Whitney Elizabeth Houston was born August 9, 1963
in Newark, New Jersey to Army serviceman and entertainment executive John
Russell Houston Jr. and gospel singer Emily Drinkard Houston who we know as
Cissy Houston. Whitney has two older
brothers Gary Garland, who is also a singer and Michael Houston. According to the Biography Channel website it
was said that Whitney Houston almost seemed destined from birth to become a
singer (Whitney Houston, 2013). Her mother Cissy Houston, Cousin Dionne
Warwick, and godmother Aretha Franklin were all legendary figures in American
gospel and soul music. Whitney was
raised a Baptist, but was also exposed to the Pentecostal church. When Whitney was four years old her family
moved to a middle-class area in East Orange, New Jersey. She met Aretha Franklin when she was eight years
old at a recording studio and at the age of 11 Whitney started performing as a
soloist in the junior gospel choir at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New
Jersey where her mother was the choir minister.
She also learned to play the piano at New Hope Baptist Church. Even as a child, Whitney was able to wow
audiences; she later told interviewer Diane Sawyer that a rapturous response
from the congregation at New Hope had a powerful effect upon her: “I think I
knew then that [my singing ability] was an infectious thing that God had given
me (Whitney Houston, 2013).”
Whitney’s first solo performance was in church
where she sang “Guide Me, O Though Great Jehovah ("Whitney Houston,"
1986).” As a teenager Whitney attended
Mount Saint Dominic Academy, a catholic girls’ high school in Caldwell, New
Jersey where she met her best friend Robyn Crawford. While still in school Cissy continued to
teach Whitney how to sing by having her not only sing in the church choir but
she also sang back up at Cissy’s shows in various clubs throughout the New York
area. After one performance at Carnegie
Hall, a photographer spotted Whitney and referred her to a newly established
modeling company named click. Whitney
signed on with Click and then moved on to Wilhelmina where they managed to have
her appear in magazines like Vogue and become one of the first African-American
females to appear on the cover of Seventeen ("The Soul of Whitney,"
2008). After graduating high school Whitney
continued to model and sung back up for Lou Rawls and Chaka Khan before Clive
Davis spotted her at a Manhattan showcase and signed her to a record deal at
the tender age of 19 years old.
Whitney Houston was raised in a family of notable
figures in the gospel, rhythm and blues, pop and soul genres like Dionne
Warwick, Dee Dee Warwick, Darlene Love and Aretha Franklin, which in my opinion
was the biggest influence on her decision to want to sing. Whitney tried a modeling career and was great
at it but her passion was in music. In a
rolling stone interview Whitney recollected a memory of when she use to hear
her mother sing around the house and in church, she stated that her mother
would always say to her “ If you don’t
feel it, then don’t mess with it, because it’s a waste of time.” In that very same interview Whitney also
stated that when she watched her mother sing in church, “that feeling, that soul, that thing—it’s like electricity rolling
through you. If you ever been in a
Baptist or a Pentecostal church, when the Holy Spirit starts to roll and people
start to rally feel what they are doing, it’s…it’s incredible. That’s what I want (Whitney Houston,
2013).”
The environment that Whitney was exposed to at a
very young age on a regular basis helped Whitney identify with what she wanted
to do with her life. Whitney enjoyed
accompanying her mother to shows and singing back-up which also helped
influence her decision to be in the music industry. Whitney’s musical intelligence and her daily
observation of how her mother Cissy, Dionne and Aretha worked their way through
their musical careers also played a major role in her career excelling because
she was paying very close attention to everything. I also believe that Cissy’s Houston guidance
and Whitney’s passion for music and determination helped Whitney’s career excel
at an early age making her a dynamic singer and performer.
Whitney had an amazing support system throughout
her career within her family. Her family
worked for her and with her well before she formed her very own Management
Company named Nippy Inc., which was a nickname that was given to her by her
father John Houston who ran the company, it was a cartoon character that
constantly got into trouble (Top ten things you should know about Whitney
Houston, 2012).
According to the article top ten things you should
know about Whitney Houston, “Houston
loved nothing more than hanging at home with her husband, she loved to vacuum
–because she liked immediate results –and her husband loved to cook. Left to themselves, they wanted to be a fully
functioning family.” In that very
same article the interviewer stated that “Whitney
was someone who wanted to be normal and just go for a slice of pizza at a place
she liked near her home in New Jersey, but wound up eating it in her car. The eyes on her were too much,” the
former associate said.
Whitney Houston was internationally known as a
“mega-celebrity” to everyone but people forgot that she was human and dealt
with many struggles in her life. Whitney
loved to sing, music was her passion but the fame that came with her talent was
very overwhelming. In my opinion I
believe the fact that Whitney could not live a normal life caused her a great
deal of pain. She knew that everyone
loved her music because the charts displayed that but did they love her as a
person was a question she probably struggled with. Every little thing Whitney
did out of the ordinary was put on display and I believe the fact that her life
was under a microscope is what made her so unhappy in life.
The early allegations of her having a lesbian
affair with her best friend Robyn Crawford who was also her manager nearly
destroyed their friendship ("The Soul of Whitney," 2008). Although Whitney professed to not care what
others thought, it had to have some type of negative impact on her
psychologically. The allegations of her
drug abuse were a definite indication of Whitney wanting to escape the reality
of her not having the normal life she wanted so badly.
According to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical
theory of personality, personality is composed of three elements. These three elements are known as the id, the
ego and the superego. In what I have
learned of Whitney Houston I believe her id was driven by her music but she
struggled within herself dealing with her ego.
The ego is the component that is responsible for dealing with
reality. According to Freud the ego
develops from the id and ensures that the impulses of the id can be expressed
in a manner acceptable in the real world (Cherry, 2013). I personally do not believe that Whitney
Houston ego allowed her to deal with the reality that although she was human
like everyone else, people were going to hold her in a different light because
of her superstardom.
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