As a 16-track disc that draws from four different labels for which
Gladys Knight & the Pips recorded between the early '60s and the early '80s, this does an adequate but skimpy job of presenting most of the biggest hits by the soul legend. All eight of her Top Ten hits are here, including the mega-smashes "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," "If I Were Your Woman," "Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye)," "Midnight Train to Georgia," "I've Got to Use My Imagination," and "Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me." So is her first chart hit, the 1961 doo wop classic "Every Beat of My Heart," and the Motown Top 20 single "Friendship Train," though few listeners would rate her 1983 single "Hero (aka Wind Beneath My Wings)" as one of her greatest discs. Where this really falls down is in the skimpy representation of her Motown years; just four Motown cuts are included, while solid Motown hits like "The End of Our Road," "The Nitty Gritty," "I Don't Want to Do Wrong," and "Daddy Could Swear, I Declare" are missing. Sure, if this is all you ever hear of
Knight, the songs on this disc alone qualify her as a major soul artist. But for the kind of appreciation this talent deserves, you'd really need a multi-disc retrospective.
Knight's better served by deeper, more specific best-ofs for her Motown mid-'60s to early-'70s output and her '70s Buddah work, not to mention compilations focusing on the underrated records she did in the first half of the '60s before signing with Motown. ~ Richie Unterberger