Gladys Knight's son, manager dies
June 14 1999
LAS VEGAS (AP) - James "Jimmy" Newman, the son and manager of singer
Gladys Knight, died Saturday at his home in Las Vegas. He was 36. Newman, a 22-year
resident, managed his mother's career through his Newman Management Inc., one of four
Knight-related companies sharing offices in Southern Nevada.
An official cause of death is pending. This year, Newman helped his mother
launch Many Roads, a specialty record label formed to support her recent gospel album,
"Many Different Roads," and other gospel artists. According to the album's media
materials, Newman brought many of the songs to Knight's attention, including "Jesus'
Love Is Like a River," a song co-written by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch. Newman was the
singer's eldest child and was named after his father, Knight's late first husband.
Newman's birth on Aug. 13, 1962, interrupted the fledgling career of Gladys
Knight & The Pips, the singer once told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "Women
weren't liberated then. It was a natural expectation that I would probably want to go be a
wife and a mother, and I did want that," she said of time spent in her native Georgia
away from the Pips, while the group pursued opportunities in New York. Within a year,
partly motivated by financial need, she decided to get back into show business, and the
group went on to carve its place in R&B history.
