Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston (born August 9, 1963, Newark, New Jersey, U.S.—died February 11, 2012, Beverly Hills, California) was an American singer and actress who was one of the best-selling musical performers of the 1980s and ’90s. Her remarkable vocal ability and exceptional emotive power became the standard of excellence by which all other female pop singers were judged in Houston’s lifetime. Indeed, Houston’s talent earned her the apt nickname “the Voice.”

Early life and career

The daughter of Emily (“Cissy”) Houston—whose vocal group, the Sweet Inspirations, sang backup for Aretha Franklin and other popular artists—and the cousin of singer Dionne Warwick, Whitney Houston began singing in church as a child. While still in high school, she sang backup for Chaka Khan and Lou Rawls and modeled for fashion magazines. At age 19 she signed with Arista Records, whose president, Clive Davis, groomed the gospel-based singer for crossover pop success. Her talent was apparent from the beginning. In 2012 jazz singer Tony Bennett reminisced about Houston, “When I first heard her sing, I called Clive Davis up. And I said, ‘Clive, that’s the best singer I ever heard in my life.’ ”

Stardom

Her debut album, Whitney Houston (1985), yielded three number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart: “Greatest Love of All,” which became her signature song; “How Will I Know”; and “Saving All My Love for You,” which netted Houston her first Grammy Award, for best female pop vocal performance. She received two other Grammy nominations in 1986, including album of the year. Whitney (1987) delivered four more number ones and earned Houston another Grammy Award, for the single “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”

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In 1992 Houston married singer Bobby Brown (formerly of the boy band New Edition) and made her motion-picture debut in The Bodyguard; the film featured her soulful rendition of Dolly Parton’s ballad “I Will Always Love You,” which stayed at number one for 14 weeks. The film’s soundtrack dominated the Grammys the following year, with Houston winning the awards for album of the year, record of the year, and best female pop vocal performance.

One of Houston’s most celebrated live performances occurred at the American Music Awards ceremony in 1994, during which she flawlessly sang a 10-minute medley of three challenging songs: “I Loves You, Porgy,” “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” and “I Have Nothing.” Houston continued acting, starring in films such as Waiting to Exhale (1995) and The Preacher’s Wife (1996), and the soundtrack of each film generated hit singles for her.

Career decline

In 1998 Houston released My Love Is Your Love, which did not sell as well as previous efforts but was praised by critics and earned her another Grammy Award. In 2001 she signed a new multialbum contract with Arista for $100 million, but personal difficulties soon overshadowed her recording career. Houston’s tumultuous relationship with Brown (the couple divorced in 2007) provided fodder for the tabloids, as did her acknowledged drug use and financial issues. Her 2002 album, Just Whitney, was a personal response to her detractors, but its sales were disappointing compared with earlier efforts. Other than a lackluster holiday album, One Wish (2003), Houston spent subsequent years in a state of virtual retirement. Critics had noted that her voice sounded as if it had suffered damage from smoking and drug use, and she began working with a vocal coach to rebuild her talent.

In February 2009 she began a comeback effort with a four-song set at Clive Davis’s annual pre-Grammy Awards gala. The performance was greeted warmly, and in June Houston announced that an album of new material would be available later that year. I Look to You was released in August to positive reviews and strong sales. The album’s standout songs include the up-tempo “Million Dollar Bill” (penned by Alicia Keys) and the title track, a slow-building ballad written by R. Kelly. Yet some critics couldn’t help comparing Houston to her peak in the 1980s and ’90s. Ann Powers wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “What’s hard to give up is the dream of painless perfection that the young Houston represented.” In 2009–10 she went on tour, but her vocal troubles led to some audiences booing or walking out during her performances.

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Death

In February 2012 Houston died in a bathtub at a Beverly Hills hotel shortly before Davis’s pre-Grammy party. A coroner’s report released in March stated that the cause of death was accidental drowning, with heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing factors. Houston posthumously appeared in the musical film Sparkle (2012), which she had coproduced. Also in 2012 the Recording Academy aired a special one-hour tribute concert to Houston featuring performances by Céline Dion, Jennifer Hudson, Usher, and CeCe Winans, among other artists. In January 2015 Houston’s only child, Bobbi Kristina Brown, was found unconscious in a bathtub at her home near Atlanta. She died in July at age 22.

Legacy

Several films were released in the years after Houston’s death that explore her life and legacy, including the documentaries Whitney: Can I Be Me (2017) and Whitney (2018). Both films addressed long-standing rumors about Houston’s sexuality, which claimed that Houston had had a sexual relationship with her lifelong friend, Robyn Crawford, when the two women were teenagers but had kept their former romance a secret as her career took off. In 2019 Crawford released the memoir A Song for You: My Life with Whitney Houston, which confirmed that she and Houston had been romantically involved. In 2022 the biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022) was released, starring Naomi Ackie as Houston.

In 2019 the U.S. Library of Congress added Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You” to the National Recording Registry, a list of audio recordings deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Houston was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.