Gladys Knight & the Pips with B.B. King - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 10-5-1973

At first glance, you might be wondering, "Wait, didn't he just post a Gladys Knight "Midnight Special" album from 1973 just a few days ago. And that's true, I did. But she was on that show enough for two albums. The first one I posted was from early 1973, and had Dr. John as a special guest. This is from late 1973 and early 1974, and has B.B. King as a special guest.

The first nine tracks come from the October 5, 1973 date mentioned in the title. Since B.B. King did a duet with Knight on his classic song "The Thrill Is Gone," I included the two other songs he did on his own. The other musical acts on that episode were Focus, Stories, Chris Smither, Earth, Wind & Fire, and a duet of Wolfman Jack and Monda. Hopefully, some of those will show up in later albums.

"Where Peaceful Waters Flow" is from a September 14, 1973 episode. It was the only song Knight performed in that episode. (It seems that was a teaser to help promote the fact she and her band would be hosting the show in a couple of weeks.) The remaining songs, tracks 11 through 15, are from a March 8, 1974 episode. 

Note that I've included two versions of "Midnight Train of Georgia." This song was released as a single in August 1973, and went all the way to Number One on the U.S. singles chart, becoming Knight's signature song. Normally, I don't include two versions of the same song on an album. But this is such a great song that I made an exception in this case. If you don't want it, it's easy to delete the second one, since it's the last song on the album.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. As usual for this TV show, I converted the YouTube video to audio, then broke it into mp3s. And I added in more applause to smooth transitions between songs. There are two talk tracks in a row for tracks two and three, because those are from different points in the concert. 

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 Daddy Could Swear, I Declare (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
02 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
03 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
04 To Know You Is to Love You (B.B. King)
05 Heavy Makes You Happy (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
06 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
07 The Thrill Is Gone (Gladys Knight & B.B. King)
08 How Blue Can You Get (B.B. King)
09 Midnight Train to Georgia (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
10 Where Peaceful Waters Flow (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
11 I've Got to Use My Imagination (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
12 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
13 Best Thing that Ever Happened to Me (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
14 On and On (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
15 Midnight Train to Georgia (Gladys Knight & the Pips)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/htPuWyEy

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/wWthF5jPrVRa8mW/file 

The cover image is from this exact concert. But it's actually a combination of two images. I wanted a picture of Gladys Knight and B. B. King. So I looked through their duet song, "The Thrill Is Gone." The problem was, they never were standing right next to each other. So I took a screenshot of each of them, and then moved them close together in Photoshop. The red background with the lines of lights was the same, so lined that up to get them to match.