Word: sweets
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...album -- a mixture of party songs and love songs -- displays its star's subtler readings, greater vocal nuance, more dynamism and control. On the jazzy ballad Just the Lonely Talking, she eases into an adventurous scat duet with an alto sax. But she can still sing it straight and sweet, as in Michael Masser's romantic elegy Didn't We Almost Have It All, an instant standard with a spiraling melodic line...
...Houstons moved to a two- story house in East Orange, where Cissy still lived until this March. For the most part they were an ordinary family, except that Mom would occasionally hit the road to sing backups for Elvis, Aretha or Dionne. While Cissy toured with her group, the Sweet Inspirations, John, the group's manager, tended the three children. Whitney's half-brother Gary Garland, 28, sings duets and backup in her act; her brother Michael, 25, is the production manager on Whitney's tour...
Whitney's sweet inspiration was Emily ("Cissy") Drinkard Houston, now 53. Whitney calls her "my teacher, my friend, the lady in my life." John credits Cissy with teaching their daughter "how to talk, walk, stand, project, greet people. She took care of Whitney's teeth, got involved with how she dressed." Cissy was a strict and loving mom. If she thought Whitney needed a spanking, Whitney got one. "Cracking gum or sitting with your legs open were considered unacceptable," Whitney says, "and I'd better not come back from the yard with scratched knees." Cissy says Whitney "didn't date...
...Whitney Houston, courtesy of Cissy. "I taught her that you don't start loud," Cissy says, "because then you have no place to go. I taught her that songs tell a story, and you don't blare out a story. Control is the basis for singing: up, down, soft, sweet. And diction was very important." You can hear the fruit of Cissy's lessons even in a dance tune like How Will I Know. In the refrain "If he loves me,/ If he loves me not," Whitney really punches that final t. No wonder: Mama was singing backup...
...traveling exhibit of her sweet, rambunctious canvases marks Elizabeth Murray, 46, as one of the best painters of her generation...