RIP, Whitney Houston

Pop-soul singer and one-time record breaking hitmaker Whitney Houston died on Saturday night in Los Angeles on the eve of the Grammy awards.

As of Sunday morning, the cause of death of the 48 year old Newark, N.J. native, whose once pristine image was was sullied by years of self-destructive drug use and wildly unpredictable behavior, was still unnannounced.

Houston died in her hotel room on the fourth floor of the Beverly Hilton hotel on Saturday afternoon, west coast time. An annual pre-Grammy party thrown by Houston's music industry patron, legendary executive Clive Davis, was scheduled to take place, with Houston performing, in the ballroom of the same hotel on Saturday night.

The show went on, and turned into an unplanned Houston memorial, as tonight's Grammy telecast from the Staples Center undoubtedly will also. According to Recording Academy chief Neil Portnow, Jennifer Hudson will perform a tribute to Houston during the show, which airs on CBS at 8.

At the party, Davis said of Houston, "She graced this stage with her regal presence so many times," according to a Wall Street Journal report. "Whitney would have wanted the music to go on and her family asked us to carry on." Tony Bennett and Diana Krall opened the Davis party with a duet of "How Do I Keep The Music Playing?" and Bennett called Houston, "the greatest singer I ever heard in my life."

Below, the video for "I Will Always Love You," Houston's mega-hit cover of the Dolly Parton song from the 1992 soundtrack to The Bodyguard. The song stayed atop of the Billboard charts for a then-record 14 weeks.

Previously: POTUS Likes Raphael Saadiq, Wilco and Sugarland: Barack Obama's Spotify Playlist Follow In The Mix on Twitter here

Posted by Dan Deluca @ 10:13 AM Permalink | 2 comments

Comments

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:38 AM, 02/12/2012

Thank you Whitney, Thank you Dolly.

— NewfieBoy

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 11:46 AM, 02/12/2012

The singer for many serves as a reminder of the heady days of the 80′s and 90′s when she first appeared on the landscape with her dazzling looks and even more dazzling voice but with her eventual degeneration and capitulation the illusion of grandeur and invincibility began to fade which in some way hinted at the disillusionment the star experienced but probably says more about the public’s own addiction that their hero (never mind her addictions) could no longer be the role model that we demanded her to be.

Then again why the relentless pursuit of making entertainers heroes in the first place and should we really be surprised that it came to this, the eve of a ceremony that she once reigned supreme?

http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2012/02/theory-emerges-that-whitney-houston-may-have-died-due-to-prescription-drugs/

— scallywag