Is there a video of that incident? I can't find one anywhere.

Yeah, that little chocolate valley girl influenced a lot of people.

vainandy said:

check the diane sawyer innerview from 2002 on youtube

Graycap23 said:

Her face is pulled too tight.

midiscover said:

For real??? That's how Whitney got in the biz, cuz of her mom's connections, Dionne being her cousin, and Aretha being her godmother or some shit. I believe Cissy even sang back up for Elvis.

Also, I don't know why everyone solely blames Whit's destroyed voice on drugs when the SAME thing happened to Cissy's voice. I've been saying for over 10 years that Whit's voice deteriorated just like her mama's.

Oh, and it's official: I HATE OPRAH
[Edited 9/12/09 15:34pm]

SCNDLS said:

C'mon now baby, you can't compare Cissy is like what? 77 years old?

Girl, trust and believe that when she was back in Nippy's age(46) she was the MOST session vocalists on-demand ever. Every producer and every who's who in the 70s wanted her input, doesn't matter what genre.

Whitney & Dionne have no excuses whatsoever, they've been smoking these newports more than inhaling oxygen.
[Edited 9/12/09 19:59pm]

SCNDLS said:

You know what? You're right! I haven't even thought about it. Cissy sounded like Whitney at one point then at some time after she reached her late 30s or early 40s she started having voice trouble. Same thing happened to the Warwick sisters Dionne and Dee Dee. And now it seems like Whitney has caught the "Drinkard/Warwick-itis". So that could've added to it.

Harlepolis said:

Emily Drinkard, AKA Cissy Houston, has been smoking a lot of those Newports too.

Timmy84 said:

Not like those 2 and anyway, you can check the 70s recordings, you'll know the dame was still on her prime vocally.

Aretha is smoking between cheeseburger bites too lol and I bet your ass that she can STILL wail her ass off.


I don't know WHY it effects people differntly though.

Harlepolis said:

Yeah, it depends on their cigarette intake. If we're to believe that, then Dionne & Whitney smoked their trademark vocals away though they still have some vocal prowess left, least of all Whitney (if she doesn't try too hard, that is).

Oh yeah and Ree-Ree can still turn it out when she can.

Harlepolis said:

I remember hearing Cissy singing in the mid-80s around the age Whit is now and she sounded a hot, out of tune, mess then. She lost her voice almost 30 years ago. I think Whit sped up the deterioration with her lifestyle but judging by her mother's progression I think it woulda been inevitable. I noticed early in the 90s that her voice was gradually changing.

edit: changed over to almost 30 years I was in a time warp
[Edited 9/12/09 20:26pm]

SCNDLS said:

I did too.

babynoz said:

Dang! I was thinking the same thing and have said that many times.

Timmy84 said:

It was really evident with her live shows. She could still sound good in the studio with editing and other alterations. But anytime she sang live in the 90s she couldn't hit notes and often sounded flat and out of tune. When she did Shoop Shoop she didn't sound like herself IMO and that's the first time I noticed her voice sounding different on a recording. At that point it can't really be blamed on her lifestyle since she was young and hadn't been doing whatever she was doing for decades which is what we're hearing the results of now.

SCNDLS said:

Take into fact that she had been singing live since she was 11 in church so after a while especially if you're known to sing the way Whitney did (and go all around the world and get stressed), somewhere between the fame and glory, you start to lose that power and compared with Whitney's drug addiction and the problems of dealing in the spotlight, it's no shock Whitney's voice turned out the way it did.

SCNDLS said:

When she did that sweaty, humid, sticky, greasy, all-around calamity "Why Does It Hurt So Bad" per4mance from MTV back in 95/96, I def knew there was something wrong.

And when "Heartbreak Hotel" came, I didn't believe it was Whitney at 1st listen,,,,,she took a radical switch from soft to raspy.

Jay Leno said the same thing to her back in 98, and she copped an attitude,,,,I guess she was in denial about her voice.

Timmy84 said:

I always thought that she probably damaged or overused her voice early on. Which could be part of the reason she constantly cancelled shows on every tour.

TonyVanDam said:

the link is disabled but I actually liked this song.

Harlepolis said:

For sure. I think her voice was part of the reason why she did a 180 in the mid 90s from all those pop power ballads that were her bread and butter to R&B which better suiter her lower registers. She certainly didn't take care of her instrument but some of it may have been unavoidable anyway.

SCNDLS said:

Yeah, the girl had been singing with that full power since the '70s and in many ways Clive Davis OVERWORKED her in the same way Tommy Mottola later overworked Mariah. That's why Mariah can't sing like she used to, because when you got that much power, you'll lose much of it especially if you had the hit luster that both of them had. For Whitney, losing her vocal power was a blow. You saw when she tried to perform "Try It On My Own" and when she took that one long bow (I think the audience gave her a standing ovation, some were even crying), she actually wept a bit. She couldn't believe that her voice got that bad. Least her vocals then and afterwards weren't the sad case it was at the Olympics in 2006 especially with her then condition add to the bitter coldness. Talking a lot can make your voice raspy and off-key as well. So I never believed Whitney was fibbing.

SCNDLS said:

I liked Whitney's rougher vocals during the '90s period. But you see we've had three different versions of Whitney, we have the clear-as-a-whistle, gospel-shouting pop diva of the '80s, the rough-voiced but still-powerful Whitney of the '90s and then mid-'90s onwards her progression into a rough almost-contralto vocal range that she has now.

Timmy84 said:

Folks can say what they wanna about Celine but that heffa believes in taking care of her voice for real. And even after doing shows at Caesar's for 3 years straight her voice STILL sounds beautiful live. She speaks very little and does all kinds of things to care for her voice.

Timmy84 said:

Yeah, I didn't mind the raspier Whit I'm just saying that it wasn't by choice.

SCNDLS said:

Yeah but I keep hearing rumors she has to use a vocal track for some tracks when she can't keep a note going, that's probably wrong but some people have made comparison videos that try to prove Celine's lost a bit of her range too. Who knows tho, right?

Timmy84 said:

Shit, it may be true. I wouldn't be surprised. But compared to the other "divas" her voice is certainly holding up the best which is ironic cuz she's actually been singing the most regularly out of the three of 'em.

SCNDLS said:

Yes she has, I give her that credit.

Can't wait

SCNDLS said:

I think Luther stopped using Cissy so much in the 90s because her voice had changed so much. Before then, she was on almost all of his recordings.