GK: Is that amazing or what?
Smitty: That is amazing!
GK: Now, I’ve got some stories to tell you, you know?
Smitty: I know, girl, we could be here for a while….I know we won’t be able to do all of them for the show but I hope someday to just sit down with you anywhere and just talk.
GK: Matter of fact, I got a picture with he and I in the hall at the auditorium after we were sitting in his dressing room talking. He was the one that took me by my hand and took me around to meet everybody.
Smitty: What a thrill.
GK: You know what I mean? Mr. Nat King Cole.
Smitty: How cool is that, huh?
GK: How cool is that, you know? But I met Sarah again later on, Sarah Vaughan and I was more grown up then and she was less busy, and so we got to know each other.
Smitty: That’s so cool.
GK: And I had always admired her skill….her technique, her talent. And over the years I watched her grow too because I guess that was an infinite….that was the infancy part of her career probably.
Smitty: Yes.
GK: And I finally met Mrs. (Lena) Horne. She was just as beautiful as people always said she was.
Smitty: Yes.
GK: And my baby, Ella Fitzgerald, oh…
Smitty: You must tell me a little bit about her.
GK: Whoo! I should call her Ms. Fitzgerald because that’s how much I cared, respected and loved that lady. She was so….you haven’t met a person more down to earth than her.
Smitty: How ‘bout that?
GK: With all of her talent….with all of her skills.
Smitty: (Laughs.)
GK: I’m not kidding you, and she was just “Did I do that right?” And she meant it. She wasn’t puttin’ on, you know? She would come by your room. You didn’t have to go to her room; she would come to your room.
Smitty: Wow!
GK: “I just wanted to say hi.” This is Ella Fitzgerald I’m talking about here. I was so in awe of her.
Smitty: You just gotta love real people like that.
GK: I’m telling you. And I would look up and I would see her in my audience. Ella Fitzgerald come to see me?!
Smitty: Wow.
GK: Come on, now.
Smitty: Well, you know, Gladys, you’re in that elite group, so she recognized great talent. That’s why she was there.
GK: Well, I’ve never felt like that, but I appreciate the thought and the feeling that people would feel like that, on occasion about me, and I just try to do it so you guys can be proud because you know what? Whatever you do represents me and whatever I do hopefully will be done in a way where you can be proud for me to represent you.
Smitty: Absolutely, my friend! I’m very proud of you. That’s so beautiful.
GK: You know?
Smitty: Yes. Now, tell me a little bit about those three guys you had dancing behind you. How did they come along?
GK: Yeah, my Pips! (Both laughing.) Well, they were all my family. I had one brother, Bubba. Well, his name was Merald, but nobody called him that. His name was Merald Knight, Jr. I had a cousin, William Guest, who was another one of the Pips, and I had a cousin, Edward Patten, who was another one of the Pips.
Smitty: Who came up with the idea to do this whole style of the group and the dancing and the singing? Who came up with that?
GK: Well, we did, actually. I was just kinda fresh off of Ted Mack’s and I kinda didn’t do anything for about a year, almost a year, and my mom said to me one day, “You look like you’re getting bored.” She believed in keeping her children busy, not just saying “I wanna raise entertainers.” It wasn’t about that. It’s whatever you enjoy doing. “What do you enjoy doing? Do you enjoy skating? Let’s get more into that. Do you enjoy playing ball? Let’s get more into that. You wanna sing? Let’s get more into that.” That’s how my mom and dad were. They just believed in keeping you busy.
Bubba was having a birthday, and me and some of my friends was up on the playground that day and I said “Oh, today’s Bubba’s birthday,” so at the last minute we said “Let’s have a party.” We used to do stuff like that. They were the best parties that were just impromptu.
So all of the girls….it was about five of us….we left the playground, left the boys up there playing ball, and we went down to the corner grocery store and we all pitched in our little pennies, our little nickels and stuff, and we bought some bologna, some bread, some mayo, some Kool-Aid, and some potato chips. (Both laughing.) And we came back and we made these sandwiches. We must’ve cut them sandwiches up in a thousand pieces because you know we didn’t have many of them. And we couldn’t use much of my mom’s sugar. Because sugar was expensive back then.
GK: So anyway, we made our little party stuff and when big Bubba and the boys came home from the playground, we called them inside. There was about seven or eight of them, and so they came in and so we said “Surprise!” And we started having a little party. And I had borrowed a record player from one of Bubba’s friends around the corner, his name was Garfield, never forget it. So anyway, we went out in the backyard and we strung a little extension cord to the bedroom so we could play some records and we started dancing and having fun. And then Garfield said “Well, I don’t wanna hear that record!” So we said “Well, we do!” So he said “Okay, I’ll take my record player home.” So we said “Go ahead.” So anyway, we said “Okay, we don’t have any music now, so let’s have a talent show.” So everybody said “Yeah, that’ll be fun.” See how kids used to use their imagination?
Smitty: Exactly, I was just thinking that.
GK: There was no computers, wasn’t no this or that. We’re just outside playing, having fun and enjoying each other using our imagination.
Smitty: Yes indeed.
GK: So we came up with doing this talent show, so we said “Everybody just pick what they wanna do,” so me, Bubba, my sister Brenda and Eleanor, which was the original group, by the way….
Smitty: Really?
GK: William, Bubba and me. There was five of us. We all went to the same church and we sang in the choir together, so we said “Okay, we ought to just sing something together.” So we got over there and started singing a little bit, and some people told jokes, some people did a little dance, and it started getting dark, so we went on the inside the fence, and of course back in those days your parents went with you.
