Houston became the first woman in music history to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 chart and the first artist ever to enter number one in the US and UK, while also hitting number one or top ten in dozens of other countries around the world. [455] Houston had also sold more physical singles than any other female solo artist in history. Jackson and Madonna built worldviews around their voices; Ms. Houston's voice was the worldview. 2 Who are the parents of Whitney Houston? [218] Along with the album, an accompanying VHS and DVD was released featuring the music videos to Houston's greatest hits, as well as several hard-to-find live performances including her 1983 debut on The Merv Griffin Show and interviews. It was beyond disturbing, seeing my daughter's face cut out like that." Cissy Houston eventually left to start a solo career in 1970. [231][232][233] She later made an appearance on Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Special, where her extremely thin frame further spurred rumors of drug use. In Memory Of Whitney's Father, John Houston. The couple had a daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, who was born in 1993 and died in 2015. Her third studio album, I'm Your Baby Tonight (1990), yielded two Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles, the title track and "All the Man That I Need". He was previously married to Cissy Houston and Barbara Houston. [152][153][154][155] Both "I'm Every Woman" and "I Have Nothing" hit number one in other Billboard charts, with the former topping the Dance Club Songs chart, and the latter becoming Houston's tenth number one song on the adult contemporary chart. John Houston sometimes stayed at home to look after the children and became "Mr Mom" while his wife played club dates and promoted her own singles. The album launched seven singles in various countries, including four alone in the United States. The interview was billed as "the most anticipated music interview of the decade". You can't hide that fact. "[388], Houston's vocal stylings have had a significant impact on the music industry. Houston returned to the top of the Billboard 200 chart with her final studio album, I Look to You (2009). Aretha Franklin was listed on the program, and was expected to sing, but was unable to attend the service. Hannah was the daughter of James Davis and Eleanor. The lawsuit claims that Whitney didnt pay her fathers company accordingly for the services that they said they provided - which led to Johns company suing Whitney for $100 million. [191] However, Halle Berry also had rights to the project and got her version going first. "Album Review: Whitney Houston's 'I Look To You'". [407][69][408] Baker commented that "Because of what Whitney and Sade did, there was an opening for me For radio stations, black women singers aren't taboo anymore."[409]. Davis was impressed and immediately offered a worldwide record deal, which Houston eventually signed on April 10, 1983; since she was only nineteen, her parents also signed for her. Father of Private; Private; Whitney Houston and Private [ ] She was a phenomenon waiting to happen, a canny tapping of the listener's yen for a return to the musical middle. Houston played a star who is stalked by a crazed fan and hires a bodyguard (played by Kevin Costner) to protect her. The Bangles. [374], In March 2023, Arista, Legacy Recordings and Gaither Music Group released Houston's first gospel compilation, I Go to the Rock: The Gospel Music of Whitney Houston. Whitneys maternal grandfather was Nitcholas Drinkard (the son of John Drinkard, Jr. and Susie/Susan Belle/Bell Delia Fuller). It peaked at No. He convinced Arista head Clive Davis to make time to see her perform. Ehrlich went on to say, "It's too fresh in everyone's memory to do more at this time, but we would be remiss if we didn't recognize Whitney's remarkable contribution to music fans in general and in particular her close ties with the Grammy telecast and her Grammy wins and nominations over the years. The service was scheduled for two hours, but lasted four. Houston remains the only artist to ever accomplish this feat as of 2023. [447][448] Similarly, she was ranked as one of the "Top 100 Greatest Artists of All Time" by VH1 in September 2010. [185] The movie, with its all African-American cast, was a moderate success, earning about $50million at the U.S. box offices. '"[391] After Houston's death, Catona asserted that Houston's voice reached "'about 75 to 80 percent'" of its former capacity after he had worked with her. She was previously married to singer Bobby Brown. Houston was a supporter of Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement. Stepfather of Gary Houston. [374] The soundtrack includes reimagined remixes of some of Houston's classics and several newly discovered songs such as Houston's cover of CeCe Winans' "Don't Cry" (labeled as "Don't Cry for Me" on Houston's soundtrack) at the Commitment to Life AIDS benefit concert in Los Angeles in January 1994, remixed by house producer Sam Feldt. The album would receive four Grammy Award nominations, including three at the 1986 ceremony, including Album of the Year, winning one in the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance category for "Saving All My Love for You". [46][47] The album would hit number one or hit the top five in more than ten other countries. Ethnicity: African-American, with small amount of English/Irish/Scottish. [94][95][96] The song later won Houston and her producer Narada Michael Walden a Sports Emmy Award. The album's producer Michael Zager recorded her lead vocal on his disco song, "Life's a Party", with the album of the same name released later in 1978. [66] Following the release of "Saving All My Love for You", MTV agreed to play its video clip on light rotation because, Houston said, the song "hit so hard and exploded so heavy" that they "had no choice but to play it. Houston's first studio album in eight years, My Love Is Your Love (1998), spawned several hit singles, including the title track, "Heartbreak Hotel", "It's Not Right but It's Okay" and the Academy Award-winning Mariah Carey duet "When You Believe". [87] In 1988, she ranked 17th.[88][89]. Father of John Houston III, Whitney Houston and Michael Houston. All three featured live interviews with people who had known Houston, including those that had worked with her, along with some of her peers in the music industry. The lyrical themes in her recordings are mainly about love, social, religious and feminism. "Because Whitney, more than any other single artist Michael Jackson included effectively mapped out the course of modern R&B, setting the bar for standards of soul vocalese and creating the original template for what we now routinely refer to as the 'soul diva' ", stated Gill. "Spielberg Dethrones Oprah As Highest-Paid Entertainer", "If Ella Fitzgerald is the queen of jazz, Billie Holiday first lady of the blues and Aretha Franklin the queen of soul, then who is the queen of pop? When Houston was 16, she met Robyn Crawford, then a collegiate basketball player for Monmouth University, while both worked as counselors at a youth summer camp in East Orange. Rolling Stone said Houston was singing "with a bite in her voice"[202] and The Village Voice called it "Whitney's sharpest and most satisfying so far". "[116] Nevertheless, a commercial single and video of the performance reached the Top 20 on the US Hot 100, giving Houston the biggest chart hit for a performance of the national anthem (Jos Feliciano's version reached No. Nationality: United States Executive summary: Diva and cautionary tale. [36] The song was later covered by R&B singer Stephanie Mills for her album, Merciless that same year. [10] Cissy later left the Sweet Inspirations starting a solo career that later resulted in two Grammy Award wins for gospel work. The first album in which she served as executive producer and exerted creative control for the first time in her career, Houston chose mostly black producers such as the team of L.A. Reid and Babyface, as well as Luther Vandross and Stevie Wonder, while maintaining Narada Michael Walden as one of the main producers. John Russell Houston, Jr. (1920 - 2003) - Genealogy - Geni.com But who is Whitney's father John Russell Houston and what impact did he have on the superstar's life? [380] Jon Pareles of The New York Times stated Houston "always had a great big voice, a technical marvel from its velvety depths to its ballistic middle register to its ringing and airy heights". Houston was pronounced dead at 3:55pm PST. Remembering John Houston. [214][215], In May 2000, Whitney: The Greatest Hits was released worldwide. [73], In June 1987, Houston's second album, Whitney, was released. On her mother's side, Houston was alleged to have partial Dutch and Native American ancestry. AllMusic noted her contribution to the success of black artists on the pop scene. [87] The highest-earning musician and highest black female entertainer on the list, she was only the third highest after Bill Cosby and Eddie Murphy. [29] She would also appear inside other magazines such as Glamour, Cosmopolitan and Young Miss. [479] That film, entitled Whitney, premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and was released internationally in theaters on July 6, 2018. The singer's unprecedented successes helped her to earn notices on Forbes magazine. [313] The manner of death was listed as an "accident".[314]. She also appeared as a duet vocalist and background singer on Jermaine Jackson's Dynamite and Kashif's Send Me Your Love albums. The couple had a daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, who was born in 1993 and died in 2015. The performance was poorly received by the British media and was described as "weird" and "ungracious".[263]. She held an honorary Doctorate in Humanities from Grambling State University, Louisiana. [117][118], Houston donated her share of the proceeds to the American Red Cross Gulf Crisis Fund and was named to the Red Cross Board of Governors. That was my own. She posthumously joined singers Taylor Swift and Mariah Carey as only the third female artist to earn both a diamond single and album. Following the success, she renewed her contract with Arista for $100million, one of the biggest recording deals of all time. [138] Over a decade later, in 2023, Houston was placed at second place, behind just Aretha Franklin. Whitney Houston is one of the worlds most iconic singers, and she grew up around the entertainment industry thanks to her parents careers. [471] Following the terrorist attacks in 2001, Houston re-released "The Star-Spangled Banner" to support the New York Firefighters 9/11 Disaster Relief Fund and the New York Fraternal Order of Police. [90][91] On June 11, 1988, during the European leg of her tour, Houston joined other musicians to perform a set at Wembley Stadium in London to celebrate a then-imprisoned Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday. In Memory Of Whitney's Father, John Houston Gill said that there "are few, if any, Jackson imitators on today's TV talent shows, but every other contestant is a Whitney wannabe, desperately attempting to emulate that wondrous combination of vocal effects the flowing melisma, the soaring mezzo-soprano confidence, the tremulous fluttering that carried the ends of lines into realms of higher yearning". This visit led Cissy to return with law enforcement and perform an intervention. In addition, the album also won Houston a record fifteen Billboard awards, including 11 at the actual ceremony, three Soul Train Music Awards, including the Sammy Davis, Jr. Award as Entertainer of the Year,[160] five NAACP Image Awards including Entertainer of the Year,[161][162][163] a record five World Music Awards,[164] a Juno Award and a BRIT award. Whitney Houston - Songs, Daughter & Death - Biography In February 1983, Gerry Griffith, an A&R representative for Arista Records, saw Houston performing with her mother at the Sweetwaters nightclub in Manhattan. [235] She canceled a second performance scheduled for the following night. Whitney Houston's Dark Family Secret Uncovered in New Documentary In Kevin Macdonald's Whitney, premiering at Cannes Wednesday, Houston's inner circle confirm a childhood trauma Houston.