Lyrics:
If I
Should stay
I would only be in your way
So I'll go
But I know
I'll think of you every step of
the way
And I...
Will always
Love you, oohh
Will always
Love you
You
My darling you
Mmm-mm
Bittersweet
Memories
That is all I'm taking with me
So good-bye
Please don't cry
We both know I'm not what you
You need
And I...
Will always love you
I...
Will always love you
You, ooh
[Instrumental / Sax solo]
I hope
life treats you kind
And I hope
you have all you've dreamed of
And I wish you joy
and happiness
But above all this
I wish you love
And I...
Will always love you
I...
Will always love you
[Repeat]
I, I will always love
You....
You
Darling I love you
I'll always
I'll always
Love
You..
Oooh
Ooohhh
Bio:
Whitney Houston is inarguably one of the of the biggest female pop stars
of all time. Her accomplishments as a hitmaker are extraordinary; just
to scratch the surface, she became the first artist ever to have seven
consecutive singles hit number one, and her 1993 Dolly Parton cover "I
Will Always Love You" became nothing less than the biggest hit single in
rock history. Houston was able to handle big adult contemporary
ballads, effervescent, stylish dance-pop, and slick urban contemporary
soul with equal dexterity; the result was an across-the-board appeal
that was matched by scant few artists of her era, and helped her become
one of the first black artists to find success on MTV in Michael
Jackson's wake. Like many of the original soul singers, Houston was
trained in gospel before moving into secular music; over time, she
developed a virtuosic singing style given over to swooping, flashy
melodic embellishments. The shadow of Houston's prodigious technique
still looms large over nearly every pop diva and smooth urban soul
singer -- male or female -- in her wake, and spawned a legion of
imitators (despite some critics' complaints about over-singing). Always
more of a singles artist, Houston largely shied away from albums during
the '90s, releasing the bulk of her most popular material on the
soundtracks of films in which she appeared. By the end of the decade,
she'd gone several years without a true blockbuster, yet her status as
an icon was hardly diminished.
Whitney Elizabeth Houston was
born in Newark, NJ, on August 9, 1963; her mother was gospel/R&B
singer Cissy Houston, and her cousin was Dionne Warwick. By age 11,
Houston was performing as a soloist in the junior gospel choir at her
Baptist church; as a teenager, she began accompanying her mother in
concert (as well as on the 1978 album Think It Over), and went on to
back artists like Lou Rawls and Chaka Khan. Houston also pursued
modeling and acting, appearing on the sitcoms Gimme a Break and Silver
Spoons. Somewhat bizarrely, Houston's first recording as a featured
vocalist was with Bill Laswell's experimental jazz-funk ensemble
Material; their 1982 album One Down placed Houston alongside such
unlikely avant-gardists as Archie Shepp and Fred Frith. The following
year, Arista president Clive Davis heard Houston singing at a nightclub
and offered her a record contract. Her first single appearance was a
duet with Teddy Pendergrass, "Hold Me," which missed the Top 40 in 1984.
Houston's debut album, Whitney Houston, was released in March 1985. Its
first single, "Someone for Me," was a flop, but the second try, "You
Give Good Love," became Houston's first hit, topping the R&B charts
and hitting number three pop. Houston's next three singles -- the
Grammy-winning romantic ballad "Saving All My Love for You," the
brightly danceable "How Will I Know," and the inspirational "The
Greatest Love of All" -- all topped the pop charts, and a year to the
month after its release, Whitney Houston hit number one on the album
charts. It eventually sold over 13 million copies, making it the
best-selling debut ever by a female artist. Houston cemented her
superstar status on her next album, Whitney; despite the unimaginative
title, it became the first album by a female artist to debut at number
one, and sold over nine million copies. Its first four singles -- "I
Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" (another Grammy winner),
"Didn't We Almost Have It All," "So Emotional," and "Where Do Broken
Hearts Go" -- all hit number one, an amazing, record-setting run of
seven straight (broken by "Love Will Save the Day"). In late 1988,
Houston scored a Top Five hit with the non-LP single "One Moment in
Time," recorded for an Olympics-themed compilation album.
Houston returned with her third album, I'm Your Baby Tonight, in 1990; a
more urban-sounding, R&B-oriented record, it immediately spun off
two number one hits in the title track and "All the Man That I Need."
But the quality of the material was generally viewed as, overall, much
weaker than her previous efforts, and following those two hits, sales of
the album tapered off quickly, halting around four million copies.
Nevertheless, Houston remained so popular that she could even take a
recording of "The Star Spangled Banner" (performed at the Super Bowl)
into the pop Top 20 -- though, of course, the Gulf War had something to
do with that. In retrospect, the erratic quality of I'm Your Baby
Tonight seemed to signal Houston's declining interest in making fully
fleshed-out albums. Instead, she began to focus on an acting career,
which she hadn't pursued since her teenage years; she also married
singer Bobby Brown in the summer of 1992. Her first feature film, a
romance with Kevin Costner called The Bodyguard, was released in late
1992; it performed well at the box office, helped by an ad campaign
which seemingly centered around the climactic key change in Houston's
soundtrack recording of the Dolly Parton-penned "I Will Always Love
You." In fact, the ad campaign undoubtedly helped "I Will Always Love
You" become the biggest single in pop music history. It set new records
for sales (nearly five million copies) and weeks at number one (14),
although those were later broken by Elton John's "Candle in the Wind
1997" and Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's "One Sweet Day," respectively.
Meanwhile, the soundtrack eventually sold an astounding 16 million
copies, and also won a Grammy for Album of the Year.
Once
Houston had stopped raking in awards and touring the world, she prepared
her next theatrical release, the female ensemble drama Waiting to
Exhale. A few months before its release at the end of 1995, it was
announced that she and Brown had split up; however, they called off the
split just a couple months later, and rumors about their tempestuous
relationship filled the tabloids for years to come. Waiting to Exhale
was released toward the end of the year, and the first single from the
soundtrack, "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)," topped the charts; the album sold
over seven million copies. For her next project, Houston decided to
return to her gospel roots; the soundtrack to the 1996 film The
Preacher's Wife, which naturally featured Houston in the title role, was
loaded with traditional and contemporary gospel songs, plus guest
appearances by Houston's mother, Shirley Caesar, and the Georgia Mass
Choir. Houston also began making headlines for what appeared to be
increasing unreliability, cancelling several TV and concert appearances
due to illness.
In 1998, Houston finally issued a new
full-length album, My Love Is Your Love, her first in eight years.
Houston worked with pop/smooth soul mainstays like Babyface and David
Foster, but also recruited hip-hop stars like Missy Elliott, Wyclef
Jean, Lauryn Hill, and Q-Tip. The album sold even fewer copies than I'm
Your Baby Tonight, but it received Houston's most enthusiastic reviews
in quite some time. Moreover, it produced one of her biggest R&B
chart hits (seven weeks at number one) in the trio number "Heartbreak
Hotel," done with Faith Evans and Kelly Price. She also duetted with
Mariah Carey on "When You Believe," a song from the animated film The
Prince of Egypt. Unfortunately, Houston was also back in the tabloids in
early 2000; she was arrested in Hawaii when airline authorities
reportedly found marijuana in her luggage (the charges were later
dismissed). Speculation about Houston's personal life only grew when she
was dropped from the Academy Awards telecast that March, officially
because of a sore throat, but reputedly due to poor rehearsals and a
generally out-of-it air. Later in the year, Arista released the two-disc
compilation Greatest Hits, which actually featured one disc of hits and
one of remixes; it also included new duets with Enrique Iglesias,
George Michael, and Deborah Cox. It was also announced that Houston had
signed a new deal with Arista worth $100 million, requiring six albums
from the singer. Her personal issues became even more public through the
reality television series Being Bobby Brown, and she eventually
divorced her husband and went into intense rehabilitation. An album of
new material was initially set for release by the end of 2007, but
delays pushed it -- titled I Look to You, featuring collaborations with
Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz, R. Kelly, Akon, and Diane Warren -- back to
September 2009.
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