Whitney Houston

The New York Times Bestseller! After decades of silence, Robyn Crawford, close friend, collaborator, and confidante of Whitney Houston, shares her story. Whitney Houston is as big a superstar as the music business has ever known. She exploded on the scene in 1985 with her debut album and spent the next two decades dominating the charts and capturing the hearts of fans around the world. One person was there by her side through it all—her best friend, Robyn Crawford. Since Whitney’s death in 2012, Robyn has stayed out of the limelight and held the great joys, wild adventures, and hard truths of her life with Whitney close to her heart. Now, for the first time ever, Crawford opens up in her memoir, A Song for You. With warmth, candor, and an impressive recall of detail, Robyn describes the two meeting as teenagers in the 1980s, and how their lives and friendship evolved as Whitney recorded her first album and Robyn pursued her promising Division I basketball career. Together during countless sold-out world tours, behind the scenes as hit after hit was recorded, through Whitney’s marriage and the birth of her daughter, the two navigated often challenging families, great loves, and painful losses, always supporting each other with laughter and friendship. Deeply personal and heartfelt, A Song for You is the vital, honest, and previously untold story that provides an understanding of the complex life of Whitney Houston. Finally, the person who knew her best sets the record straight.

Named a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR... SO FAR by The New Yorker Named a BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH by The Washington Post A candid exploration of the genius, shame, and celebrity of Whitney Houston a decade after her passing On February 11, 2012, Whitney Houston was found submerged in the bathtub of her suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. In the decade since, the world has mourned her death amid new revelations about her relationship to her Blackness, her sexuality, and her addictions. Didn’t We Almost Have It All is author Gerrick Kennedy’s exploration of the duality of Whitney’s life as both a woman in the spotlight and someone who often had to hide who she was. This is the story of Whitney’s life, her whole life, told with both grace and honesty. Long before that fateful day in 2012, Whitney split the world wide open with her voice. Hers was a once-in-a-generation talent forged in Newark, NJ, and blessed with the grace of the church and the wisdom of a long lineage of famous gospel singers. She redefined “The Star-Spangled Banner.” She became a box-office powerhouse, a queen of the pop charts, and an international superstar. But all the while, she was forced to rein in who she was amid constant accusations that her music wasn’t Black enough, original enough, honest enough. Kennedy deftly peels back the layers of Whitney’s complex story to get to the truth at the core of what drove her, what inspired her, and what haunted her. He pulls the narrative apart into the key elements that informed her life—growing up in the famed Drinkard family; the two romantic relationships that shaped the entirety of her adult life, with Robyn Crawford and Bobby Brown; her fraught relationship to her own Blackness and the ways in which she was judged by the Black community; her drug and alcohol addiction; and, finally, the shame that she carried in her heart, which informed every facet of her life. Drawing on hundreds of sources, Kennedy takes readers back to a world in which someone like Whitney simply could not be, and explains in excruciating detail the ways in which her fame did not and could not protect her. In the time since her passing, the world and the way we view celebrity have changed dramatically. A sweeping look at Whitney’s life, Didn’t We Almost Have It All contextualizes her struggles against the backdrop of tabloid culture, audience consumption, mental health stigmas, and racial divisions in America. It explores exactly how and why we lost a beloved icon far too soon.

Whitney Houston is a show-business phenomenon and one of Hollywood's most sought-after black actresses. Here is the first-ever behind-the-scenes book about Whitney. Good Girl, Bad Girl is written by Kevin Ammons, who spent a great deal of time with Whitney since his girlfriend, Regina Brown, was Whitney's publicist. During his four-year affair with Brown, Ammons saw Whitney at her bitchiest, and he found that beneath her glamorous image lies a troubled woman who let success go to her head. The book travels behind closed doors to reveal - Why Whitney really married Bobby Brown - Why her close childhood friend, Robyn Crawford, threatened suicide - Why Kevin Costner, Oprah Winfrey, and Madonna are on her hate list - Why Whitney refuses to heed doctor's warnings that she will ruin her voice - The truth behind her affairs with Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro. Like Whitney Houston's life and career, this remarkable inside story sizzles.

Since Whitney Houston's tragic and untimely death, the public has gotten to know heretofore private family members such as Pat Houston, who is married to Whitney's brother and served as a trusted manager of the singer's career. She will express her sense of loss, her love and memories of Whitney Houston in the closing pages of this book. Clive Davis, the legendary music industry mogul who guided her career will open the book with his reflections on the star. While in between, the photographic work and words of famed photographer Randee St. Nicholas will show what it was like for Randee and the other photographers featured in this book to work with one of the greatest singers in the world who was also one of the great beauties of the world.

Whitney Houston’s voice. A voice of raw power and angelic sweetness, tremendous range, and incredible control. When the world first heard it back in 1984, a new chapter was written in the annals of popular music. Author Narada Michael Walden sat in the cockpit alongside Whitney while her career skyrocketed, producing many of the hits that today comprise her musical legacy—among them, “How Will I Know,” “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” “Where Do Broken Hearts Go,” and “One Moment in Time.” His intimate stories of their unforgettable times together, both inside and outside the recording studio, draw a portrait of a smart, funny, compassionate woman whose striking physical beauty was matched by her inner strength and justifiable self-confidence. As the cousin of Dionne Warwick and daughter of Cissy Houston, Whitney was able to draw on her lineage to make an unprecedented impact. And, at the same time, she and Narada enjoyed a rock-solid bond, fostered through their shared musical and spiritual backgrounds. It is for Whitney’s legion of loving fans—several thousand of whom crowded outside the church where Narada attended her funeral service in February 2012—that he is now telling the story of the fabulously gifted artist and caring, charismatic woman he knew during her peak years. She remains the only artist to have seven consecutive U.S. chart-topping singles, and is the most awarded female act of all time.

Honest and heartbreaking, a mother's story of tears, joy, and her greatest love of all—her daughter, Whitney On the eve of the 2012 Grammy Awards, the world learned of a stunning tragedy: Whitney Houston, unquestionably one of the most remarkable and powerful voices in all of music, had been silenced forever. Over the weeks and months that followed, family, friends, and fans alike tried to understand how such a magnificent talent and beautiful soul could have been taken so early and so unexpectedly. Glamorous and approachable, captivating and sweet, Whitney had long ago won the hearts of America, but in recent years her tumultuous personal life had grabbed as many headlines as her soaring vocal talents. Her sudden death left behind not only a legacy of brilliance, but also painful questions with no easy answers. Now, for the first time, the beloved superstar's mother, Cissy Houston—a gospel legend in her own right—relates the full, astonishing scope of the pop icon's life and career. From Whitney's earliest days singing in the church choir to her rapid ascent to the pinnacles of music stardom, from her string of number one hits to her topping the Hollywood box office, Cissy recounts her daughter's journey to becoming one of the most popular and successful artists of all time. Setting the record straight, Cissy also speaks candidly about Whitney's struggles in the limelight, revealing the truth about her turbulent marriage to singer Bobby Brown, her public attempts to regain her celebrated voice, and the battle with drugs that ultimately proved too much. In this poignant and tender tribute to her "Nippy," Cissy summons all her strength to reveal not only Whitney the superstar, but also Whitney as a sweet girl, a bright-eyed young woman, and a deeply caring mother. Complete with never-before-seen family photographs, Remembering Whitney is an intimate, heartfelt portrait of one of our most revered artists, from the woman who cherished her most.

Her's was a skyrocket of a life, a tale of beauty, soaring talent, and the risks of stardom. Whitney Houston was born to sing: Her mom, Cissy Houston, is a noted gospel singer; Dionne Warwick was her cousin, soul great Aretha Franklin her aunt. And she was beautiful: Before she ever had a big radio hit, a teenage Whitney was booking modeling gigs in major magazines. Legendary talent guru Clive Davis heard her sing in a club and signed her at 19; her first album, Whitney Houston, spawned three No. 1 hits and made her a staple on MTV. Seven years later, The Bodyguard made her a movie star. But at the height of an almost-unprecedented arc, something went wrong. Marriage to singer Bobby Brown coincided with a slip from the pinnacle; soon Houston was missing shows, behaving erratically and, eventually, admitting to drug problems. A comeback had started to gain traction-until, the night before the 2012 Grammy Awards, the 48-year-old star was found dead, of unspecified causes, in her Beverly Hills hotel room. Packed with photos and insight, People: Remembering Whitney Houston looks back on wonder, and drama, of a remarkable life.