WHITNEY HOUSTON
Whitney Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer, actress, producer, and model. In 2009, Guinness World Records cited her as the most awarded female act of all time. Houston is one of the best-selling music artists of all-time, with 200 million records sold worldwide. Houston’s crossover appeal on the popular music charts, as well as her prominence on MTV, starting with her video for “How Will I Know”, influenced several African American women artists who follow in her footsteps. Houston is the only artist to chart seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 songs. She is the second artist behind Elton John and the only woman to have two number-one Billboard 200 Album awards on the Billboard magazine year-end charts. Houston’s self-titled debut album (1985) became the best-selling debut album by a woman in history. Houston made her screen acting debut as Rachel Marron in the romantic thriller film The Bodyguard (1992). She performed the lead single from the film’s original soundtrack, “I Will Always Love You”, which received the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and became the best-selling single by a woman in music history. (More from Wikipedia)
Bobby Brown, Don’t be Cruel – When we went to see Tina Turner not long after her hit solo album, Private Dancer came out, someone was giving away a poster as we were leaving that had Tina on one side and New Edition, the opening act on the other side. Anyone who hung onto that poster had quite a collectible I imagine, because New Edition became one of the leading teen pop musical groups not long after that, as well as a template for numerous other groups that have come along since that time – black and white, male and female. Bobby Brown was the lead singer of New Edition, and the remaining members also had success in their later incarnation as Bell Biv DeVoe. Now infamous as the troubled husband of Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown deserves to be known as a fine performer as well, and a leader in the musical scene called new jack swing that his earlier band New Edition had pioneered. Don’t be Cruel (1988) includes the powerful hit single that I still hear on the radio a lot, “My Prerogative”; Allmusic gives the album a 5 star rating.
(December 2015)
