Songoftheday 11/11/15 - 'Cause I only wanna show you what you mean to me, everytime I'm reachin' out to you I start to sink...

"Love Overboard" - Gladys Knight and the Pips
from the album All Our Love (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #13 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 9

Today's song of the day comes from Gladys Knight and the Pips, who had been hitting the charts since the beginning of the 60s, reaching #1 on the R&B chart and #6 on the Hot 100 with "Every Beat Of My Heart". Gladys, who had appeared on TV as early as eight years old, and the Pips, including her brother Merald (aka "Bubba"), had their biggest success when they moved over to the burgeoning Motown label in 1966. Although her star didn't shine as brightly as some of their other acts, like the Supremes and the Temptations, Knight's more developed and bluesy voice made them the most technically sound of the label's roster, and with them they racked up a dozed top-ten soul hits, including three #1s in "If I Were Your Woman", "Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be The Last To Say Goodbye)", and her version of "I Heard It Through The Grapevine", which also climbed to #2 on the pop chart (only to be eclipsed by Marvin Gaye's iconic performance).

Knight and the Pips left Motown in 1973, and spent most of the decade at the "Buddah" label, landing their first and so far only #1 pop hit with "Midnight Train To Georgia". The song, a Grammy-winner, was one of four chart-topping R&B singles for the label. However, as their classic soul sound was not as popular during the age of disco, their departure from the label at the end of the 70s found Gladys and her group being required to record separately for a couple of years.

Reunited in 1980, Gladys and the Pips had some moderate success on the R&B chart, landing a #1 R&B single, "Save The Overtime (For Me)" which nearly returned them to the top-40. That exposure, coupled with Knight's appearance on Dionne Warwick's blockbuster hit "That's What Friends Are For", set up their 'comeback' effort in 1987, All Our Love. The lead-off single, "Love Overboard", was written and produced by Reggie Calloway, formerly of the post-disco funk outfit Midnight Star (and future top-10 artist himself with his brother in Calloway for "I Wanna Be Rich"). Reggie brought a fresh (for that time) pre-new jack sound that connected with both pop and R&B radio, and the single became their biggest in twelve years...

"Love Overboard" climbed into the pop top-20 in America in March of 1988. The single topped the R&B chart in Billboard two months prior, and even popped on to its Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart for a week at #45. The 12" extended remix was their biggest club hit, peaking at #4 on the Dance Club Play chart. Internationally, the song just missed the top-40 in Britain at #42, and stopped at #59 in Canada. Gladys and the Pips would go on to win the Grammy Award for Best R&B Group Vocal with this song.

The group's follow-up single, "Lovin' On Next To Nothin'", reached #3 on the R&B chart and #10 on Billboard's club list, but missed the Hot 100 completely. Gladys left the Pips behind by the end of the decade, and in 1989 she recorded the title theme to the James Bond movie License To Kill, which hit #6 in England but missed the American pop chart altogether. Two years later, she released her first proper solo album after leaving the Pips, and climbed to #2 on the R&B list with "Men". Her most recent R&B solo hit, "Next Time", moved to #30 on the R&B list and #6 dance in 1995. In 1996, Gladys made it back into the pop top-40 courtesy of another movie, Set It Off, which the single "Missing You" featuring her, Brandy, Tamia, and Chaka Khan, which went to #25 pop/#10 R&B. She continues to record, with her 2014 gospel album Where My Heart Belongs reaching the top-10 on that chart.

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Here's the 12" mix that made #4 on the Dance Club Play chart in Billboard, their best performance there...