LOS
ANGELES (AP) — Whitney Houston, who ruled 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.
Houston's publicist, Kristen Foster, said Saturday that
the singer had died, but the cause and the location of her death were
unknown.
News of Houston's death came on the eve of music's
biggest night — the Grammy Awards. It's a showcase where she once
reigned, and her death was sure to cast a heavy pall on Sunday's
ceremony. Houston's longtime mentor Clive Davis was to hold his annual
concert and dinner Saturday; it was unclear if it was going to go
forward.
At her peak, Houston 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 R&B 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 rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at the Super Bowl,
amid the first Gulf War, set a new standard and once again reaffirmed
her as America's sweetheart.
In 1992, she became a star in the
acting world with "The Bodyguard." Despite mixed reviews, the story of a
singer (Houston) guarded by a former Secret Service agent (Kevin
Costner) was an international success.
It also gave her perhaps
her most memorable hit: a searing, stunning rendition of Dolly Parton's
"I Will Always Love You," which sat atop the charts for weeks. It was
Grammy's record of the year and best female pop vocal, and the
"Bodyguard" soundtrack was named album of the year.
She returned
to the big screen in 1995-96 with "Waiting to Exhale" and "The
Preacher's Wife." Both spawned soundtrack albums, and another hit studio
album, "My Love Is Your Love," in 1998, brought her a Grammy for best
female R&B vocal for the cut "It's Not Right But It's Okay."
But
during these career and personal highs, Houston was using drugs. In an
interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2010, she said by the time "The
Preacher's Wife" was released, "(doing drugs) was an everyday thing. ...
I would do my work, but after I did my work, for a whole year or two,
it was every day. ... I wasn't happy by that point in time. I was losing
myself."
In the interview, Houston blamed her rocky marriage to
Brown, which included a charge of domestic abuse against Brown in 1993.
They divorced in 2007.
Houston would go to rehab twice before she
would declare herself drug-free to Winfrey in 2010. But in the interim,
there were missed concert dates, a stop at an airport due to drugs, and
public meltdowns.
She was so startlingly thin during a 2001
Michael Jackson tribute concert that rumors spread she had died the next
day. Her crude behavior and jittery appearance on Brown's reality show,
"Being Bobby Brown," was an example of her sad decline. Her Sawyer
interview, where she declared "crack is whack," was often parodied. She
dropped out of the spotlight for a few years.
Houston staged what
seemed to be a successful comeback with the 2009 album "I Look To You."
The album debuted on the top of the charts, and would eventually go
platinum.
Things soon fell apart. A concert to promote the album
on "Good Morning America" went awry as Houston's voice sounded ragged
and off-key. She blamed an interview with Winfrey for straining her
voice.
A world tour launched overseas, however, only confirmed
suspicions that Houston had lost her treasured gift, as she failed to
hit notes and left many fans unimpressed; some walked out. Canceled
concert dates raised speculation that she may have been abusing drugs,
but she denied those claims and said she was in great shape, blaming
illness for cancellations.
