Legend Gladys Knight honored in Las Vegas

For nearly 50 years, Gladys Knight has been serenading audiences around the world with one of the most distinctive voices in music. Now, she's headlining her own show in her own theater, at the Tropicana in Las Vegas, where she spent some time with "Early Show" Special Contributor Ayla Brown.

Brown pointed out that anyone who's listened to the radio in the last 50 years knows Knight's songs, from hits like "Heard It Through the Grapevine" to "Midnight Train to Georgia."

Christened the "Empress of Soul," Knight began performing at the age of 4 in her native Atlanta.

Knight eventually joined her brother and cousins to form Gladys Knight and the Pips, a family affair that earned her millions of fans around the world with a string of hits in the late '60s and early '70s.

Knight told Brown, "My mom told me as I matured, that what I was doing and the voice I had was a gift from God, and that was always our foundation."

But even after 38 albums, seven Grammys and 11 American Music Awards, the Hall of Fame singer refuses to rest those famous pipes. She recently collaborated with producer and "American Idol" judge Randy Jackson on a new record.

Knight said, "This music business is - it's amazing. It's like starting all over."

And Knight is still excited, saying, "(The music business anables me) to still do what I do, be contemporary, you know, and have fun, and enjoy a whole new genre of music, which is what I've had to do all of these years, through five of these different eras. So, we had to come through all those eras in order to still be here today."

Knight has scored No. 1 hits on the pop, R&B and adult contemporary music charts. She's toured and performed most of her life. But it's her show at the Tropicana that has this icon reflecting on how far she's come in her career.

Knight said, "I have been playing Las Vegas since 1966. That's before most of these hotels were built. And when tumbleweeds were rolling down the boulevard. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, all of them. You know. So they kind of made us honorary members with them. And after all that time, I'm glad to see us progress."

When she first played Vegas nearly 50 years ago, at the height of the civil rights era, black entertainers had to enter through the back door. Today, she not only headlines - the theater she performs in is named for her.

Knight said, "All of those fantastic, awesome, wonderful entertainers that have come through this city ... (who) are of color, nobody's ever had a room named after them. I mean -- Grammys and all of those things are wonderful, but it's a different kind of honor and representation."

Knight said backstage of her show in the theater, "It's fantastic, it's amazing, it's amazing. And when I go out there, you know, I feel like they're really coming to my house."

Six decades after taking a stage for the first time, the Empress of Soul finally has one to call her own.

On "The Early Show," Brown recalled that Knight is "the most down-to-earth" person she's ever met. Knight took Brown to a pita restaurant in Las Vegas.

"I would have assumed it would be this hoity-toity restaurant, but it's not." Brown said. "She likes a chicken kabob."