GLADYS and THURL: Ture in 1962, the Group Continued to Per- Form Together Until 1989, When They the CHANGING FACE of Disbanded to Pursue Separate Career Paths
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FINAL14-19.qxd 7/10/01 4:12 PM Page 14 SUNSTONE TURNING THE TIME OVER TO... brother Bubba, her sister Brenda, and her cousins William and Eleanor Guest. Over parts of four decades (the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s Paul Swenson and ’80s), Gladys Knight and the Pips were one of the nation’s premier singing acts. In 1959, Brenda and Eleanor left the group, re- placed by cousin Edward Patten and a friend, Langston George. Even after George’s depar- GLADYS AND THURL: ture in 1962, the group continued to per- form together until 1989, when they THE CHANGING FACE OF disbanded to pursue separate career paths. When Gladys Knight spoke to the 1999 MORMON DIVERSITY BYU Women’s Conference (her talk has been rebroadcast several times on KBYU-TV), and when she appeared with President Hinckley at his birthday celebration on 23 June 2000, the impact wasn’t so much what she said––although some of it was extraordi- nary––but what she did, how she moved, With the exception of and the tone she set as both speaker and per- Marjorie Hinckley, is former. At this birthday celebration for President there another woman Hinckley, especially in Knight’s interactions in the Church who with him, one could feel a different and posi- tive new vibration in the Mormon experi- would so confidently ence. Comfortable in her clothing, in her body and her skin, she suggested an integra- and comfortably intrude tion of the spiritual and sensual that many of on the personal space of us may not have known how much we longed for until we saw it. President Gordon Bitner When I came upon Knight on the KBYU Gladys Knight greets broadcast one Sunday morning while President Gordon B. Hinckley, and so naturally channel surfing for spiritual or intellectual Hinckley during his 90th induce him to enjoy it? enlightenment, I had a moment of déjà vu. birthday celebration. How long, I mused, had it been since we’ve seen at a Church pulpit the full complexity of a Mormon woman who didn’t wish to hide HE COVER PHOTOGRAPH of the 3 With the possible exception of Marjorie or obscure her earthiness? And then I re- July 2000 LDS Church News is quite Hinckley, is there another woman in The called the same sense of discovery I had felt T remarkable in the way that it casually Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in another KBYU broadcast in the late 1980s shatters a number of taboos once held invio- or for that matter the world, who would so when I had stumbled upon a devotional ad- late within the Church community. confidently and comfortably intrude on the dress by a naturalist and writer whose face I Leaning into a pulpit, a beautiful and sen- personal space of 90-year-old Church presi- had not yet placed with her name––Terry suous black woman, wearing a long, flowing dent Gordon Bitner Hinckley, and so natu- Tempest Williams. She spoke of God’s nat- gown, has moved within six inches or so of a rally induce him to enjoy it? Not likely. For ural handiwork on display all around us, distinguished Caucasian man behind the this man, held by Church members to be while her own face and carriage were a cor- lectern. She is smiling, and her gleaming prophet, seer, and revelator, it was a moment poreal witness of the earth as well. teeth flash pleasure. The man, white-haired, of unusual personal intensity and, yes, per- older, his tuxedoed chest and shoulders gar- haps, revelation. It occurred during his HILE I was still mulling the full landed by a lei of flowers, is turning toward public birthday celebration before a huge import of what I had seen and her with a smile of shy but burgeoning satis- throng in the new Church Conference Center W remembered, another Sunday faction. Just above the pulpit, her dark, left at Temple Square. morning KBYU telecast woke me to a male hand grasps the pale fingers of his right The woman’s name, of course, is Gladys image of self-assured power and relaxation. hand. Knight, gospel, pop, soul, and blues singer; The man at the pulpit was immediately rec- spiritual seeker; and late-1990s convert to ognizable––Thurl Bailey, of the soulfully ex- PAUL SWENSON is the managing editor of C20 the Church. She had traveled a long road to pressive voice and face, former basketball media, publishers of the VOICE and The Green this moment. star with the Utah Jazz, now a jazzman of a Sheet, and the soon-to-launch publication B to B Fresh from her triumph at age seven in different stripe as a recording artist who has (Business to Business). An earlier version of winning television’s Ted Mack Amateur sailed the seas of soul, jazz, and pop. Here he this paper was given at the 2000 Sunstone Hour, Knight at age eight organized her own was now, an LDS convert, harbored in Symposium in Salt Lake City (tape #SL00-254). group, called the Pips, which included her Mormonism in the ‘90s. PAGE 14 JULY 2001 FINAL14-19.qxd 7/10/01 4:12 PM Page 15 SUNSTONE Bailey is 6-foot-11 and looks resplendent the priesthood. “But for some reason, what so many special people in my life. He brought me in his gold suit and navy blue turtleneck, his they said didn’t sink in or didn’t tell me what my wife. I think about her choice to be with me. angular black face gleamed under the lights I needed to know.” It was Clegg’s direct reply You’re talking about a girl from Richfield. A of the Woods Cross East Stake Center. He that pierced the rhetorical fog for Bailey. “Our Caucasian girl from Richfield, who looks at me was a striking and unusual foreground for a Heavenly Father has a time and a place for and sees past my color, sees in my heart and familiar background––dark-suited, white- everything,” Clegg told him, adding that says, “This man is special. I want to be with shirted stake leaders and their Sunday- prior to 1978, “blacks weren’t ready and him.” She sacrifices everything except what she dressed wives. whites weren’t ready” believes in, no matter what other people are The camera was drawn to a face in that for the prophet to an- telling her, and she goes through absolute hell for background. As Bailey nounce a revelation making that choice. took a portable mike an . from God that would I look at her, and I’m so grateful to my Father s Jazzm ailey a to the lip of the stage to Thurl B instruct Church in Heaven for bringing her to look more directly into leaders that worthy me. She’s taught me so much. the faces of the mostly She’s taught me so much and young adults at this probably without really multi-stake fireside, the knowing it. And I look at video technicians cut to a . and jazzman. my children. I look at all close-up of a blonde those things I’ve been woman seated with the blessed with. And I say leaders. From her de- that I know I’m where I meanor, it was easy to de- belong. duce that this was Bailey’s The easy blending wife. (I had missed the be- of familiar Mormon ginning of the telecast in rhetoric with the which Sindi Bailey had black more expressive spoken prior to her husband’s males were to receive African - American address.) the priesthood.” idiom, body lan- On a later viewing of this program, I “I felt something in guage, and speak couldn’t ignore the thoughtlessness of some me open up,” Bailey ing styles distinguish both parts of the stake president’s introduction. He said, “and I knew why I Bailey’s and Knight’s contributions to the said he was “grateful to have Sindi Bailey had come to Italy.” changing face of Mormon diversity. This ap- with us tonight [since] normally she’d be While Thurl and Sindi Bailey’s remarks plies to their infusions of new musical life as home with her children as she usually is.” had a powerful impact for anyone who lis- well, which I mention below. Was it meant to reassure us of her diligence tened, what wasn’t said loomed nearly as as a parent? Some things never change, it large. Bailey’s allusions to what his wife expe- HE introduction of Gladys Knight at seems, even in a Church setting where the rienced—in choosing to marry and live with a the 1999 BYU Women’s Conference sheer visual and spiritual beauty of an egali- black man and give birth to and raise biracial T included not only such familiar refer- tarian, biracial LDS couple is evident and children at the white center of a world church ences to her status as a mother of three and whose respect for each other and their part- that is diversifying mostly at its geographical grandmother of ten, “with one on the way,” nership speaks volumes about changes in edges—made it clear that many stories re- but also the information that she was the Mormon perceptions. main to be told. Stories of not only the Baileys’ popularizer of such musical hits as “Midnight Sindi and Thurl Bailey spoke of Thurl’s experience, but also of many others. Train to Georgia” and “I Heard It through the conversion to Mormonism from slightly dif- Bailey briefly related a letter he had re- Grapevine.” (This announcement was ferent perspectives.