LOS ANGELES (AP) — Whitney Houston, who reigned as pop music's queen until
her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic
behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, has died. She
was 48.
Publicist Kristen Foster said Saturday that the singer had died, but the cause
and the location of her death were unknown.
At her peak, Houston was the golden girl of the music industry. From the
middle 1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world's best-selling
artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful, and peerless
vocals that were rooted in the black church but made palatable to the
masses with a pop sheen.
Her success carried her beyond music to movies, where she starred in hits like
The Bodyguard and Waiting to Exhale.
She had the perfect voice and the perfect image: a gorgeous singer who had
sex appeal but was never overtly sexual, who maintained perfect poise.
She influenced a generation of younger singers, from Christina Aguilera to
Mariah Carey, who when she first came out sounded so much like Houston
that many thought it was Houston.
But by the end of her career,
Houston became a stunning cautionary tale of the toll of drug use. Her
album sales plummeted and the hits stopped coming; her once serene image was
shattered by a wild demeanor and bizarre public appearances. She
confessed to abusing cocaine, marijuana and pills, and her once pristine voice
became raspy and hoarse, unable to hit the high notes as she had
during her prime.
The biggest devil is me. I'm either my best
friend or my worst enemy, Houston told ABC's Diane Sawyer in an
infamous 2002 interview with then-husband Brown by her side.
It
was a tragic fall for a superstar who was one of the top-selling artists in pop
music history, with more than 55 million records sold in the
United States alone.
She seemed to be born into greatness. She was the daughter of gospel singer
Cissy Houston, the cousin of 1960s pop
diva Dionne Warwick and the goddaughter of Aretha Franklin.
Houston first started singing in the church as a child. In her teens, she sang
backup for Chaka Khan, Jermaine Jackson and others, in addition to
modeling. It was around that time when music mogul Clive Davis first
heard Houston perform.
The time that I first saw her singing in
her mother's act in a club ... it was such a stunning impact, Davis
told Good Morning America.
To hear this young girl breathe such fire into this song. I mean, it really
sent the proverbial tingles up my spine, he added.
Before long, the rest of the country would feel it, too. Houston made her
album debut in 1985 with Whitney Houston, which sold millions and
spawned hit after hit. Saving All My Love for You brought her her
first Grammy, for best female pop vocal. How Will I Know, ''You Give
Good Love and The Greatest Love of All also became hit singles.
Another multiplatinum album, Whitney, came out in 1987 and included hits like
Where Do Broken Hearts Go and I Wanna Dance With Somebody.
The New York Times wrote that Houston possesses one of her generation's
most powerful gospel-trained voices, but she eschews many of the
churchier mannerisms of her forerunners. She uses ornamental gospel
phrasing only sparingly, and instead of projecting an earthy, tearful
vulnerability, communicates cool self-assurance and strength, building
pop ballads to majestic, sustained peaks of intensity.
Her
decision not to follow the more soulful inflections of singers like
Franklin drew criticism by some who saw her as playing down her black
roots to go pop and reach white audiences. The criticism would become a
constant refrain through much of her career. She was even booed during
the Soul Train Awards in 1989.
Sometimes it gets down to that,
you know? she told Katie Couric in 1996. You're not black enough for
them. I don't know. You're not RB enough. You're very pop. The
white audience has taken you away from them.
Some saw her 1992
marriage to former New Edition member and soul crooner Bobby Brown as an
attempt to refute those critics. It seemed to be an odd union; she was
seen as pop's pure princess while he had a bad-boy image, and already
had children of his own. (The couple had a daughter, Bobbi Kristina, in
1993.) Over the years, he would be arrested several times, on charges
ranging from DUI to failure to pay child support.
But Houston said their true personalities were not as far apart as people may
have believed.
When you love, you love. I mean, do you stop loving somebody because you
have different images? You know, Bobby and I basically come from the
same place, she told Rolling Stone in 1993. You see somebody, and you
deal with their image, that's their image. It's part of them, it's not
the whole picture. I am not always in a sequined gown. I am nobody's
angel. I can get down and dirty. I can get raunchy.
It would take several years, however, for the public to see that side of
Houston. Her moving 1991
