Whitney Houston, August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012.
In the nineteen-eighties and nineties, every schoolgirl who ever ascended a competition stage to showcase her vocal chops sought refuge in the Whitney Houston oeuvre. Houston, the 48-year-old R&B star who regularly stormed the pop charts and who died last Saturday from undisclosed causes, was to the Michael Jackson generation what Aretha Franklin was to the Elvis Presley era – a melismatic counterpoint to the syllabic, staccato intonations of dance-ready pop. Has any single alphabet crested over as many notes as the one that inaugurated I Will Always Love You? That smash from The Bodyguard – the 1992 feature film that was Houston’s first; she essentially played herself, a chart-storming diva – became the best-selling single by a female artist in music history. Few remember, today, that it was originally a Dolly Parton ballad, written and recorded in the nineteen-seventies. It became Houston’s signature song.
By this time, of course, success was nothing new to Houston. Her eponymous debut album, released in 1985, burst onto the Billboard charts with three Number 1 singles – How Will I Know, Greatest Love of All and Saving All My Love for You. The latter was yet another cobwebby pop-culture artifact that Houston commandeered from its original singers, Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr., and her rendition was an immediate announcement of the talent that separates the great singers from those with merely great voices: the ability to narrate a story through song. Assuming the role of a woman in love with a married man, Houston caresses the opening lines to indicate little more than a fond familiarity. “A few stolen moments is all that we share / You’ve got your family, and they need you there.” We think she has given up, that she has settled for these stolen moments – and then come the lines that close the stanza. “But no other man’s gonna do / So I’m saving all my love for you.” The emotion amplifies ever so gradually, not just with the ascent into the higher registers of the octave but also in the way her throat opens out to issue a stentorian declaration of obsessive intent. A star was instantly born.
And a star she remained well into the nineteen-nineties, forsaking exploration and experimentation for a soothing sound that she knew would please her millions of fans. Critics, after a point, were frustrated by the gospel-trained singer’s penchant for gold-plating imitation jewellery (say, Shoop Shoop from the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack) but she sold over 170 million albums, and in 2009, the Guinness World Records cited her as the most-feted female performer of all time, with a haul that included two Emmies and six Grammies. With seven Number 1 singles in a row, she even overthrew a Beatles’ record.
And then she fell to earth. Her tempestuous marriage to singer-songwriter Bobby Brown crumbled and an addiction to marijuana and cocaine whittled away her greatest asset. Post divorce and rehab, her last album, I Look to You (2009), was received well enough, but it was less a superdiva’s long-awaited comeback than a sobering acknowledgement of a former star’s will to survive. Houston’s death came just before the Grammy Awards were to celebrate the best of last year’s music. At least, they won’t have to search very hard for a number to honour her with. They just have to look towards her signature song.
An edited version of this piece can be found here.
Copyright ©2012 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Bala
February 13, 2012
@Baradwaj: I love the “caresses the opening lines..” part. I do think this is your forte, describing a song and the way it’s sung in an accessible way instead of getting into the technicalities of it all.(though you do that sometimes too :D)
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anamika
February 13, 2012
Whiteney Houston had soul and her music was part of those years of self induced angst and such…the diva must be adding cheer to the angels and I think heaven is having one rip roaring party.We hope you find the peace that you were searching for in your lifetime..though you are gone…your music is very much alive.
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Shashi
February 13, 2012
She didn’t belong to the 27 club, but she sure died the same way. Either in a bathroom or a hotel room…..
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Kayir
February 14, 2012
BR,
Apologies in advance, and sorry for crashing the comments section of this post, but I wasn’t sure where else to post… Any chance you’d review Downton Abbey? Or do you not do TV series? Btw, if you were going to review it, pls. don’t bother with Season 2. Thx
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brangan
February 14, 2012
Kayir: Am terribly behind on a lot of stuff, and this is one show I’ve been meaning to watch. Don’t think I’m going to get to it any time soon. Need to put down some thoughts on Agneepath first…
As an aside, someone at a book launch yesterday asked me why I wasn’t writing as much as I used to (when in the Express). I told them that I still had a column every week plus a review — that makes it at least two pieces a week. And then you have the other stories. Does anyone else get that impression — that I am writing less?
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Nimmi Rangswamy
February 14, 2012
BR, you are writing as much perhaps more but less engaged with the blog! I thought you commented much more in these pages than since the Hindu job. We miss…
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Gradwolf
February 14, 2012
What Nimmi said.
Though am not sure if we are also to blame and the commenting in general has gone down a few notches for sometime now. Like see, the GRCA President is now an MBA person and is extremely busy with school en stuff! 😀 Like that, ppl have vanished.
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aandthirtyeights
February 14, 2012
“Has any single alphabet crested over as many notes as the one that inaugurated I Will Always Love You?”
The ‘O’ in O Rangasayee 😛
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brangan
February 14, 2012
aandthirtyeights: Bravo! Still rofl-ing.
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KayKay
February 14, 2012
Here’s a lesser known number from the great Whitney ( at least it didn’t see much chart action in the US &UK) since it appeared as a B-Side to her “Shoop Shoop” single from the Waiting To Exhale soundtrack.
A lovely ballad, and what the heck…it is Valentine’s Day:-)
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rameshram
February 14, 2012
at express you were half a velaikkari now youre a cheerful full velaikkari..
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venkatesh
February 16, 2012
BR : What Nimmi said – you are less engaged.
Btw , has anyone seen the new “neethaane en ponvasantham” trailer – I for one am actually excited by a GVM film for the first time – and that song – OMG
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vikram
February 16, 2012
BR, where is the promised agneepath piece da
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radhika
February 17, 2012
>>Has any single alphabet crested over as many notes as the one that inaugurated I Will Always Love You?
I hesitated before I finally decided to nitpick, after telling myself that you enjoy the language so much you wouldn’t mind the correction. An “alphabet” is a set of letters, not a single letter – so that should have been “has any single phoneme.. “
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brangan
February 18, 2012
radhika, you annoying creature – ‘fess up, you’re really my English teacher writing under a different name, aren’t you? 🙂 Of course you’re right. I wish I had an editor like you.
In my new job — actually not so new; it’s going to be a year now — I’ve gotten a lot sloppier about my writing. I take the easy way out with sentences, because an eye is always on the deadline-clock. I used to enjoy writing a lot more when I could write only when I felt like it. Now there’s a gun to my head and… okay, I’ll stop with the self-pity now 🙂
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