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Gladys Knight, Patti LaBelle and Keith Sweat to perform at Hampton Jazz and Music Festival

Colin Warren-Hicks, The Virginian-Pilot on

Published in Entertainment News

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Hampton Jazz and Music Festival is bringing some bigtime singers to Hampton Roads.

Music industry heavyweights Keith Sweat and Patti LaBelle and the one-and-only Gladys Knight will be included in the festival’s 2025 lineup.

The three-day festival, June 27 through June 29, will take place at the Hampton Coliseum, and tickets go on sale this week.

Pre-sale can be purchased starting 10 a.m. Wednesday, and tickets for the general public will become available at 10 a.m. Friday.

At least 13 artists and music groups will perform at the festival with Sweat playing a Saturday concert and LaBelle and Knight taking the stage Sunday:

Friday

Anthony Hamilton

Lucky Daye

PJ Morton

Lalah Hathaway

Saturday

Keith Sweat

SWV

Maze

Jeff Bradshaw and Maysa

Mike Phillips

Sunday

 

Patti Labelle

Gladys Knight

Stephanie Mills

Damien Escobar

An R&B singer and songwriter, Sweat was a major figure in the New Jack swing movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s. His 1987 debut album, “Make It Last Forever,” sold over three million copies and included notable songs such as “I Want Her” and “Something Just Ain’t Right.” In the 1990s, he kept the hits coming with songs such as the title of his 1993 album “Keep It Comin.”

LaBelle rose to fame in the 1960s as the lead singer of the doo-wop group Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles that produced songs such as “Down the Aisle (The Wedding Song)” and “Over the Rainbow.” In the early 1970s, the group rebranded as a soul group and was renamed Labelle. The group’s disco take of the song “Lady Marmalade” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1975.

Knight is known as “Empress of Soul.”

She was the lead singer and star of the group Gladys Knight and the Pips that acquired massive success recording with Motown Records and making frequent TV appearances to perform its early hits songs such as “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” “Nitty Gritty” and “If I Were Your Woman.”

In 1974, Knight’s group won the Grammy Award for R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus for the song “Midnight Train to Georgia.”

She and the Pips were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

If you go

When: June 27-29

Where: Hampton Coliseum, 1000 Coliseum Drive, Hampton

Tickets: Presale tickets go on sale Wednesday. Tickets for the general public go on sale Friday

Details: hamptonjazzandmusicfestival.com


©2025 The Virginian-Pilot. Visit pilotonline.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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