Whitney Houston (Biografi)

Born on August 9, 1963, in Newark, New Jersey, Whitney Houston released her debut album at age 22 and scored three number one singles. Whitney (1987) delivered four more number ones and earned Houston her first Grammy. With her marriage to singer Bobby Brown in 1992, Houston's career got off track. She made a comeback with 2009's I Look to You. Houston died on February 11, 2012.


Profile

Born August 9, 1963 in Newark, New Jersey, Whitney Houston almost seemed destined from birth to become a singer. Her mother Cissy Houston, cousin Dionne Warwick and godmother Aretha Franklin were all legendary figures in American gospel and soul music. Cissy Houston was the choir minister at New Hope Baptist Church, and it was there that a young Whitney got her start. Even as a child, Whitney was able to wow audiences; she later told interviewer Diane Sawyer that a rapturous response from the congregation at New Hope had a powerful effect upon her: "I think I knew then that [my singing ability] was an infectious thing that God had given me."

By the time she turned 15, Whitney was performing often with her mother and trying to get a record deal of her own. Around the same time, she was discovered by a photographer who was awed by her natural beauty. She soon became an extremely sought-after teenage model, one of the first African American women to appear on the cover of Seventeen magazine. But music remained her true love.

When she was 19, Whitney Houston was discovered in a nightclub by the renowned Clive Davis of Arista Records, who signed her immediately and took the helm of her career as she navigated from gospel to pop stardom. In 1983, Houston made her debut on national television, appearing on The Merv Griffin Show to sing "Home" from the musical The Wiz. She and Davis spent the next two years working on her debut album, finding the best producers and songwriters available to showcase her amazing vocal talent.

In 1985, she released her debut album Whitney Houston and almost immediately became a smash pop sensation. Over the next year, her hit singles "Saving All My Love for You" and "How Will I Know" helped the album reach the top of the charts, where it stayed for fourteen non-consecutive weeks. Houston won a Grammy in 1986 for "Saving All My Love for You"; the award was presented to the singer by her cousin Dionne Warwick. Houston followed the monumental success of her first album with a second release,Whitney, in 1987. That record, too, went platinum many times over and won more Grammy Awards, leading to a successful world tour. During this time, the singer also appeared at a concert for Nelson Mandela's birthday and founded the Whitney Houston Foundation for Children, a nonprofit organization that funds projects to help needy children over the world.

By 1992, Whitney Houston was on top of the world, but her life was about to get very complicated very quickly. That year she married the R&B singer Bobby Brown, the former New Edition, after a three-year engagement. At first marriage was passionate and loving, but things turned sour as the decade progresses and both Brown and Houston to fight substance abuse and increasingly erratic behavior.

Apart from a growing personal problems, Whitney Houston continued to progress in his career, managed to cross over into acting in 1992 by starring opposite Kevin Costner in Bodyguard very popular. With this film, he set a trend for his films to follow: in every film he also released the hit single, creating a sensational sales record for the soundtrack.Bodyguard of his smash single, a cover of Dolly Parton 1974 "I Will Always Love You," proved to be Houston's biggest hit ever, spending a record-breaking fourteen weeks atop the U.S. charts. Houston soundtrack album went on to win three Grammys, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year. Then in the 1990s, Houston preacher's wife and also starred in Waiting to Exhale, both accompanied by a soundtrack hit, too.

In 1998, Houston released My Love Is Your Love, the first non-soundtrack studio album in years, and earned a Grammy, but others can not for the performance charts of the previous album. However, his collaboration with Mariah Carey in the animated film The Prince of Egypt produced single, "When You Believe," won an Academy Award.

In the late 1990's and early 2000's, Houston increasingly rocky marriage, struggling with drugs and health problems threatened to derail his career. Cancellation of the concert several famous television interview with Diane Sawyer in 2002 in Houston that appears too thin and in very poor health led many to speculate that he was on the verge of destruction.

In 2004, Bobby Brown began filming for the Bravo reality show called Being Bobby Brown; Houston received substantial airtime. The show was aired during the worst years of the couple's crumbling marriage, drug use, lifestyle, excess and bad behavior all recorded and Houston's reputation sank to new lows. Houston tried to ignore the controversy, charging forward with his music with the release of Just Whitney ... to fight detractors, but that does not match the success of earlier work.

Over the next few years, Houston attempted to repair his marriage and to stop the drug habit, but after a recurrence of a mother, Cissy, had to step in. As Whitney Houston tells Oprah Winfrey in 2009: "[She] walked in with a sheriff and he said, "I have here a court orders you to my way or we would not do this at all you're going to go on TV, and you will retire and ... say you'll give it because it's not worth it. '"Whitney took a break from his career, Bobby Brown divorced in 2007, and won sole custody of their child, Bobbi Kristina Houston Brown.

After nearly a decade of struggling with his personal life, Houston seemed to pull himself , jointly. He released a new album, I Look To You, in 2009. "The songs themselves will speak to you and you'll understand where I am and I've gone through some changes better," said Houston Entertainment Tonight. Recording received rave reviews from music fans, making it to the top of the album. Her live shows, however, gathering mixed reviews with some complaining about the sound quality.

In early 2012,

Houston is rumored to be having financial difficulties, but he denied this claim. He was, in fact, seems ready for a career rise. Houston working on a new film Sparkle music by Jordin Sparks, a remake of 1976 film about the all-girl music group similar to the Supremes. He reportedly been approached to join the singing competition The X Factor as a judge. Unfortunately, Houston did not live long enough to see the latest coverage comeback.

Whitney Houston died on February 11, 2012, in Los Angeles. The details surrounding his death have not been announced. Houston has seen in the days before his death, including in one of the pre-Grammy Awards party. With his death, the music world has lost one of the most legendary stars. Longtime supporter and mentor Clive Davis once said that Houston "is in the tradition of the great, great singer, Lena Horne, or whether it's Ella Fitzger.



Jum'at, XIII VIII X : i-xv

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