Down-home welcome hits right note with Knight, Pips

ATLANTA — Royalty had come home. But at first you couldn't even sense it.

On this recent Sunday morning, 50 church parishioners were fully occupied with an outdoor "Sweet Jubilee" festival, complete with a pony ride, $2 cheeseburgers and ubiquitous face-painters. Parked in front of Mount Moriah Baptist Church was a white shuttle bus — hardly the kind of vehicle that screams "celebrity!"

But inside the southwest Atlanta church, seated in the 11th and 12th pews and surrounded by photographers and camera crews, weren't mere celebrities but legends: Gladys Knight and two of the original Pips.

It was here, in this sanctuary on Ashby Street, that Atlanta natives Knight, her older brother Merald "Bubba" Knight and cousin William Guest played in the baptizing pool and sneaked into the Welch's grape juice used in Communion every first Sunday.

Most importantly, it was here, at Wednesday-night choir rehearsals, that they honed the vocal skills that would turn them into music legends. This year, they're celebrating their 50th anniversary of performing.

And so, understandably, this is the first stop for the R&B act's taped reunion on Turner South's "Liars & Legends," for which Bubba Knight has been host since September of last year.

Though Bubba and his sister had had to catch a 6:15 a.m. flight from Las Vegas after performing two shows at the Flamingo Hotel, their regular venue, the night before, their enthusiasm about being in their former church home was palpable.

"This place means everything to me," said Bubba, sighing. "Being it was our foundation, our values, our morals. . . . "

"Do you have a favorite memory?" the show's producer asked Gladys, who started singing with an early incarnation of the group when she was 8.

"Too many," she replied, shaking her head as her wide eyes took in the expanse of the sanctuary. "Too, too many."

One of those fond memories was actually sitting next to the trio: 84-year-old Margaret Guest Poole, William Guest's mother.

"Gladys Knight & the Pips would not have been Gladys Knight & the Pips had it not been for this lady right here," Bubba announced. "She's the living link to our past right here. . . . That's who was going with us every place we went. She was our chaperon. Our guiding light. Our everything."

"I tell you what," Poole said with a sly smile. "Bubba might have loved me for cooking."