Refreshed

GLADYS KNIGHT AND THE PIPS
The Best of Gladys Knight and the Pips
(Columbia/Legacy)
The long career of Gladys Knight and the Pips is marked not only by some of the best R&B and soul hits of the 20th century, but also by a series of recording contracts with a string of record companies: first Motown, then Buddha, and finally Columbia starting in 1979. The difficulty in gathering material from each phase of the group's checkerboard history means that this album should be called The Best of Gladys Knight and the Pips at Columbia. Fans hoping to hear classic tracks from the 1960s and 1970s will be sorely disappointed. That aside, this compilation covers their transition from the final days of disco to the heady days of black new wave, while still maintaining an artistic commitment to their musical roots and to what Gladys herself might call "old-fashioned" stories of boy-meets-girl, boy-leaves-girl, girl-fights-to-get-boy-back.

Songs penned by Ashford and Simpson, such as the soulful, hard-driving "A Friend of Mine," dominate much of the material. None of these scored high on the R&B, let alone pop, charts, but they still are good listening, if a bit dated. Perhaps the best track is one the songwriting team did not produce, "Save the Overtime (For Me)," the old-fashioned, urban blue-collar lyrics of which are backed by a solid modern beat.

Material from their Motown and Buddha days is presented in excerpts from their 1980 concert album Live at the Roxy. Hits like "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," "I've Got to Use My Imagination" and "Midnight Train to Georgia" drive the West Hollywood audience into a nostalgic frenzy. But they are somewhat uninspired and fail to capture something of the electricity of the original recordings.

The Best of Gladys Knight and the Pips is hampered by the group's checkerboard past of varied record companies and contracts. Still, the album is good listening and provides some interesting insight to a lesser-known period in their remarkable career. Scott Hoffman [buy it]

For fans of: Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and other classic Motown groups, soul, 1980s R&B

MOLLY HATCHET
Flirtin' With Disaster (Epic/Legacy)
Greatest Hits (Epic/Legacy)
By the time Florida's Molly Hatchet emerged from the swamps in the late 70s, Southern rock had run its course as a movement.* Lynryd Skynyrd had literally gone down in flames, the Allman Brothers had already calcified into the blues version of the Grateful Dead and the second-tier bands like the Outlaws, Wet Willie and the Marshall Tucker Band were settling comfortably into dependable album-tour grinds on the fringes of AOR radio. What had once been fresh and exciting had, like nearly all mini-movements in rock, become clichéd and predictable.

It's tempting to say the time was right for Molly Hatchet. With a three-guitar lineup and a singer not unlike Ronnie Van Zant, the Jacksonville sextet could have moved right into the void left by the absence of Skynyrd, the greatest of the Southern rock bands. And for a brief time, they did, with 1979's Flirtin' With Disaster becoming a major hit on the strength of the blatant rip on the old Skynyrd boogie that is the title track. However, an ability to ape one's heroes on an inconsistent basis just isn't enough to sustain a real career, and since Hatchet lacked the wit, invention and sheer melodicism of its primary inspiration, their unimaginative riffs and mindless lyrics ultimately brought them only as far as the same mid-level AOR circuit as the other Dixie rockers. These records tell the story; only "Flirtin'" rises above the tedium, and then just barely. Both these albums have bonus tracks (including, on Flirtin', a live cover of Skynryd's live cover of Robert Johnson's "Crossroads"), but only the most indiscriminate Southern rock fan will care. Michael Toland

For fans of: Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Outlaws, Point Blank