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I've always liked Whitney Houston. I think she looked great, before she got all caught up with the bad black boy Bobby Brown. And I think she had a phenomenal voice.
I wrote here on various renditions of "My Funny Valentine" that:
Contemporary black singers perform it with too many riffs and improvisations (known as melisma [pdf article]), which overloads the melody.For some reason, Whitney avoided this vocal overload that is so common in contemporary black singers. Perhaps it shows her true talent.
I was really sad when I heard of her death (suicide, most likely). She must have suffered a lot. She tried a couple of come-backs, after her humiliating public disintegration (or disintegrations). She couldn't make it.
Here's a video, vintage Whitney from the 1980s when she was in her prime: