Really? Sheesh.
I can’t say I was ever a huge Whitney Houston fan, but she definitely first hit during some very formative years of mine. She was one of the first women I ever looked at and thought “how could anyone be that good-looking?” (That was probably the video for “How Will I Know?”) Nancy, my colleague at Taco Bell, loved “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” “So Emotional” was part of the soundtrack I hold dear from my time at The Yogurt Shoppe, back when CDs were a novel technology and I was spending my Sunday mornings cleaning and maintaining the Taylor soft-serve machines at 181-8 Hughes Road with the stereo cranked.
She could have been legendary. Some will say she was. I will not.
I will instead say that she was cut down too late to be an icon of youthful genius, but too early to be a matron of the art.
I will as well assert, I believe inarguably, that she robbed herself of a great deal with her self-destructive behavior.
RIP.
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She had an amazingly powerful voice and one of the few (well-known) performers who didn’t mangle our national anthem, but her addictions were her downfall. Sadly, I thought she would be gone years ago. Hopefully she’s free of her demons and at peace now.
“Powerful” is the word.
Yeah, there was a time several years ago where I thought she might die too. Lots of mumblings about crack and what-not.