Los Angelos: Vdes ne moshen 48 vjec kengetarja Whitney Houston

 
 

 
Los Angelos: Vdes ne moshen 48 vjec kengetarja  Whitney Houston

 
Singer Whitney Houston dies at 48

 
 



 
 


(LOS ANGELES - 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 case 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 he 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.