WHAT HELPS ME MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT AT 77

As the Empress of Soul announces a new UK tour, she tells the Daily Express about the highs and lows of her brilliant seven-decade career

- Peter Sheridan

GLADYS Knight barely has time to breathe as she races across Nashville, Tennessee, to the studio where she is rehearsing for a music awards show. She has only just arrived from New York where she performed at the glittering Kennedy Centre Honours, and then is off to New Orleans for a show tonight before returning to her home in North Carolina.

It’s an exhausting schedule at any age, let alone at 77 years old, but she thrives on it. “I feel my best when I’m moving around on tour, performing on stage night after night,” says the singing legend known as the Empress of Soul.

“Audiences give me energy.”

Next year, her travels will bring her to Britain. Knight this week announced a coming UK tour, her first since 2018. Tickets went on sale yesterday for 10 concerts, kicking off in Manchester on June 18, 2022, and ending with two nights at London’s Royal Albert Hall. In between, she stops in Birmingham, Bournemouth, Liverpool, Nottingham, Cardiff, Leeds and Glasgow.

“I absolutely love coming to Britain and performing,” she says, her voice sweet as Georgia’s tupelo honey.

“There’s something special about the audiences: They’ll make you feel so good you want to hurt yourself because you want to perform the best you can. There’s an energy that you don’t get everywhere.”

In a remarkable seven-decade career, former child star Knight has recorded more than 40 albums and won seven Grammy awards, with hits including You’re The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me, Midnight Train to Georgia, Help Me Make It Through The Night and the James Bond theme, Licence to Kill.