Early life of Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston was born in a rough neighborhood in the projects of Newark, New Jersey. Whitney Houston is the third and youngest child of John and gospel singer Cissy Houston. Whitney Houston mother, along with Cousin Dionne Warwick and godmother Aretha Franklin are all notable figures in the gospel, rhythm and blues, pop, and soul genres. Whitney Houston was raised a Baptist, but was also exposed to the Pentecostal church. After the 1967 Newark riots, the family moved to a middle class area in West Orange, New Jersey when she was four. At the age of eleven, Whitney Houston began to follow in her mothers footsteps and started performing as a soloist in the junior gospel choir at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where she also learned to play the piano. Her first solo performance in the church was “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”. When Houston was a teenager, her parents divorced and she continued to live with her mother. She attended a Roman Catholic single-sex high school, Mount Saint Dominic Academy, where she met her best friend Robyn Crawford, whom she describes as the “sister she never had.” While Houston was still in school, her mother continued to teach her how to sing. In addition to her mother, Franklin, and Warwick, Houston was also exposed to the music of Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, and Roberta Flack, most of whom would have an impact on her as a singer and performer.
Whitney Houston was born in a rough neighborhood in the projects of Newark, New Jersey. Whitney Houston is the third and youngest child of John and gospel singer Cissy Houston. Whitney Houston mother, along with Cousin Dionne Warwick and godmother Aretha Franklin are all notable figures in the gospel, rhythm and blues, pop, and soul genres. Whitney Houston was raised a Baptist, but was also exposed to the Pentecostal church. After the 1967 Newark riots, the family moved to a middle class area in West Orange, New Jersey when she was four. At the age of eleven, Whitney Houston began to follow in her mothers footsteps and started performing as a soloist in the junior gospel choir at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where she also learned to play the piano. Her first solo performance in the church was “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”. When Houston was a teenager, her parents divorced and she continued to live with her mother. She attended a Roman Catholic single-sex high school, Mount Saint Dominic Academy, where she met her best friend Robyn Crawford, whom she describes as the “sister she never had.” While Houston was still in school, her mother continued to teach her how to sing. In addition to her mother, Franklin, and Warwick, Houston was also exposed to the music of Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, and Roberta Flack, most of whom would have an impact on her as a singer and performer.
Early career of Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston spent some of her teenage years touring nightclubs with her mother while Cissy was performing, and she would occasionally get on stage and perform with her mother. In 1977, at age fourteen, she was the lead vocalist on the Michael Zager Band’s single “Life’s a Party” (the group is known for their 1978 hit “Let’s All Chant”). Zager subsequently offered to help obtain a recording contract for the young singer, but Cissy declined, wanting her young daughter to finish school first. Then in 1978, at age fifteen, Houston sang background vocals on Chaka Khan’s hit single “I’m Every Woman”, a song she would later turn into a hit for herself on her monstrous-selling soundtrack album The Bodyguard. She also would sing back-up on albums by Lou Rawls and Jermaine Jackson. In the early 1980s, Houston then started working as a fashion model after a photographer saw her at Carnegie Hall singing with her mother. She appeared in Seventeen Magazine and became one of the first women of color to grace the cover of Seventeen magazine. Whitney Houston also appeared in a Canada Dry soft drink commercial. While modeling, she continued her burgeoning recording career by working with producers Michael Bienhorn, Bill Laswell and Martin Bisi on an album they were spearheading called One Down, which was credited to the group Material. For that project, Houston contributed the ballad “Memories”. Robert Christgau of the The Village Voice called her contribution “one of the most gorgeous ballads you’ve ever heard”.Sell & Buy Whitney Houston tickets
