Remembering Whitney – the phrase seems to roll off the tongue far too easily, as if it has been waiting there all along. Thankfully I’m old enough to remember reading a story in Glamour Magazine about the “new songstress who’d traded a modeling career for music”. She was the first African American women to cover Seventeen Magazine in 1981 – and she smashed so many other barriers later.
The eponymously named album she released in 1985 was one of the first CD’s I ever bought – I actually took home two – one for myself and one for my mom. In the backwoods of California, the musical backdrop of Inglebert Humperdink, country crooners, and heavy metal reined supreme (Mother, Sister, Brother) but Whitney’s music was irresistible to each of us. Since I first heard it, The Greatest Love has always been my anthem. I will always remember the younger Whitney first, the many Grammy, Billboard, and American Music Awards – the towering voice. RIP Whitney.