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Biography
FROM the moment Whitney Houston first
opened her mouth to sing, it was obvious that she was bound for
greatness. As the daughter of Cissy Houston, a successful
rhythm-and-blues backup singer, and a cousin of the even more renowned
singer Dionne Warwick, young Whitney grew up steeped in music. She
dutifully sang in the New Hope Baptist Junior Choir, aspiring to nothing
higher than being a backup performer like her mother. But by the time
she was 11, it was readily apparent that hanging in the background
wasn't in the cards for her.
Whitney's mother (Cissy Houston), first cousin (Dionne Warwick) and Godmother (Aretha Franklin) were all established Gospel/R&B/Soul singers, which caused her to always be around the presence of music while she was growing up. At the age of 11, she started performing as a soloist in the junior gospel choir at the New Hope Baptist church in Newark and would later go on to accompanying her mother in concert.
After appearing her mother's 1978 album, Think It Over, she started as a backing singer for many other established acts, such as Chaka Khan, Jermaine Jackson, and Lou Rawls. At the age of 16, she was featured as the lead vocalist on the Michael Zager Band's single, "Life's a Party". In the early-1980s, she started appearing as a model in various magazines (and even appeared on the cover of Seventeen magazine.) In 1982, she made her first recording as a featured vocalist with the Jazz-Funk ensemble, Material. The song is called "Memories" and is featured on the group's album, One Down.
When Whitney took center stage one evening to sing a solo, the power of
her performance moved many in the congregation to tears. Despite her
shrinking-violet tendencies, Houston's combination of exceptional beauty
and her stunning, church-inflected soprano propelled her into the
spotlight.
Houston first put her talent to use professionally as a teenager by
singing backup for Chaka Khan and Lou Rawls. A sleek and exotic-looking
young woman, Houston dabbled successfully in teen modeling, gracing the
covers of such magazines as Seventeen and Glamour. At the same time, she
studied acting and dancing, appeared in television commercials and
sitcoms, and made occasional singing dates. But these diversions were
mere warm-up exercises for the singing career she was destined for.
Adequate preparation for her inevitable rise to global pop superstardom
was the ultimate concern of Houston and her family, and several weeks
after her 18th birthday she signed a management contract with Gene
Harvey. Under his guidance, Houston continued her modeling career, took
more acting and dancing classes, and worked on her voice.
After a couple of years spent developing her vocal virtuosity and making
industry contacts, Houston was ready for the big time. In 1985, she
signed with Arista Records, because its president, Clive Davis, had a
proven track record of picking hits for his singers, not to mention a
reputation for letting artists take their time to mature. A period of
two years passed before her debut LP was released, and in the interim,
Houston increased her profile by performing for industry bigwigs,
appearing on television shows, and helping her advisers choose songs for
her album. Applying a fluid, soaring technique to R&B, soul, and
disco arrangements, Houston's eponymous debut spun off three No. 1
singles—"Saving All My Love for You," "How Will I
Know," and "The Greatest Love of All"—and sold more
than 13 million copies to become the best-selling debut of all time by a
female solo artist.
(Houston's multiplatinum titleholder was toppled by Alanis Morissette's
Jagged Little Pill in 1996.) "Saving All My Love for You"
earned Houston her first Grammy award (she has won a total of five thus
far), and she spent the next two years touring in support of the album.
More record-setting success was to come with Houston's 1987 follow-up
effort, Whitney. Not only was it the first album by a female to enter
the charts at No. 1, but she became the first artist in history to score
seven consecutive No. 1 hits, surpassing milestones set by the Beatles
and the Bee Gees. Houston's acting and dancing lessons paid off in her
dynamic MTV videos, and her galvanizing rendition of the "Star
Spangled Banner" at the 1990 Super Bowl. Houston promoted Whitney
by heading back out on tour, and in 1990, she released I'm Your Baby
Tonight, a more danceable, technically impressive effort.
Five years of constant touring had begun to take their toll, however,
and Houston decided to take some time off to acquaint herself with the
palatial, $11 million Mendham, N.J., mansion she had purchased.
Houston's down time allowed her a chance to get her personal life in
order. After being romantically linked with Jermaine Jackson, Eddie
Murphy, and quarterback Randall Cunningham, Houston took up with
bad-boy rhythm-and-blues artist Bobby Brown.
In 1992, the Prom Queen of Soul and the bad-ass captain of the glee club
were married before 800 well-wishers. Many in the crowd couldn't help
but be skeptical. Brown brought a certain amount of baggage into the
marriage—like three out-of-wedlock children by two women, for
starters—but despite all the couple's highly publicized contretemps
since the wedding day, Houston continues to profess her love for Brown.
She once offered this vehement assessment of her husband: "I've got
a good man. He takes care of me. I don't have to be scared of anything
because I know he will kick every ass…disrespect him and you've got a
problem."
Brown's boozing and womanizing ways and sporadic run-ins with the law
may have made Houston an occasional object of pity and criticism in some
observers' eyes, but others argue that she is the one who is hard to put
up with. She has earned a reputation as a prima donna for her frequent
episodes of tardiness—in one unpleasantly conspicuous instance, she
arrived two hours late to a White House dinner honoring Nelson Mandela,
at which she was the featured performer (she breezed in with the excuse,
"I just got off tour," even though her final appearance had
been four days previously). During an Anaheim, Calif., concert
appearance in August 1994, Houston tearfully requested that the
spotlight be turned away from her and onto audience members Sidney and
Justin Simpson, the children of O.J. and Nicole Brown Simpson.
Considering the fact that Nicole had been murdered just two months
before, the request seemed bizarre, and singularly mortifying.
Since 1990, Houston has managed to maintain her easily won eminence,
despite the fact that she has greatly curtailed her output. Not that she
hasn't been busy: navigating through some perilous straits in her
personal life, the pop diva managed to bear a daughter, Bobbi Kristina,
and conquer the world of film. Her first feature, The Bodyguard, banked
more than $400 million worldwide, and boasted the most successful
soundtrack ever released, with sales in excess of 33 million units, due
largely to Houston's soaring interpretation of the Dolly Parton classic
"I Will Always Love You." In 1995, Houston rounded out the
cast of Waiting To Exhale, a film about successful black women looking
for good men. Exhale became something of a phenomenon, as did its
Whitney-heavy soundtrack. Her third and most recent film, The Preacher's
Wife, didn't fare quite as spectacularly at the box office, but the
soundtrack for the film presented her with an opportunity to get back in
touch with her gospel roots.
Houston is known for her charitable bent, making significant
contributions to the United Negro College Fund, the Children's Diabetes
Fund, St. Jude's Children's Hospital, and several AIDS-related
organizations, and she established the Whitney Houston Foundation for
Children, Inc., a nonprofit organization whose work assists homeless
children and children with cancer and AIDS.
One noncharitable appearance the diva was supposed to make was at
"Blessing '97" on Nov. 29, 1997. The event, billed as the
largest mass wedding ever, was to earn the diva a cool $1 million for 45
minutes onstage. But when the press seized upon the pending appearance
for the Moonies (the controversial Unification Church started by
Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his wife, Hak Ja Han Moon), Houston released
a statement declaring that she didn't know "Blessing '97" was
a Moonie affair. Two hours before the wedding began, she backed out
citing "illness," leaving both the Moonies and her own band,
which had already set up, in the lurch.
While rumors still cloud the rocky Bobby Brown union, the pairing
persists, despite ongoing legal troubles. In June 1998, various tabloids
reported that the two were on the verge of officially separating, a
month shy of their sixth anniversary. They were proved wrong when the
two singers celebrated that occasion, their marriage still intact
several months later, and apparently remaining that way.
In August, news of a significant duet in divadom was made public:
Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey were in the studio together. The
strong-lunged, octave-jumping singers recorded "When You
Believe," the theme song from the animated DreamWorks pic The
Prince of Egypt, which tells the story of Moses. Kenneth "Babyface"
Edmonds was on hand to referee, er, produce the single. Dispelling
rumors of competitiveness, the Houston and Carey appeared together at
the MTV Video Music Awards in September—wearing the same dress no
less. After some canned banter ("Nice dress," Carey offered.
"Yeah, you look pretty good, too," Houston answered) the women
presented Will
Smith with the Best Male Video Award.
Controversy and a new beginning: In the year 2000 Houston's public image became tarnished when it was revealed that she had been battling spousal abuse with her husband. Additionally she had clearly lost a great deal of weight and this, coupled with shaky (sometimes cancelled) public performances gave way to rumours of cocaine addiction. Many thought that her vocals sounded strained, and that her voice was worn down.
2001 brought Houston her first major producing assignment: the hit teen Disney comedy The Princess Diaries starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews, which grossed over $100 million dollars in the box office. She also produced two other major assignments for Disney: the 2003 TV film The Cheetah Girls, about the tribulations of an all-girl pop group, starring Raven-Symone, and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004) grossed over $100 million. Although these efforts were successful, Houston was criticized by her fans for producing "bubble-gum pop-ish" material.
In 2002, Houston admitted in a television interview with Diane Sawyer to abusing cocaine, marijuana, and various other drugs. She claimed to have stopped using illegal drugs, but seemed to be making the admission to address the rumours circulating about her lifestyle. During the interview, Houston's comment about having never used crack cocaine because it was "for poor people" caused a new uproar. In March 2004, Houston entered a drug rehab program in California. Over the Spring and Summer of 2004, Houston performed at a few concerts in Europe (the Soul Divas Tour with Natalie Cole) and her own concert tour in Asia.
In September 2004 she made a surprise appearance at the World Music Awards to sing for Clive Davis. They announced that they would soon start working on a new album for Houston, to be released in 2005, in which a duet with
Alicia Keys is rumored to be featured. In March 2005, Houston's chances at a comeback appeared slim when she entered rehab for the second time. However, she finished rehab in May 2005. In an interview with Access Hollywood, Davis announced that he was returning to the studio with Houston to finish the album they had begun before she had started rehab.
As of the summer of 2005, a total of 10 tracks have been recorded and the photo shoot for the album booklet has been completed. It is predicted that the album will come out in either late-2005 or early-2006.
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