Memorial Page for Whitney Houston (née Whitney Elizabeth Houston)

Whitney Houston (born 9 August 1963 in Newark, New Jersey; died 11 February 2012 in Beverly Hills, California) was an American singer and actress. Her voice is widely regarded as one of the clearest and most powerful in popular music. Whitney Houston sang out of a tradition that began in church, and she gave back a remarkable share of what that voice earned her. With more than 220 million records sold, she ranks among the most successful recording artists of all time.

A childhood between the pew and the recording studio

Whitney Elizabeth Houston grew up in Newark and, from 1970, in Doddtown, a section of East Orange. In this family music was not a pastime but a profession and a calling. Her mother Cissy Houston sang with the Drinkard Singers, founded the Sweet Inspirations and led the music of the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark for decades. Her father John Russell Houston Jr. served in the US Army and later worked in the administration of Newark mayor Kenneth A. Gibson; he managed his wife’s career and later his daughter’s. The singer Dionne Warwick was her cousin; Aretha Franklin was something of an honorary aunt, whom Whitney Houston called “Aunt Ree”. Her godmother was the singer Darlene Love. She grew up with her older brothers Michael and Gary.

She gave her first solo performance in that same church in November 1975, aged twelve, singing the hymn “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”. At fourteen she was already singing backing vocals at her mother’s Manhattan engagements; in February 1978 she stood on stage at one of her mother’s concerts at New York’s Town Hall and sang “Tomorrow” from the musical “Annie”. Later that year she entered a recording studio for the first time: “Life’s a Party” by the Michael Zager Band, released in August 1978, was one of the very first recordings she ever made.

Years later she described what those years in church had felt like, in an interview with Rolling Stone:

“When I used to watch my mother sing, which was usually in church, that feeling, that soul, that thing — it’s like electricity rolling through you.”

Arista and the start of a career

She was discovered by Gerry Griffith, who scouted new voices for Arista Records and had seen her on stage alongside her mother. He persuaded label chief Clive Davis to come and listen. In April 1983 the nineteen-year-old signed with Arista. A few weeks later, on 23 June 1983, Davis introduced her to a national television audience on the Merv Griffin Show, where she sang “Home” from the musical “The Wiz”. Her first single under her own name was not a solo track but the duet “Hold Me” with Teddy Pendergrass, released on 24 May 1984 as the first single from his album “Love Language”; it reached number 46 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Seven consecutive US number ones

Her debut album “Whitney Houston” was released on 14 February 1985. The album took roughly thirteen months to reach the top of the Billboard 200, which it did on 8 March 1986; it then held that position for fourteen non-consecutive weeks. Three of its singles — “Saving All My Love for You”, “How Will I Know” and “Greatest Love of All” — went to number one in the United States; no debut album had achieved that before. It sold more than twenty million copies worldwide and stands as the best-selling debut album by a female solo artist. On 25 February 1986 she received her first Grammy at the Shrine Auditorium; an Emmy followed that September.

Her second album, “Whitney”, entered the Billboard 200 at number one on 27 June 1987 — according to Guinness World Records the first album by a solo female artist to do so — and held that position for eleven weeks. Four of its singles topped the Hot 100; she became the first woman in chart history to take four songs from a single album to number one. On 23 April 1988 “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” reached the summit, her seventh consecutive US number one. With it she surpassed the record previously shared by the Beatles and the Bee Gees at six apiece. No one has matched it since. “One Moment in Time”, the theme of the American broadcast of the Seoul Olympics, followed in August 1988. The Moment of Truth tour carried the album around the world and brought her home to New Jersey in August 1987.

The anthem she gave away

On 27 January 1991 Whitney Houston sang the American national anthem before Super Bowl XXV at Tampa Stadium, accompanied by the Florida Orchestra under Jahja Ling. The performance came during the days of the Gulf War, and its effect was such that the recording was released as a single at the public’s request, reaching number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100. She donated her share of the proceeds to the American Red Cross Gulf Crisis Fund; together with Arista Records and BMG the total came to 531,650 dollars. The Red Cross subsequently appointed her to its board of governors.

Two months later, on 31 March 1991, she sang at Naval Air Station Norfolk in Virginia for 3,500 service members returning from the Gulf and their families. HBO opened the evening to everyone — subscribers and non-subscribers alike.

Ten years later, after the attacks of 11 September 2001, the same recording was reissued as a single on 26 September. The proceeds went to the New York Firefighters 9/11 Disaster Relief Fund and to the New York Fraternal Order of Police.

“The Bodyguard” and a song that stayed

Her greatest success already lay behind her. In 1992 Whitney Houston brought music and film together for the first time. The soundtrack to “The Bodyguard”, on which she worked as a producer, appeared on 17 November; eight days later Mick Jackson’s film opened in cinemas, with Whitney Houston as the singer Rachel Marron alongside Kevin Costner. Her version of “I Will Always Love You” — written by Dolly Parton in 1973 — topped the Billboard Hot 100 for fourteen weeks from 28 November 1992. No female singer has ever sold more copies of a single — on record, tape and CD. The soundtrack became the best-selling soundtrack album of all time; on 3 November 1993 the RIAA honoured it for ten million copies sold in the United States, the first album by a female artist to reach that mark. At the Grammy ceremony on 1 March 1994 she received the awards for Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

She had married the singer Bobby Brown on 18 July 1992; their daughter Bobbi Kristina, her only child, was born on 4 March 1993. She continued to act in the years that followed: “Waiting to Exhale” (1995), based on the novel by Terry McMillan, and “The Preacher’s Wife” (1996) opposite Denzel Washington — the film’s gospel soundtrack led the American gospel charts for twenty-six weeks. In 1997 came the television production of “Cinderella”, in which she played the fairy godmother while also serving as executive producer; she gave the title role to the young singer Brandy. “My Love Is Your Love” followed in 1998, and that same year she recorded the duet “When You Believe” with Mariah Carey. Written by Stephen Schwartz for “The Prince of Egypt”, the song won the Academy Award for best original song in March 1999; the two performed it at the ceremony.

For Mandela

What her voice earned she kept giving away — and one of those occasions came long before her years in film. On 11 June 1988 Whitney Houston sang at London’s Wembley Stadium at the concert marking Nelson Mandela’s seventieth birthday. She performed eight songs, among them a duet with her mother. Mandela was still imprisoned at the time; the broadcast reached 67 countries.

Six years later Mandela was President of South Africa. On 4 October 1994 she sang at the state dinner Bill and Hillary Clinton gave for him at the White House. That November she travelled to South Africa as one of the first international musicians to perform there after the end of apartheid, giving three concerts — in Durban on 8 November, Johannesburg on the 12th and Cape Town on the 19th. She pledged the proceeds to South African children’s charities, among them two children’s museums and the President’s Trust Fund. She had founded the Whitney Houston Foundation for Children in 1989.

In the German-speaking countries

Whitney Houston gave her first German concerts at the Festhalle in Frankfurt on 20 and 21 May 1988, followed by Berlin and Dortmund. On 16 June 1988 she performed at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna and on 18 and 19 June at the St. Jakobshalle in Basel, before the tour closed with three nights at the Olympiahalle in Munich. “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” had led the German singles chart for five weeks in June 1987, “One Moment in Time” for two more in the autumn of 1988. In early 1993 “The Bodyguard” set the tone there as well: the soundtrack album spent eleven weeks at the top of the German album chart, while “I Will Always Love You” spent six weeks at the top of the German singles chart; in Austria the single reached number one on 24 January 1993.

On 20 February 1999 she appeared on the German television show “Wetten, dass..?” at the Halle Münsterland, singing “It’s Not Right but It’s Okay”; that November she received the Bambi award in Berlin in the Pop International category — her only German award. Ten years later, on 3 October 2009, she was a guest on the same programme once more, for its season opening in Freiburg.

Quieter years and a return

By the turn of the millennium Whitney Houston had spent fifteen years in the public eye.

After “Just Whitney” (2002) and the Christmas album “One Wish” (2003), on which she recorded a song with her daughter, her music went quiet for several years: no new studio album appeared for six years, and in 2007 her marriage to Bobby Brown ended.

“I Look to You” was released in Europe on 28 August 2009 and in the United States three days later. It was her seventh studio album, and it would be her last. In the US it entered the Billboard 200 at number one, and it topped the charts in Germany and Switzerland as well. On 1 September 2009 she sang in New York’s Central Park for “Good Morning America” to launch the album.

The Nothing but Love World Tour followed, her tenth and last concert tour. In May 2010 it took her through Germany, Austria and Switzerland, ending on 31 May at the Frankfurt Festhalle; the final concert of the whole tour took place in Manchester on 17 June 2010. In the autumn of 2011 she was in Detroit filming “Sparkle”, on which she also worked as a producer.

Farewell

On 9 February 2012 Whitney Houston sang “Jesus Loves Me” unannounced at a party ahead of the Grammy ceremony in Hollywood — the hymn of her childhood, and the last time she sang in public. Two days later, on 11 February 2012, she died in Beverly Hills at the age of 48.

The funeral was held on 18 February 2012 at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, the church of her childhood. It lasted almost four hours. CeCe Winans sang “Jesus Loves Me”, Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys performed, and Kevin Costner and Clive Davis spoke. Only one camera was allowed inside the church, that of the Associated Press. Through it, millions of people around the world were able to say goodbye from home. The following day Whitney Houston was buried in a private ceremony at Fairview Cemetery in Westfield, New Jersey — beside the grave of her father, who had died in 2003.

“Sparkle” opened posthumously in August 2012, dedicated to her memory. The duet “Celebrate” with Jordin Sparks was her final studio recording.

Legacy

Of every artist whose albums Billboard has charted since the charts began, Whitney Houston stands at number 15. On 28 October 2020 she became the first Black woman in music history to have three albums certified diamond by the RIAA. A few days later, on 7 November 2020, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted her as a performer on her first nomination; Alicia Keys delivered the induction speech and her mother Cissy Houston accepted the honour.

Since December 2020 a mural of more than 450 kilograms of hand-cut glass mosaic by the artist Maude Lemaire has commemorated her in Newark, and since 2023 a permanent exhibition has been on view at the service area named after her on the Garden State Parkway in Union. In 2022 “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”, a biographical film authorised by her estate, opened in cinemas; in 2023 the gospel album “I Go to the Rock” was released, containing recordings from 1981 that had never come out before. On 31 January 2026 the Recording Academy honoured her posthumously with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Whitney E. Houston Legacy Foundation continues her charitable work. Each year around her birthday the foundation hosts the “Legacy of Love” gala, whose proceeds fund scholarships and education programmes for young people.