your Woman” and the classic “Midnight Train To Georgia.”  Her church-taut control of her alto voice is the engine of the group's biggest hits, that reign brightest during her Motown years of 1966 to 1973, her languished phrasing falling out of favour by the late Seventies, over-shadowed by Disco and Pop hits, the Eighties only yielding one minor hit for the group with “Love Overboard.”

While her Sixties masterpieces have been sampled by the late J Dilla to 2000s rapper Freeway, I’m not sure that her vocal phrasing or songcraft has influence on the current generation of singers, and a choice for her would signal a traditionalist desire to return to the classic sound of Soul music, which might not be such a bad thing all things considered.

Ms. Patti LaBelle has been around just as long as Gladys, and, truth be told, is the voice I am slightly biased towards when I think of R&B.  her voice contains a range of voices, from the high-pitched screams of adoration of “My Love, Sweet Love” to the hot scat at the end of “You Are My Friend.”  Her voice is a sweet glue that powered her group The Bluebelle to early Sixties hits like “I Gave My Heart To The Junkman” and “The Wedding Song,” which helped to standardise the Rhythm & Blues genre in the process.

What she is missing is notable songs between 1966 and 1974, when Soul music was in heyday, with hits by Aretha, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye.  As a Pop culture figure though, she has endured, her songs covered by Christina Aguilera and sampled on classic Rap songs by Outkast and Nelly.  Her voice is instantly recognizable, still a mainstay on quiet storm radio, an elemental thread in the perception of Soul music today.  Her ad libs at the end of her hit “If Only You Knew” are legendary, each syllable coming hot and incandescent from her throat into our ears.

If you were looking for a queen that can bridge the old and new idioms of Soul then you would be looking for Chaka Khan.  Rising to prominence with funk band Rufus with the number one hit “Tell Me Something Good” from 1974, producing 12 top 20 R&B hits with the band.

As a solo artist she was on the cutting edge of R&B, utilising the latest drum machines and synths, like on number one Pop hit “I Feel For You,” and on “Through The Fire,” famously sampled by Kanye West.  Khan’s voice is an electric and druggy funk, perfect for the weird 70s and the messed-up party of the 80s.  I love how she phrases sorrow and wonder, with yelps and deep layered harmonies, her wild voice writhing like the untamed want underneath Soul music itself.  While she isn’t as big of a household name as others on this list, none of them were as adventurous with their sexiness as Chaka.

From her debut “What’s The 411?” Mary J Blige was a generational talent.  The rough-hewn vocals expressed a working class anguish and joy that connected with young Gen X Black women looking for an alternative to Whitney Houston and Anita Baker.  With her 1992 number one hit “Real Love and her hit “Be Happy” from her sophomore album, she fit in the pocket of those Hip-Hop drums, threading her runs around them.

Of the women mentioned here, Mary J Blige has consistently been on the charts the longest, a presence though the 90s, 2000s, 2010s and the 2020s with her latest album “Good Morning Gorgeous.” She had early 90s rap trendsetter Grand Puba on her debut album and buzzed-about rappers from the Griselda label on her latest.  While she was not active during the 70s zenith of Soul music, Blige knows where her voice is most effective, and always has her finger on the pulse of current music.  Could it be she is the queen our 21st century needs?

Aretha’s death hit me harder than I thought it would, for reasons I outlined here, but the vacuum she left has been felt as well when it comes to the state of R&B.  Does it return to conservative roots with a play to its true strengths of musicianship and gospel-esque ad libs, or does it embrace the brave new world of technological improvements, production and vocals that create a ‘vibe’ to be mixed into streaming playlists? Well, only a queen can answer that.