Some critics have blamed Whitney Houston’s death on herself, saying it was “self administered”, talking of the “squandered talent of someone who had it all but threw it all away”.
But New York reporter-music critic Barry Michael Cooper’s tribute is far nearer the mark. He rightly says that Houston’s untimely death is our loss: “Whitney was an American Nightingale, because she sang with unmistakable beauty from a really dark place, a place where few other birds are singing. That's why we heard her euphonic voice loud and clear.”
As performers mourned her passing at the Grammy Awards ceremony last night where she had been due to appear, Cooper warned of the dangers of fame, describing the award as a “monster that whispers sweet nothings with the hot breath of cool lies”.
During her short lifetime, Whitney Houston became one of the best-selling artists of all time by the age of 29. The figures are staggering: over 170 million worldwide record sales and just about every award in the music industry.
The incredible success of her rendering of Dolly Parton’s song "I Will Always Love You" broke all musical records, making it became the best-selling single by a female artist in music history. She made her first film The Bodyguard in 1992, starring with Kevin Costner. When it was released, selling more than a million copies within a single week. She was the first musical act to achieve this.
Born into a musical royalty, with Aretha Franklin as her godmother, she began singing in church and was offered a contract at the age of 14, which her mother Cissy turned down so that Whitney could finish her schooling. But after that there was no looking back.
By the late 1980s, she was the first female artist in musical history to debut at number one in the Billboard 200 albums chart. She broke even the Beatles record sales with seven consecutive number ones. The songs included “Didn't We Almost Have It All", "So Emotional", and "Where Do Broken Hearts Go".
Of African-American descent, but with Native American, Dutch and Italian ancestors, Houston was strikingly beautiful.
It was her phenomenal gift of using her five-octave range that broke down barriers and opened the way for African-American as well as white female artists. She was the first black female artist to achieve success on MTV, hitherto dominated by white performers. The bravura and power of her voice became “the template for female vocal performances for the next 30 years”, as one critic has said.
Houston supported the campaign for the release of Nelson Mandela and as a young model refused to work with agencies linked to apartheid South Africa. She helped raise money for the United Negro College Fund and set up a children’s foundation.
But by 2000, Houston began showing signs of strain, suffering from drug abuse and weight loss. Her marriage to singer Bobby Brown was on the rocks. She admitted to taking cocaine and other drugs in two separate television interviews. She continued to record, tour and perform with some success – but also media brickbats – whilst fighting her drug habit.
After the runaway success of The Bodyguard, Houston honed her acting skills in Waiting to Exhale and The Preacher’s Wife, breaking new territory in roles that showed African-American women as talented professionals.
Houston captured the hearts of hundreds of millions of people around the world with her stunning vocal skills. As with the greatest performers, she was a vehicle for people’s greatest hopes, dreams, loves and fears. Her tragic passing, like those of Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse – she was also honoured posthumously at the Grammy’s last night – is yet another warning that for some, the pressures of the system are too noxious to bear.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary
For revolutionary solutions to create a sustainable, not-for-profit economy in place of global capital alongside a real democracy based on People’s Assemblies. Visit our web site at www.aworldtowin.net
Showing posts with label Michael Jackson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Jackson. Show all posts
Monday, February 13, 2012
Monday, June 29, 2009
How the vultures gathered around Jacko
As music fans worldwide mourn the exceptionally talented singer, songwriter, dancer and all-round performer, the passing of Michael Jackson brings to mind the old nursery rhyme, Who killed Cock Robin?
Jackson’s was a uniquely complex genius. Heir to R&B singer James Brown and the Temptations, with whom he performed as a pre-teen boy, he synthesised soul, R&B and disco music to reach not only the traditional black audiences, but also white rock fans. Along with his tenor and falsetto singing, he moved and moon walked with effortless grace. He broke the colour-bar practised by MTV, the music television channel started in 1981, inspiring the rise of new forms of black music like hip-hop. Thriller was followed by other huge selling albums, but now Jackson’s life began to take a tragic turn.
His grip on reality slipped away as he retreated into his fantasy theme park called Neverland. His brief marriage to Elvis Presley’s daughter Lisa Marie Presley in 1994 revealed an extraordinarily fragile child-man who had virtually no one around him to stabilise his life and provide badly needed advice and support. His psychological and physical well-being was already deteriorating when he was accused of child abuse in 2003. Although acquitted on all counts, the financial and mental cost of the five-month trial took an extreme toll. By last year, when he agree to perform at London’s O2 Arena, Jackson’s debts were estimated at around £242million, perhaps even more, according to some estimates.
With the star’s finances in a shambles, the vultures moved in. Jackson defender and biographer Ian Halperin, has documented how “in late 2008, a shadowy figure who called himself Dr Tohme Tohme suddenly emerged as Jackson’s ‘official spokesman’.” Tohme, who is a businessman and not a physician, has close ties to the deeply reactionary Nation of Islam, led by Louis Farrakhan. It was the same Tohme who was with Jackson when the singer reluctantly agreed to perform ten concerts at the O2 arena in London. “Before long, however, ten concerts had turned into 50 and the potential revenues had skyrocketed. The vultures who were pulling his strings somehow managed to put this concert extravaganza together behind his back, then ‘presented it to him as a fait accompli,’ said one aide,” Halperin writes.
Jackson’s life and death are entirely symptomatic of the destructive and devouring machine of celebrity culture. In some ways this truly was the chronicle of a death foretold. But is it really just another case of death by media, as some, such as music writer Paul Morley assert? Isn’t there something inherently lethal to prodigious talent in the very nature of the corporate world of capitalist show business, which sees talent as nothing other than a source of revenue?
Jackson lived eight years longer than the first King of Rock, Elvis Presley, who died prematurely in 1977 of combined drug intoxication. Like Jackson, he had become a grotesque caricature of his previous self and was preyed upon by those seeking to make money out of him. The late Elvis was described as “a man crying out for help”. More recently, film director Stephen Spielberg described Jackson, who was haunted by Presley’s sad end, as “a fawn in a burning forest”. We have been here before. As many have said, Jackson’s amazing talent will outlive all the poisonous scandals. But he did not deserve the suffering while he was alive.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary
All the birds of the airOne of nine children, Jackson rose from being the son of a steelworker in Gary, Indiana to becoming the world’s most famous popstar in the 1980s. He was the youngest and most talented member of the Jackson 5 band at the age of six. Driven on by their ruthlessly ambitious father, the boy band worked incredibly hard, touring incessantly. Spotted by Motown singer Gladys Knight and soon after Diana Ross, Jackson rapidly rose to pop star fame. By the time he was 11, Jackson sang the lead vocals in I want you Back, which became the group’s first number one hit single, followed by ABC and I’ll be there. It was his album Thriller, produced by Quincy Jones, which raised his reputation to sky-high levels, selling 109 million copies since its 1982 release.
fell a-sighing and a-sobbing,
when they heard the
bell toll
for poor Cock Robin.
Jackson’s was a uniquely complex genius. Heir to R&B singer James Brown and the Temptations, with whom he performed as a pre-teen boy, he synthesised soul, R&B and disco music to reach not only the traditional black audiences, but also white rock fans. Along with his tenor and falsetto singing, he moved and moon walked with effortless grace. He broke the colour-bar practised by MTV, the music television channel started in 1981, inspiring the rise of new forms of black music like hip-hop. Thriller was followed by other huge selling albums, but now Jackson’s life began to take a tragic turn.
His grip on reality slipped away as he retreated into his fantasy theme park called Neverland. His brief marriage to Elvis Presley’s daughter Lisa Marie Presley in 1994 revealed an extraordinarily fragile child-man who had virtually no one around him to stabilise his life and provide badly needed advice and support. His psychological and physical well-being was already deteriorating when he was accused of child abuse in 2003. Although acquitted on all counts, the financial and mental cost of the five-month trial took an extreme toll. By last year, when he agree to perform at London’s O2 Arena, Jackson’s debts were estimated at around £242million, perhaps even more, according to some estimates.
With the star’s finances in a shambles, the vultures moved in. Jackson defender and biographer Ian Halperin, has documented how “in late 2008, a shadowy figure who called himself Dr Tohme Tohme suddenly emerged as Jackson’s ‘official spokesman’.” Tohme, who is a businessman and not a physician, has close ties to the deeply reactionary Nation of Islam, led by Louis Farrakhan. It was the same Tohme who was with Jackson when the singer reluctantly agreed to perform ten concerts at the O2 arena in London. “Before long, however, ten concerts had turned into 50 and the potential revenues had skyrocketed. The vultures who were pulling his strings somehow managed to put this concert extravaganza together behind his back, then ‘presented it to him as a fait accompli,’ said one aide,” Halperin writes.
Jackson’s life and death are entirely symptomatic of the destructive and devouring machine of celebrity culture. In some ways this truly was the chronicle of a death foretold. But is it really just another case of death by media, as some, such as music writer Paul Morley assert? Isn’t there something inherently lethal to prodigious talent in the very nature of the corporate world of capitalist show business, which sees talent as nothing other than a source of revenue?
Jackson lived eight years longer than the first King of Rock, Elvis Presley, who died prematurely in 1977 of combined drug intoxication. Like Jackson, he had become a grotesque caricature of his previous self and was preyed upon by those seeking to make money out of him. The late Elvis was described as “a man crying out for help”. More recently, film director Stephen Spielberg described Jackson, who was haunted by Presley’s sad end, as “a fawn in a burning forest”. We have been here before. As many have said, Jackson’s amazing talent will outlive all the poisonous scandals. But he did not deserve the suffering while he was alive.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary
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