Where Do Broken Hearts Go - Whitney Houston



A Youthful Whitney

In 1985 as a skinny 14 year old kid, I discovered and fell in love with the sound and beauty of Whitney Elizabeth Houston. At that age youthful crushes are frequent occurrences that often wither and die until the next new hot fad comes along. Well, I have seen many new hot fads come and go and still but to this day, when I hear Whitney’s music I am forced to listen and reminisce on how she made me feel as a 14 year old kid.

Songs from her first album self titled ‘Whitney Houston’: All at Once… You give good love… and saving all my love for you.., were party or as we called them then, Fete anthems.

Fast forward to Saturday February 12, 2012; just imagine my shock and awe at reading my twitter timeline @maninja2 and seeing “RIP Whitney Houston” trending. It is hard to describe exactly how I felt at that moment but I knew my stomach rumbled, my knees buckled and my eyes swelled with tears.

Over the years I used the internet to keep tabs on Whitney… waiting, hoping and wishing that she would recover from the many trials and tribulations her life had undergone, but it seems it wasn’t to be as drugs and bad decisions got the better of her and that all conquering voice that she was so richly blessed with.

Whitney’s soulful traits run deep into the hallowed halls of Americas R&B royalty; from Mother Cissy Houston to Cousin Dionne Warwick and Godmother Aretha Franklin it is no wonder she could make the music she did for so many years.

Whitney’s Career

Whitney at the Grammy Awaards

Born August 9, 1963 - Whitney Elizabeth Houston was a singer, actress, producer, mother, wife and model. Did you know Whitney is the most awarded female act of all time, according to Guinness Book of World Records?

Her list of awards include:

(2) Emmy Awards  

(6) Grammy Awards

(30) Billboard Music Awards

(22) American Music Awards

All toll, this amazing woman has a total of 415 career awards as of 2010 having sold over 170 million albums and singles worldwide which by the way, is also a record. Houston is the only artist to chart seven (7) consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits. WOW what a career!!!

1.       Saving All My Love for You

2.       How Will I Know

3.       Greatest Love of All

4.       I Wanna Dance with Somebody

5.       Didn't We Almost Have It All

6.       So Emotional

7.       Where Do Broken Hearts Go

Some people work their whole lives and are regarded as great for maybe having one (1) billboard hit; Whitney had all of seven… yes 7!!! Who else can say that? Mmmm clearly I will have to research that for my follow up post on this great woman, my childhood crush.

Other Key Achievements

·         Houston is the second artist behind Elton John and the only female artist to have two number-one Top Billboard 200 Album awards.

Just Whitney - Album Cover

·         Houston's 1985 debut album, Whitney Houston became the best-selling debut album by a female act at the time of its release. The album was also named Rolling Stone's best album of 1986, and was ranked at number 254 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

·         Her second studio album, Whitney (1987), became the first album by a female artist to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

·         Houston's crossover appeal on the popular music charts as well as her prominence on MTV, starting with her video for How Will I Know, influenced several African-American female artists to follow in her footsteps.

Combining Film & Music

·       Houston's first acting role was as the star of the feature film The Bodyguard (1992). The movie's original soundtrack won the 1994 Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

·       I Will Always Love You from the Bodyguard sound track became the best-selling single by a  female artist in music history. With this album, Houston became the first act (solo or group, male or female) to sell more than a million copies of an album within a single week period.

·       The album also makes her the only female act in the top 10 list of the best-selling albums of all time, at number four.

·       Houston continued to star in movies and contribute to their adjoining soundtracks, including the films Waiting to Exhale (1995) and The Preacher's Wife (1996).

·       The Preacher's Wife soundtrack would go on to become the best-selling gospel album in history.

·       Three years after the release of her fourth studio album, My Love Is Your Love (1998), she renewed her recording contract with Arista Records.

·         She released her fifth studio album, Just Whitney, in 2002, and followed that with the Christmas-themed One Wish: The Holiday Album in 2003.

Marriage

Whitney with Husband Bobby Brown

I always read with keen interest who Whitney dated, as long as it was in the newspapers or magazines and it said Whitney I would gobble that shit up. Whether it was her dating Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Randall Cunningham or Hollywood Film star and funny man Eddie Murphy, I would always feel like the jilted lover, my poor little heart would break in tiny pieces.

Then came Bobby Brown, he and I were about the same age and my thoughts were then; why him? Then by the late 90’s when rumors started to fly about Bobby’s constant run in with the law for Marijuana possession and use, Whitney’s weird behaviors and use of hard drugs; you just knew this union was going to be the destruction of her sublime talent and immaculate achievements that had made her a global megastar and simply the most unmistakable voice in all of show business.

Only Whitney & God knows why she remained married to Bobby for as long as she did. In many media interviews she professed her undying love and adoration for Bobby, which one would suppose would have been the reason, along with trying to hold her family together for daughter Bobbi Kristina. Her 14 year marriage came to an end in 2006 when she divorced Bobby, I guess she must have finally come to the realization that she was so much better than what she became… she had lost so much of what made her legendary; her voice, that striking beauty and that unbelievable presence that we the fans who adored her knew as just – Whitney!

Walk good my love and continue to bless angels with that unmistakable voice you were blessed with, until we meet again – ‘Saving all my love for you’!

Some Trending Tweets since Whitney’s passing

@Lgrandison Leethan Grandison

I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU. Thanks for being with us ONE MOMENT IN TIME. R.I.P Whitney Houston.

@VH1VH1

#NW "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)" on @VH1 - R.I.P. Whitney Houston

@CaroWozniacki Caroline Wozniacki

R.I.P Whitney Houston! She will be missed! One of the best female singers of all time!

@LadyGagaAsian Lady Gaga

R.I.P Whitney Houston -She was kind, sweet, wonderful, amazing, beautiful. A voice, a talent & spirit that will forever remain incomparable

@MadonnaNation Madonna Nation

R.I.P. Whitney Houston. We will always love you and never forget your voice. May the angels protect you and sadness forget you.

Of Gayle, WICB & Leadership

Of Gayle, WICB & Leadership!

Caribbean people and indeed the rest of the sporting world have watched with gasping amazement at what now appears to be a sustained ridiculous attack on former West Indies Captain Chris Gayle by the West Indies Cricket Board. It is hard to characterize this matter any other way but total lunacy from those we would like to think are intelligent and educated people who refuse to see the folly in their theory and the far reaching damage they cascade across the region.

Following the Cricket World Cup in India and Sri Lanka, in which the West Indies failed miserably again, Chris Gayle returned to Jamaica and in at least one radio interview, was critical of the management of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) including team coach Otis Gibson. 

While most of us humans can identify with the obvious frustration that would have caused Gayle to make his thoughts and feelings be known publicly, it must be said that this was an erroneous move by Gayle and he should he be reprimanded within the laws & bylaws of the WICB for compromising the sacredness of the true meaning of TEAM (Together Each Achieve More) and the maxim which holds true – there is no ‘I’ in TEAM.

Chris Gayle

That said, it is reasonable to expect the WICB to feel offended and request an apology from Gayle albeit within the context of its own code of ethics. 


Let’s examine this for a moment, it would appear since there has been no clear declaration by the WICB, that Gayle is accused of compromising a section of this code that insists players and officials at all times must conduct themselves in an honest and sportsman-like manner, and precludes public or media comments which is potentially harmful to the game.

In instances where a breach of the code occurs, the code of conduct is to be enforced in accordance with the procedures laid down in the rules, which include bringing the alleged offender before a disciplinary committee on the presumption of course that natural justice will be served.

In a self written article last year by former WICB President Pat Rousseau, who felt the board in the circumstance needed to justify why it shouldn’t be accused of operating in bad faith by denying Gayle natural justice, this within the context of 

Ernest Hilaire - CEO, WICB

CEO Dr. Ernest Hilaire acting as prosecutor and judge, in that; as the board’s highest ranking executive, he brought the charges against Gayle and also presented himself as the negotiator of the expected terms of the apology being demanded.

This makes us wonder why the CEO felt he had to personally infuse himself in a disciplinary hearing of this matter and pervert the course of fairness that the disciplinary committee made up of: Justice Adrian Saunders, Dr. Lloyd Barnett and Andy Roberts to independently hear this matter and make their recommendations accordingly. 


It is clear the authenticity of what Gayle has been accused of has not been independently tested and Caribbean public and indeed the rest of the sporting world is persuaded to think the board is in breach of its own rules. 


Why should Gayle or any other player for that matter acquiesce to inequitableness and blatant hypocrisy?

Julian Hunte - President, WICB

Most of us agonize deeply over the consistent decline of West Indies cricket over the past 20 years and it is noteworthy that decadence, ignorance of developing trends in the game and insularity right across the region has played its fair share in the demise of our cricketing prowess.

We who genuinely love and support the game of cricket are at pains to understand these issues and would like to see answers for the following questions:

1.    Why the cricket associations around the region and in particular the Jamaica Cricket Board to whom Chris Gayle is a player representative, have failed to articulate a mutually crafted and agreed position on a resolution for this impasse between Gayle and the WICB?

2.      Why have influential former players such as: Clive Lloyd, Sir. Vivian Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Courtney Walsh, Jeffery Dujon, Ian Bishop, Michael Holding, Richie Richardson et al; not offered their voices and indeed themselves to find a resolution in this and other critical matters affecting the game as a whole?

3.      Are the ills of West Indies Cricket and the WICB so oblivious to Caricom leaders that they continue to ignore the irreparable damage our decline in the sport has caused our collective economies?

4.     Is it not time for Caricom leaders to step in and cease control of this wreckage on behalf of the people in order to seek out private sector collaboration to invest in the process of secondment of talent & begin to design and implement a professional structure to rebuild the foundation for the sport to grow again?

5.      Is there no blue print from India, England, Australia, New Zealand to guide our way out of this maze? Or, are we too embarrassed to ask for help?

6.     Bearing in mind Chris Gayle is not the first player to be discarded in his prime, how long will Caribbean people remain divided along the lines of country first when it comes to West Indies Cricket? Could this be why some former players have remained silent on the issue?

These questions are asked not to be facetious or point fingers but we must probe hard and deep into the state of the game and collectively find solutions to the heart of the problem that face the sport in the region and that my friends is leadership.

We need leaders who treat the game with genuine compassion, courtesy and respect. We need leaders who help the stakeholders become more successful. We need leaders who will inspire the players irrespective of where they come from with a vision for a better game and show them how to get there. Unfortunately we can’t honestly say with a straight face that WICB and the local regional cricket boards have in the past 15-20yrs provided leadership for the sport and all its stakeholders to climb out of this free fall from grace.

Colin Powell once said: “Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care, either case is a failure of leadership.”

 I say therefore, fix the leadership in West Indies Cricket and therein lay the solution to issues like Chris Gayle’s.

Together we rise, divided we continue fall!