Consumer Guide Album

Gladys Knight & the Pips: Greatest Hits [Soul, 1970]
Reviving "The Nitty Gritty" isn't a very good way of getting down there--nothing else here matches the shouting funk of "Grapevine" or "End of Our Road," and her penchant for solid schmaltz obviously goes way back. But so does her genius for it. Annoyance: the tasteful but extraneous strings on the remakes of "Every Beat of My Heart" and "Letter Full of Tears." A-