Gladys Knight is no stranger to anyone who has listened to pop music over the past five decades. In the car, with a radio blaring, who among us has not joined Knight in belting out "Midnight Train To Georgia"? (OK, some of us settle for being Pips.)

"Midnight Train" is emblematic of Knight's greatness; every line is sung at the height of drama. Telling stories became Knight's trademark in songs like "Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me," "So Sad The Song," and "Neither One Of Us."

Reached by phone on the road, Knight talked about how she approaches a song. "If I don't believe it, I can't make you believe it," says Knight. "So, every song that I choose, I choose first by what it says - the lyrical content. And then the melody has to move me. So when you hear me sing ‘Midnight Train,' I have an identity to that."

Knight says she had more of a role in that song than is commonly known. "Matter of fact, the song was originally titled ‘Midnight Plane To Houston.' Well, I didn't fly a lot during those days. And I didn't know a whole lot about Houston. I'm originally from Atlanta, Georgia. We knew the writer and he's a wonderful man, Jim Weatherly, and we have a great relationship with Jim. So we called him up and said, Jim, there's something not quite right about this song.'

"I rode the train a lot when I was little and coming up doing Ted Mack's ‘Original Amateur Hour.' And my grandfather was a Pullman porter on the train line, so my mom always took us by train. So I said, Why don't we make it a train? And the Pips said, Why don't we make it from Georgia? That's where we're from. That's what we told Jim, and subsequently the song became ‘Midnight Train To Georgia.' So I do believe in it."

(Interestingly, Weatherly tells a different story in an interview he did a few years ago. He says the name change was requested by Sonny Limbo, Cissy Houston's producer. Houston recorded the song a year before Knight.)

Knight turned heads when she won "Amateur Hour" in 1952 at the age of 7. She formed The Pips with her brother, sister, and cousins by the age of 8. At the time she was steeped in a variety of pop music.

"You know what I loved about that time? Although I'm African American and my skin is dark, in those days our radio was integrated. I got a chance to listen to Patti Page and songs like ‘How Much Is That Doggie In The Window,' and then I could go and listen on that same airwave to The Midnighters or Jackie Wilson," she says. "I love all kinds of music. I was inspired by many different kinds of people: B.B. King, Big Maybelle; myriad people influenced my life and music."

Gladys Knight & The Pips (with The Pips at that point down to her brother and two cousins) had a couple of hits on Vee-Jay Records in the early 1960's before being signed to Motown in 1966. They were the first act to score with "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," a song more closely associated with Marvin Gaye.

"It was awesome," says Knight. "We were one of the first groups to sign with Motown, outside of the Isleys, that wasn't born at that company like The Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder. We came from the outside because Berry - Mr. Gordy, I should say - had seen us perform and he wanted us at his company."

Knight talks like she sings, with a rich, thickly textured voice, emphasizing every word. She doesn't hold back when discussing today's music and how it compares with the music of her heyday.

"To be very honest with you, I've lived through a very great change during my years in the music industry," says Knight. "We had the disco era. And we had rock and roll, which is a derivative of the blues and R&B, so you have to be flexible enough to come through that. But today's music? I think we have some brilliant, brilliant young people, but when the rap season came about it went somewhere else to me.

"The messages - we've had social messages before, but it took a little dive for me," she says. "As far as musical talents are concerned, we started to have too much likeness, so to speak. Back in the day, if you heard an artist on the radio, you could immediately identify who it was, even if they were not R&B. If it was Frank Sinatra, you knew it was Frank Sinatra. If it was the Temptations... They had their own identity.

"But then record companies, if you had a hit, they want the next song to sound just like that hit, so they could make some money. So they cut out the creative edge on it," Knight says. "I'm a little disappointed as far as that's concerned. Now it's about shock value and I'm not pleased with that."

"As far as the companies are concerned, they died a long time ago," says Knight. "When the rap industry came about, the companies were so arrogant that they wanted you to come in there with a hit record. They weren't training you anymore. We'll take the hit and see you later, whatever happens to your career."

Still, Knight has found some bright spots in contemporary black music. "Other than that you have some brilliant people, like Mary J. [Blige], who's come a long way as far as a metamorphosis of her life, and she's been able to put it over to her music. So, when you hear Mary sing now, you hear her struggle that we all can identify with. Alicia Keys - a very classy young lady in my opinion. She dresses well and speaks well and carries herself as a lady."

Gladys Knight

Friday, June 11

Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre

8 p.m. | $55-$95 | 800-745-3000, ticketmaster.com