He didn’t just hear it through the grapevine.
Famed LA musician Billy Vera went to see legendary singer Gladys Knight in concert recently. His reaction to her show is very alarming — but not shocking at this point.
Vera, who’s famous for his 80s hit “At this Moment,” wrote on Facebook over the weekend: “Just saw the saddest thing: Gladys Knight onstage with dementia, her back up singers having to help her, singing her parts and, basically, holding her up. Apparently, she’s being held to a contract she’s in no shape to fullfill. She and I share the same birthday and year, May 28, 1944. God bless her. I’m not going to show her current pictures out of respect to this great lady”
Twice in the last couple of weeks, Knight’s husband, William McDowell, has posted to the 82 year old’s Instagram account that the Grammy winning singer of “Midnight Train to Georgia” would be winding down her career.
But the shows go on, and McDowell, as well as road manager Steve Walker, have not cancelled the rest of her schedule. It looks like Gladys still has seven more shows on her calendar.
Look, I know these people. I know William McDowell. I’m surprised that this has gone on especially since Gladys’s children, from whom I’ve been told she is estranged, are frightened. Her son, Shanha Hankerson, has gone public asking for help from the courts and adult protective services. He has said his fear is that his mother will die on stage.
I saw Gladys perform last December. Vera’s observations are spot on. This monumental singer is very thin and fragile. She’s guided on stage by three backup singers, who do most of the vocalizing. Gladys looks like she’s in a daze. She’s working from muscle memory, singing the choruses to songs she knows so well, but not beyond the first verse, and reading off a Teleprompter.
One defense for this is that Gladys looks happy on stage, and her voice remains unchallenged. She is dressed impeccably. She smiles and waves to the audience. But this is from the dementia, no doubt. She’s in her comfortable place, mentally. Yet we have no idea of the effort being exerted backstage.
It’s time for Gladys to go home, and get the right medical attention immediately. This is not the way a great star should be treated. Certainly, she is comfortable financially, with an AFTRA pension from her seven decades of television performances, not to mention all the money she’s earned recently on this tour and with Patti Labelle and Chaka Khan.
Gladys and William are residents officially of North Carolina. Her family, including her beloved brother Merald “Bubba” Knight, are in Las Vegas and I’m told haven’t seen or spoken to her in some time. I’d been holding back reporting posts on social media from concerned audiences, but Billy Vera is the last straw.
