Thomas J. West Music

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In that great divide between academic music and popular music, there are certain pop artists who catch the attention of musicians everywhere, no matter what kind of music they focus their attention on. Whitney Houston was one of those pop artists.

Whitney Houston reached international prominence in 1985 at the ripe old age of 22. She was entered in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most-awarded female act of all time at 415 career awards. 6 Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, and 22 American Music Awards are among those she received. [LINK]

Whitney Houston had a singularly powerful and yet sensitive singing voice. She could belt with the best of them, then turn on a dime and sing with feathery upper register tones. She will always be remembered for her cover of Dolly Parton's song "I Will Always Love You" from the soundtrack of the movie The Bodyguard. One of her other crowning moments was her performance of the United States National Anthem at Super Bowl XXV in 1991. This performance of The Star-Spangled Banner is still my favorite of all time, so much so that I have already featured the YouTube video of it here.

Whitney Houston passed away under unknown circumstances at the age of 48 just one night before the 54th Grammy Awards broadcast. Emcee L.L. Cool J. opened the broadcast with a prayer, a clip of Whitney singing at the Grammys, and later in the broadcast, Jennifer Hudson gave a stirring performance of "I Will Always Love You" in tribute (please forgive the annotation at the end directing you to a Bruno Mars tantrum - this is the best quality video available at the moment).

Watch on YouTube

My contemporary a cappella group KeyStone is planning a tribute song of our own to honor the passing of a great talent. We're old pros at this - it was the passing of Michael Jackson that brought us together as a group for the first time to perform a tribute of the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There". I will be sure to post a recording of our choice of song once it is recorded.

I, along with many other musicians and fans the world over, mourn the loss of another fantastic vocalist and performer who left us too soon. Whitney didn't sing a song, she channeled it. Her every note was emotional and expressive without being overdone or tripe. Godspeed.

This article (c) 2012 Thomas J. West. All content on ThomasJWestMusic dot com is licensed under a Creative Contributions Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Please contact the author before publishing on or off-line.

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