Best Gospel Choir

The best Gospel Choir Grammy goes to our own Gladys Knight and a choir made up of members of the LDS Church.

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — For the second consecutive year, singer Gladys Knight has won a Grammy Award, this time for an album she recorded with the Saints Unified Voices, a choir of more than 100 Church members she formed in her home city of Las Vegas, Nev.

Founded and led by veteran recording star Gladys Knight, the 100-member Saints Unified Voices received a Grammy Award for their album. She regularly appears with them at Church firesides as a boost to the missionary effort.

The award, the recording industry's highest accolade, was presented Feb. 8, in Los Angeles, Calif. It was given in the "Best Gospel Choir Album" category for the choir's debut CD "One Voice," released in January 2005. The album is a collection of inspirational songs in diverse arrangements, including some standard tunes familiar to Latter-day Saints, such as "Come, Come, Ye Saints" and "I Am a Child of God." It has remained in Billboard magazine's Top 40 Gospel Albums chart for a year, after garnering the magazine's No. 1 Hot Shot Debut position the week of January 13, 2005, and landing at No. 9 on the Gospel chart.

[Gladys] Knight was baptized Aug. 11, 1997 [a member of the LDS Church], in Las Vegas, her son, Jimmy, and daughter, Kenya, having previously joined the Church. Since then, she has performed with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and other artists at two birthday tributes to President Gordon B. Hinckley, one when he was 90 and the other last year when he turned 95.

She organized the all-volunteer Saints Unified Voices in 2002 at the behest of her stake president for a fireside. The group's fame spread, and it has now performed at numerous firesides at which Sister Knight-McDowell, other family members and friends share their testimonies of the restored gospel.

(excerpts taken from — R. Scott Lloyd (LDS Church News, February 18, 2006)

Congratulations Sister Knight!!