Pbenjay's Blog

Whitney Houston

I’m just one of hundreds maybe thousands of bloggers who will write a few words today extolling the virtuosity of Whitney’s magnificent voice and bemoaning the tragedy of her untimely death!

There will be eulogies in the newspapers, song retrospectives on the radio, youtube videos, and of course a meaningful tribute tonight on the Grammy’s.  I don’t usually watch the Grammy’s because the fact is I don’t listen to really contemporary music.  I freely admit it – I like classical music, all the songs from the Great American Songbook, some country-western and I love the music of my own youth; Doo Wop and the songs of the 70’s and 80’s.

I’m really sorry that Whitney Houston killed herself.  Yes! She did!  Whether intentionally or not as we will find out in the next few days, we know that her long love affair with drugs ended her life long before it should have.  And that lays her death at her own feet.

Why? Who knows?  On the news this morning, the usual trite explanatory phrase was used to describe this event.  “She had her share of tragedy”.  Well really now, I almost want to say who hasn’t?  My own mother died when I was 9, I have friends who have lost a child to SIDS, to a car accident, and cancer before the child was 5.  At least half of the population in their 30’s now, are products of divorce and yet NOT everyone succumbs to the escape of reality through drugs. And NOT everyone is as gifted and blessed as Whitney Houston was in talent.  Not to mention, she was born into a family with roots in the music business and that certainly couldn’t have hurt her career and rise to stardom.

Whitney Houston joins the long list of self-destructive talented people who killed themselves by CHOOSING to do drugs: River Phoenix, Jimmy Hendrix,  Heath Ledger, Marilyn Monroe, Janis Joplin, Jonathan Melvion, Nick Adams, Pier Angelli, Charles Boyer, Lenny Bruce, Kurt Cobain, Brian Cole, Judy Garland, Paul Gray, Michael Jackson, Brian Jones, Bruce Lee, Alan Ladd, Frankie Lymon, Billy MacKenzie, Keith Moon, Anna Nicole Smith, Jim Morrison, Brent Mydland, Elvis Presley, Freddie Prinze, Sid Vicious,Flattus Maximus, Layne Staley, Ike Turner, Dinah Washington, Mikey Welsh, Amy Winehouse.  There were more, lots…but I was unfamiliar with some of the bands and not sure of their notoriety

So I’m not going to mourn Whitney Houston, the troubled person, I leave that to her mom, her daughter, even her ex-husband, Bobby Brown.  BUT Whitney Houston, the singer with the extraordinary voice and style of her own.  Yes.  I’m sorry she died.  We have her musical legacy and she will live on in the hearts of those who loved her songs and appreciated what she accomplished in the music world.

Whitney Houston will be best remembered for:

I Will Always Love You – 1992

Greatest Love of All – 1986

How Will I now – 1985

All The Man That I Need – 1990

I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) – 1987

Where Do Broken Hearts Go? – 1988

Didn’t We Almost Have It All? – 1987

Saving All My Love For You – 1985

I’m Your Baby Tonight – 1990

So Emotional – 1987