![]() ![]() Knight was arguably too effective at communicating her frustration, because “Neither One of Us” became a hit, climbing to Number Two on the Hot 100 and earning Motown a pile of money. Knight had one of the sandiest voices on the Motown roster, and she applied it liberally on a song that effectively served as a kiss-off to her longtime label - just a few months after the release, Knight and the Pips relocated to Buddah Records. Porter helped coax “Neither One of Us” through its first transformation, surrounding the original’s acoustic core with deep-soul instrumentation: a prominent string section, a rush of backing vocals from the Pips, electric keyboards and feisty bass. Weatherly’s version of the song sounds like it was tailor-made for country softie Glen Campbell, but it found its way to producer Joe Porter, who picked it up for Knight. It’s a surprising if not unwelcome fate for “Neither One of Us,” which was originally composed by former University-of-Mississippi-quarterback-turned-singer-songwriter Jim Weatherly. It turns out that a dire, here-comes-the-end soul ballad works wonders when transposed onto the world’s dancefloors. This vocal has quietly become a go-to combustion engine for electronic producers in the last decade - the site WhoSampled lists 14 instances of its use since 2009. “Pick Up” is built around a sample of Gladys Knight & the Pips’ 1972 song “Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye),” her final single for Motown. One of the summer’s biggest club singles has been DJ Koze’s “Pick Up,” an immensely likable house record that reached Number One on the Beatport chart (which tracks online dance music sales) in May and remained in the chart’s upper reaches for several months.
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