Belmont and Belcourt Biographies - Whitney Houston

Copyright 2012 by Belmont & Belcourt Biographies

All rights reserved. Neither this book nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form without permission.

eISBN: 9781619840638

She still wondered, Am I good enough? Am I pretty enough? Will they like me? It was the burden that made her great and the part that caused her to stumble in the end. If you could hear me, no I would tell you, you werent just good enough, you were great. Kevin Costner

We all read the same stories and found ourselves believing the rumors. The stories of drug use and drunken nights out, her problems with money and marriage, and even those about how much Kevin Costner despised working with her on the film, The Bodyguard, because of her diva-like ways. But quotes like the one above, along with everything else Kevin Costner shared about his friendship with Whitney Houston, cant help but make you wonder just how misunderstood she really was.

This book takes you full circle through Whitney Houstons life, starting with her first solo in her mothers choir at the New Hope Baptist Church in New Jersey to her funeral in that very same church. Every page will give you more and more insight into the tragic superstar, leaving you with an understanding of just how incredible she was, even when the tabloids were declaring otherwise.

New Hope Baptist Church

Whitney Houston was a legendary musician, one of the most important of the twentieth century. Her story is a rollercoaster, a tragedy in the truest sense, led by a current day heroine with a fatal flaw. In her short lifetime, she accomplished so much, from influencing the sound of popular music, as we know it today, to making milestone achievements for the equal place of women and African-Americans in the music industry and in society. From her birth, she was in a prime position to fulfill her destiny as the incredible musician she would grow up to be. She was born into a star-studded musical family: her mother, Cissy Houston, was a Grammy-award-winning gospel singer; her cousins, Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick, were hit pop and gospel singers; and most prestigious of all was Whitneys godmother, Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, one of the biggest musical names of her century. Whitney was the youngest of three children, born on August 9, 1963, in Newark, the largest city in New Jersey. Her family was a middle class one; her father, John Russell Houston Jr., was a soldier in the Army. Although she spent the first four years of her life in Newark, the family moved four miles away to East Orange after riots broke out in Newark in 1967.

Her mother was the choir minister at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, and it was there that Whitney got her first taste of performing live. She sang with the choir and also learned to play that staple instrument of solo performers, the piano. For her first solo recital at the church, Whitney sang Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah, a popular hymn allegorizing a Christians journey through life. The congregation of New Hope received the young Whitney adoringly, an experience that gave her the encouragement she needed to devote herself to her talents. From the beginning, Houston felt that her musical talent was a gift given to her by God, and the success she found performing in church certainly helped to cement this impression.

Seventeen Magazine

Her experiences performing were not limited to church, however. She toured the nightclubs where her mother, who was well known as a singer in secular circles, performed, and mother and daughter sometimes performed together on stage at these venues. Around this time, Whitney found her first real avenue into the world of popular music by working as a backup singer. She sang backup vocals and her first recorded solo on the single Lifes A Party by the Michael Zager Band in 1977, when she was only fourteen years old. Michael Zager, now an eminent professor at Florida Atlantic University, was one of the very first to notice Whitneys talent. He produced several albums for Whitneys mother, and wanted very dearly to produce an album for the young Whitney. Despite his asking for three years, however, Cissy Houston always maintained that her daughter was too young. The following year she sang backup vocals for Im Every Woman by Chaka Khan, who would remain her good friend throughout her career.

Houston spent much of her adolescence in the late 70s and early 80s singing backup vocals, but before she began her meteoric rise in the music industry, she would achieve a different kind of fame. In the early 1980s, she was spotted by a photographer while performing with her mother at Carnegie Hall. As well as her extraordinary natural musical talent, Whitney also possessed extraordinary beauty, and she soon became one of the most sought after teenage fashion models in the business. She was famously featured on the cover of Seventeen magazine, making her one of the very first African-American women ever to have done so, and was also printed in the pages of Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and many others.

Had she wished it, Whitney likely could have made a successful career in modeling from that point, but her first love was music and she stayed true to it. Even while she was modeling, she worked hard on her music. She contributed to the album One Down by producers Michael Beinhorn, Bill Laswell and Martin Bisi. Released in 1982, the album was credited to the rock group Material, but many other musicians pitched in on the project, including R. Bernard Fowler, saxophonist Archie Shepp, and of course, Whitney. Her contribution to the album was a cover of the Hugh Hopper ballad Memories. Her performance of the song received glowing reviews, with Robert Christgau saying that it was one of the most gorgeous ballads youve ever heard.

Arista Records

You wait for a voice like that for a lifetime. Clive Davis

Houston had received offers to produce a solo album for years, repeatedly from Michael Zager and also from Elektra Records in 1981. However, her mother maintained that Whitney had to complete high school before embarking on a solo career. Whitney continued to perform live at the clubs, and it was in 1983, at the age of twenty, that her break came. A representative of Arista Records attending one of her performances was so impressed by what he heard that he convinced the head of the company, the ex-lawyer Clive Davis, to hear Houston perform. It should be noted that Clive Davis was hardly a new face. In 1979, he had helped Dionne Warwick revive her career, which had flagged badly during the 1970s, and, in the 80s, he had revived Aretha Franklin and brought her music to the attention of a new generation. He was not a stranger to Whitney Houstons family, but nonetheless he had a business to run, and he did not take Whitney on as a favor. He was deeply impressed by her when he heard her sing, so much so that he signed her to Arista on the spot.

Whitney did not begin working on her solo album right away, however. While Davis spent time ensuring that he had precisely the right production team for Houston, she made her first appearance on national television, performing Home from the musical The Wiz on the Merv Griffin show, and spent two years continuing to collaborate with other artists. Although she did not release her own album until 1985, Houston experienced her first taste of commercial success when a duet with Teddy Pendergrass, Hold Me, became a Top Five R&B hit.

The Debut Album

Whitney had signed to Arista Records in 1983, and her long-anticipated first album was finally released in February of 1985. The eponymous album, Whitney Houston, had been produced by a star team, including Michael Masser, who had also produced