Welcome to another episode of Biscuits and Jam from Southern Living.

I'm Sid Evans, editor-in-chief of Southern Living magazine.

My guest today says that long before her track to stardom, she sang with her family in the kitchen.

All the time, I can remember that after we ate, we sang, and I could hear

my mom and my aunties. They would have the kitchen window up, and we could hear them singing.

All my folks could sing, my mom, my aunties, my uncles, and my cousins, it was like that.

Gladys Knight, known around the world as the Empress of Soul, began performing in her

native Atlanta at age four. By 15, she and her brother and cousins, known as the Pips, already

had a hit with their debut single, Every Beat of My Heart, in 1961.

Despite success on the R&B charts over the next decade, 1973 changed everything for the quartet

with the release of Midnight Train to Georgia, which became not just the group's crossover hit, but one of the

most beloved pieces of American recorded music.

The lyrics center around leaving the hustle and bustle of the big city for a home in the

South.

And even if you're not a native southerner, the sentiment remains universal nearly 50 years later.

He's leaving, leaving, on that mid-night train to Georgia.

Yeah.

Said he's going back to a simple place of time

for you're with him

Along with multiple Grammys, Gladys Knight and the Pips were inducted into the rock and roll

Hall of Fame in 1996.

Along the way, she penned a cookbook as well as an autobiography and landed a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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