Whitney Houston
Born on August 9th, 1963, Whitney Houston is an American recording artist, actress, and fashion model.
Houston began singing at the New Jersey church as a member of a junior gospel choir at age eleven. After she began performing alongside her mother at nightclubs in the New York City area, Arista Records label head Clive Davis discovered her and offered her a worldwide recording contract, which Houston signed in 1983.
Her first single released in 1984, titled “Hold Me”. This reached #5 on the UK R&B charts and proved to be her first taste of success.
In February 1985, Houston’s self-titled debut album was released. Rolling Stone Magazine praised the new talent, calling her “one of the most exciting new voices in years. The New York Times called the album “an impressive, musically conservative showcase for an exceptional vocal talent.
The next single was a soulful ballad called “You Give Good Love”, which peaked at #3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 while a #1 on the R&B Charts.
Her first Grammy award was for ‘Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female’ for “Saving All My Love for You”. At the same award show she also performed the Grammy-winning hit. This performance won her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program, later.
In 1989, Houston formed The Whitney Houston Foundation For Children, a non-profit organization that has raised funds for the needs of children around the world. The organization cares for homelessness, children with AIDS and Cancer and other issues of self-empowerment.
Houston was undoubtedly the international crossover superstar-the most prominent since Michael Jackson, appealing to all demographics, with the success of her first two albums.
Whitney met Bobby Brown, R&B singer (formerly of New Edition) at the 1989 Soul Train Music Awards. After a three-year courtship, the two married on July 18, 1992.
“The Bodyguard” was Houston’s first film role, co-starring Kevin Kostner. It was a huge success at the box office, grossing more than $121 million in the U.S. and $410 million worldwide.
Her concerts, movies, and recording grosses made her the third highest earning female entertainer of 1993-1994.Houston was placed in the top five of Entertainment Weekly’s annual “Entertainer of the Year” and was labeled by Premier Magazine as one of the 100 most powerful people in Hollywood. She starred in the movies: “Waiting to Exhale”, “The Preacher’s Wife”, and “Cinderella”.
After spending much of the early and mid 1990s working on motion pictures, Houston’s first studio album in eight years, the critically acclaimed “My Love Is Your Love”, was released in November 1998. The album gave Whitney some of her strongest reviews ever. She subsequently released studio albums including “Just Whitney” .She was awarded the first annual Lifetime Achievement Award by BET in 2001.
Whitney Houston’s marriage to Bobby Brown ended in 2006, amidst widespread media coverage of personal and professional turmoil.
Arista released The Ultimate Collection in October 2007. Houston released her new album, I Look To You, on August 31, 2009. The first two singles in the album are “I Look To You” and “Million Dollar Bill”. The album entered the Billboard 200 at no.1, with Houston’s best opening-week sales of 305,000 copies.
Houston is one of the world’s best music artists, having sold over 140 million albums and 50 million singles worldwide. The Recording Industry Association of America, ranked her as the fourth best-selling female artist in the United States with 54 million certified albums.
- Kritika Rao
Tags: american singer, houston, houston grammy award, music, whitney, whitney houston
Related Posts:Related Posts
Leave a Comment
