On July 27, 1974, Gladys Knight and the Pips performed a concert at the Pine Knob Amphitheater in Detroit. The concert, unbeknown to Knight, was taped. A single record was produced - a combination of "The Way We Were" and "Try to Remember" - and then the recording went into oblivion in a warehouse, even as the group's popularity continued to soar.
The recording was released this past week by Buddah Records through BMG, just as Gladys Knight and the Pips, who disbanded eight years ago, were being inducted into the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame, at the Waldorf-Astoria.It was a chance discovery that led to the new album, aptly titled "The Lost Live Album." BMG acquired rights to the Buddah label last year, and Jerry Shereshewsky, a vice president for marketing at BMG, said, "We got a mountain of tapes that needed to be catalogued and labeled."
Hank Hoffman, a director of artists and repertory for the company, and Glen Kolotkin, a recording engineer, came upon the old tapes and realized they had struck musical gold.
"You don't get lucky like this very often," Shereshewsky, said. "It was a big live concert, in the heart of Motown country. It was a greatest-hit show, hit after hit after hit, to a huge outdoor audience."
Merald (Bubba) Knight, Gladys Knight's brother, told Shereshewsky recently, "The recording has bottled the spirit of a time in music that many people have forgotten about or are too young to even know about."