Whitney Houston was born on August 9, 1963 in East Orange, New Jersey. She is a direcr relative to several famous sold singers including mother Cissy Houston, cousin Dionne Warwick, and godmother Aretha Franklin. Houston spent some of her teenage years touring nightclubs with her mother while Cissy was performing, and she would occasionally get on stage and perform with her mother. In 1977, at age fourteen, she was the featured lead vocalist on the Michael Zager Band’s single "Life’s a Party". Then in 1978, at age fifteen, Houston sang background vocals on Chaka Khan’s hit single "I’m Every Woman", a song she would later turn into a hit for herself on her monstrous-selling soundtrack album The Bodyguard. In 1985 she released her self titled debut album. The album initially had a slow commercial response, but emerged as a success during 1986 with the help of three number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album serves as Houston’s best-selling studio album to date, with sales of over 30 million copies worldwide. Whitney Houston has since released five albums with total worldwide sales of over 140 million. She is ranked as the fourth best-selling female artist in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with 54 million certified albums.
|
