I am actually surprised at the callousness I have read across the web about Whitney's passing. This is really sad news about a great entertainer, and seemingly sweet person, but the focus seems to be on the negative. I suppose it is beacause she may not have done anything for people lately... or people didnt know of her... or something... but it is .....sigh... it is really sad.... and the callous responses make it worse.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-02-12 11:42 by Max'sKansasCity.

I just heard this on the news.
Don't know what to say :-(
She was a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice.

Oh god... she was the true, original talent in the 80's singing scene... Took Aretha Franklin's torch, and passed it on... So sad, so sad, so sad... RIP Whitney.

- Doxa

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Doxa
Oh god... she was the true, original talent in the 80's singing scene... Took Aretha Franklin's torch, and passed it on...

She really was.... she really did.... it is really is sad....

I suppose it was hard for her in different things. She had early great success leading to high expectations, living in the limelight..... presure from all directions.... leading to other things... which leads to other things... and leads us all on down life's path.... we all go.... and if the result is not making us happy anymore..... then.... I guess some people start to numb the pain, one way or another, and that can cause even more damage... leading to more pain....

It is too simplistic to just blame drugs. There is more, it is so layed, so deep.... and in this case.... the result is so sad....sigh.... I guess at least Whitney will have quite a send off tonight.


This is a good write up of her life, imuho.

FROM THE AP NEWS WIRE

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Whitney Houston, who ruled as pop music's queen until her majestic voice was ravaged by drug use and her regal image was ruined by erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, died Saturday. She was 48.

Beverly Hills police Lt. Mark Rosen said Houston was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. in her room on the fourth floor of the Beverly Hilton. A Los Angeles County coroner's official said the body remained in the building late Saturday.

"There were no obvious signs of any criminal intent," Rosen said.

Houston's publicist, Kristen Foster, said the cause of death was unknown.

Rosen said police received a 911 call from hotel security about Houston at 3:43 p.m. Saturday. Paramedics who were already at the hotel because of a Grammy party were not able to resuscitate her, he said.

Houston's death came on the eve of music's biggest night - the Grammy Awards. It's a showcase where she once reigned, and where she will be remembered Sunday in a tribute by Jennifer Hudson, organizers said.

Her longtime mentor Clive Davis went ahead with his annual concert at the same hotel where her body was found. He dedicated the evening to her and asked for a moment of silence as a photo of the singer, hands wide open, looking to the sky, appeared on the screen.

Houston was supposed to appear at the gala, and Davis had told The Associated Press that she would perhaps perform: "It's her favorite night of the year ... (so) who knows by the end of the evening," he said.

Houston had been at rehearsals for the show Thursday, coaching singers Brandy and Monica, according to a person who was at the event but was not authorized to speak publicly about it. The person said Houston looked disheveled, was sweating profusely and liquor and cigarettes could be smelled on her breath.

Two days ago, she performed at a pre-Grammy party with singer Kelly Price. Singer Kenny Lattimore hosted the event, and said Houston sang the gospel classic "Jesus Loves Me" with Price, her voice registering softly, not with the same power it had at its height.

Lattimore said Houston was gregarious and was in a good mood, surrounded by friends and family, including daughter Bobbi Kristina.

"She just seemed like she was having a great night that night," said Lattimore, who said he was in shock over her death.

Aretha Franklin, her godmother, also said she was stunned.

"I just can't talk about it now," Franklin said in a short statement. "It's so stunning and unbelievable. I couldn't believe what I was reading coming across the TV screen."

The Rev. Al Sharpton said he would call for a national prayer Sunday morning during a service at Second Baptist Church in Los Angeles.

"The morning of the Grammys, the world should pause and pray for the memory of a gifted songbird," Sharpton said in a statement.

In a statement, Recording Academy President and CEO Neil Portnow said Houston "was one of the world's greatest pop singers of all time who leaves behind a robust musical soundtrack spanning the past three decades."

At her peak, Houston was the golden girl of the music industry. From the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world's best-selling artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful and peerless vocals 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. In addition to being Franklin's goddaughter, she was the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston and the cousin of 1960s pop diva Dionne Warwick.

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 only had one daughter, Bobbi Kristina, born 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."

Brown was getting ready to perform at a New Edition reunion tour in Southaven, Miss., as news spread about Houston's death. The group went ahead with its performance, though Brown appeared overcome with emotion when his voice cracked at the beginning of a ballad and he left the stage.

Before his departure, he told the sell-out crowd: "First of all, I want to tell you that I love you all. Second, I would like to say, I love you Whitney. The hardest thing for me to do is to come on this stage."

Brown said he decided to perform because fans had shown their loyalty to the group for more than 25 years. During an intermission, one of Houston's early hits, "You Give Good Love," played over the speakers. Fans stood up and began singing along.

It would take several years for the public to see the "down and dirty" 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 2009, 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 2009. 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.

Houston was to make her return to film in the remake of the classic movie "Sparkle." Filming on the movie, which stars former "American Idol" winner Jordin Sparks, recently wrapped.

---

Associated Press writers Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tenn., contributed to this report.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2012-02-12 12:18 by Max'sKansasCity.

An incredible vocalist responsible for some wonderful and timeless music. I was a fan. Rest in peace, Whitney.

looked quite good and seemed quite together in this interview from three
months ago, her last. makes it even more difficult to understand.

God, how we all fancied her when that brilliant video for I Wanna Dance With Somebody came out. God bless you Whitney and may the next life bring more happiness.

She had it all; Looks, talent, dignity, voice. She kind of stood above the rest. One bad choice and she had to pay for it the rest of her life. She tried to make a comeback in 2010 but the problems were still there and the voice wasn't really to be recognized again. Here is a great clip however from a German TV-show in October, 2009. A great ballad, "I Look To You". She does her best and her looks is still intact. Always loved her. God bless her. Forever.




Whitney Houston "I look to you".

This is very sad news indeed.

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Silver Dagger
God, how we all fancied her when that brilliant video for I Wanna Dance With Somebody came out.

i worked in an office with quite a few black women back then, professionals,
and i can so clearly remember this one moment when the conversation turned to
whitney houston and my eyes just lit up and I said how beautiful she was
like i was lovestruck and it was a moment for sure. none of the black women
had ever seen a white guy so in love with how a black woman looked. not
just her body.

and whitney talked about that, in her sixty minutes interview i think, about
how she did have her troubles in the black community about how many white people
just loved her so much. and how it might have had something to do with her
acting a bit more "ghetto" in response.

(as an aside, rihanna was tormented endlessly growing up about her light skin.
whitney bobby brown, rihanna chris brown, the parallels are absurdly obvious.
fingers crossed. hoping that all this talk about chris brown being such an
incredibly changed man are true.)

Poor girl, RIP.

A Fallen Angel [www.spiegel.de]

What sets her apart from the others in the same genre (Beyonce, Rihanna and others) is that she never sold on sex. She didn't have to. And that kept her integrity and dignity intact. It's a pity though that she fell for other sins. But since this is not a debate thread but an homage thread I won't continue on this.

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Stoneage
What sets her apart from the others in the same genre (Beyonce, Rihanna and others) is that she never sold on sex.

whitney was pure sex, as was jagger. god bless them both. and bey and rih too.

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memphiscats
Tragic. So many souls taken due to drugs.

I know what you mean.

Mine was almost taken, but I took it back.

How did she pass?

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steel driving hammer
How did she pass?

forsaken, lonely




---

"i will always love you" at the moment #2 on USA itunes.

one great thing about itunes. the record stores can't be sold out of it,
so you always know exactly what people are buying, up to the minute.

i wanna dance with somebody (who loves me) #22
greatest love of all #35
bodyguard soundtrack #40
one moment in time #41
i have nothing #46
where do broken hearts go #52
didnt we almost have it all #53
the star spangled banner #55
i'm every woman #59
greatest love of all (album) #62
i look to you #66
saving all my love for you #68
greatest hits #79
different greatest hits #89
run to you #96

16 of the top 100. that's what i call a tribute. kids you rule.

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HighwireC

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steel driving hammer
How did she pass?

forsaken, lonely

---

neither particularly. look at the interview i posted above from only 3 months ago.

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superrevvy

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HighwireC

Quote
steel driving hammer
How did she pass?

forsaken, lonely

---

neither particularly. look at the interview i posted above from only 3 months ago.

You can do some heavy partying and you can be very lonely at the same time ...

[www.bbc.co.uk]

rip...........crack is wack was her saying.........i blame bobby brown

Sad news, beautiful she was:

Bobby Brown Grieves On Stage Over Whitney Houston’s Death

By Billy Johnson, Jr.



Bobby Brown, ex-husband of Whitney Houston, grieved publicly over Houston's death during a concert in Mississippi Saturday, according to reports.
Houston was found dead in her hotel room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel Saturday afternoon.

Brown reportedly took the stage with New Edition at Landers Center shortly after receiving the news. He professed his love for Houston when he addressed the crowd. "First of all, I want to tell you that I love you all," Brown said, according to the Associated Press. "Second, I would like to say, 'I love you Whitney.' The hardest thing for me to do is to come on this stage tonight."
According to Us Magazine, Brown did not come out on stage until the second song, "Hit Me Off," which he performed enthusiastically.

When he sang his solo hit "Tenderoni," he began crying and asked the audience to help him sing the song, a concertgoer said.
Brown and Houston, were married from 1992 to 2007, and have one daughter together, Bobbi Kristina, 18.

Another one bites the (angel) dust!

Sad news.
One more artist, who was killed by using too much drugs / alcohol led by bad surroundings. I guess Bobby Brown had a very bad influence on her.
sad, sad, sad



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-02-12 18:22 by mtaylor.

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dcba
Another one bites the (angel) dust!

It's more than that. Let me offer, without any offense to anyone on planet Earth.

Cocaine will either take your money or your life or even your soul.

Cocaine is for horses, it's not for men...

F UCK! Damn!
Oh no, not her. That Bobby Brown was never any good for her with all his crack head friends. I am really hurt by this news. What a gifted singer. What a waste.

This is why cocaine is one of the worse drugs on the planet. The health issues and the depression that accompany it's regular use were likely too much for this troubled soul. I am pissed off and emotionally spent after hearing this news on IORR today.

RIP Whitney. You'll get your's Bobby... peace

she hasnt done crack or cocaine or bobby brown in a very long time...

doctor prescribes, drugstore supplies, who's gonna help her to kick it?

prescription drugs plus alcohol.

if it was cocaine she'd undoubtedly still be alive.

noel gallagher in the daily mail feb 11:

"I was trying to get off drugs, but I only swapped illegal drugs for prescription
drugs. If you’re on private health care, they’re only too willing to dish them out.
Ask Keith Richards."