Photo: Soul Train. A note in upper left says that the section was sponsored by the friends and associates of Soul Train. This separates it from Billboard's editorial content. · Public domain · credits
Tier 2 · legacy legend
William Guest
Person · male · United States · Atlanta · born 1941 · died 2015
American soul singer (1941–2015)
Also known as 威廉·格斯特
Timeline
2 events◦ Birth 1† Death 1
1940s
2010s
Biography
English biography232 words · 2 sectionssource: wikipedia-en · licence CC BY-SA 4.0 · revision 1371001602
Biography
William Franklin Guest (July 2, 1941 – December 24, 2015) was an American R&B/soul singer best known as a member of Gladys Knight & the Pips along with his cousins Gladys Knight, Merald "Bubba" Knight and Edward Patten. Guest was a member of the group for its entire history, from 1952 to 1989. He is a multiple Grammy Award winner and was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Gladys Knight & the Pips in 1996.
Biography
Guest was born July 2, 1941 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was an original member of Gladys Knight & the Pips along with his sister Eleanor Guest and cousins Brenda, Gladys and Merald "Bubba" Knight. Guest had occasional lead recordings during the group's long career, including the 1964 B-side "Maybe Maybe Baby" to their original recording of "Giving Up" and "Window Raisin' Granny" from their 1973 hit album Imagination. "Window Raisin' Granny" was sampled by LL Cool J and Christina Aguilera among others. Following his stint with The Pips, Guest and fellow Pip Edward Patten formed Patten and Guest Productions, and following Patten's death in 2005, he continued to manage artists through the Crew Entertainment company he formed with members of Patten's family.
Guest died on December 24, 2015, of congestive heart failure in Detroit, Michigan, his home for fifty years. He was 74 years old. He is interred at South-View Cemetery in Atlanta.
Discography & profile
Normalised profile
Percentiles are computed over every artist in the database, so a tier-3 artist can still sit in the 95th percentile on a single axis.
| Metric | Value | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia language versions | 5 | 32th |
| Spotify monthly listeners | — | no data |
| Release groups in DB | 0 | 0th |
| Studio albums | 0 | 0th |
| Awards recorded | 0 | 0th |
| Timeline events | 2 | 62.1th |
| Recording span (years) | — | no data |
| Genres | 1 | 56th |
Percentiles are computed at render time; missing values mean the artist has no data on that axis.
Discography (0 release groups)
No discography rows stored yet
MusicBrainz enrichment for this artist is still pending. Release groups appear here once it runs.
Stats & PK
Percentile within all 23,672 published artists.Put William Guest head-to-head →
| Metric | Value | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia language versions | 5 | 32th |
| Spotify monthly listeners | — | no data |
| Release groups in DB | 0 | 0th |
| Studio albums | 0 | 0th |
| Awards recorded | 0 | 0th |
| Timeline events | 2 | 62.1th |
| Recording span (years) | — | no data |
| Genres | 1 | 56th |
Awards & honours
Line-up
| Name | From | To | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gladys Knight & the Pips(band) | — | present | |
| Gladys Knight & the Pips(band) | — | present |
Where this record comes from
portrait—Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · retrieved 11 October 2026
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Guest_%281974%29.jpgaliases/urls—musicbrainz · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://musicbrainz.org/artist/02786d84-8c04-4976-bc1a-bbe232dec48ddiscography—musicbrainz · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://musicbrainz.org/artist/02786d84-8c04-4976-bc1a-bbe232dec48dcore—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8010260genre—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 11 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8010260seed-list—wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Guest_%28singer%29biography—wikipedia-en · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Guest_%28singer%29
Why this artist is in the database
- List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees — rank #82
75px|Left to right: William "Red" Guest, Edward Patten, Merald "Bubba" Knight, and Gladys Knight | | William Guest, Gladys Knight, Merald "Bubba" Knight, and Edward Patten. | 3 (1987, 1989, 1990) | M
Tier rule: legacy lists: hof
Image: Soul Train. A note in upper left says that the section was sponsored by the friends and associates of Soul Train. This separates it from Billboard's editorial content. · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Wikidata: Q8010260 · MusicBrainz: 02786d84-8c04-4976-bc1a-bbe232dec48d
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