Whitney Houston

With a towering voice and a singing style that was rooted in revival halls and massive arenas, Whitney Houston helped define pop-R&B in the late 20th century. Born in Newark, NJ, to gospel singer Cissy Houston in 1963, Houston, a model and singer in her younger years, was taken under the wing of legendary music mogul Clive Davis in 1983. Her 1985 self-titled debut was a blockbuster, her voice lending power and poignancy to singles like the slow-burning “Saving All My Love For You,” the buoyant “How Will I Know,” and the inspirational “The Greatest Love of All.” Its 1987 follow-up, Whitney, blended the glittery club hits “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” and “So Emotional” with emotion-packed ballads such as “Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” further establishing Houston as one of the decade’s premier pop stars. She took the U.S. national anthem to church at Super Bowl XXV in 1991, and in 1992 she starred in the pop romance The Bodyguard, which had a Whitney-focused soundtrack that included her world-conquering version of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” That year she also married R&B singer Bobby Brown, with whom she’d have one child, Bobbi Kristina Brown. Houston had star turns on film and on record with 1995’s Waiting to Exhale and 1997's The Preacher’s Wife, and on the next year’s My Love Is Your Love, she teamed up with other female stars of R&B and hip-hop, including Mariah Carey and Missy Elliott. In the 2000s, Houston stepped away from the pop spotlight, appearing on Brown's TV show. She passed away in February 2012, leaving a recorded legacy that singers all over the world still strive to emulate.