The Whitney I Knew (15 page)

The Bodyguard
years were tough on Whitney. She wasn't just releasing
The Bodyguard
soundtrack and watching it explode. There were the myriad demands—publicity, promotional appearances, interviews—that come after an album is released, but multiplied by a thousand because the movie and the music were such blockbuster hits. In fact, her success at the time was described as “relentless” by
Entertainment Weekly
. So Whitney was being pulled in one direction by all those business demands, and then she had the demands of the heart—the calls from home, the weeks away from family, the expectations and longings of a new mother and a newly wedded wife—pulling her in another direction. Whitney really wanted to make her marriage work, but it was tough.

Throughout that three-year journey, I was there, supporting her and helping her where I could. Sometimes it was from a distance; other times I was producing set lists for her.

I remember one afternoon I was driving with my friend, EMI music publisher Evan Lambert, and we were talking about what Whitney should do to open up her concerts for
The Bodyguard
Tour. I called her and said, “I've got something to send you.”

“I like this idea. Can I use this?” she asked.

The tour opened in Miami. I wrote out her first song and what would happen production-wise—what she'd do, where she'd come out on stage, everything. But it all was going wrong leading up to the first show. She was an hour late, the air conditioner wasn't working, and the lights went off. The crowd became restless. People started booing.

But then, the interlude started. And then the music for “The Greatest Love of All” began, and Whitney broke into it, just as planned.

The crowd's mood changed in an instant. They went crazy.

So some things worked out after all. And Whitney included us on her journey everywhere she could. A little-known fact: Whitney started a music label through Capitol Records around this time, and my sisters Debbie and Angie were on it. Whitney sang backup on their album, and Whitney had them open for her on
The Bodyguard
Tour.

And then there was one night in particular that I remember, when I attended their concert at Radio City Music Hall. I had flown into New York that day, but my baggage was lost, so I was very casually dressed and was just standing in the back of the venue, taking in the production. All of a sudden, Whitney started talking about how I helped out on “Jesus Loves Me.”

‘Is my brother BeBe in the house?”

I couldn't believe her. I was in overalls!

‘Turn those houselights on. BeBe, raise your hand—there you are, my brother!”

I was so embarrassed. But that's what family does. We keep it real for each other.

I helped her keep it real by just listening to her during this rough time. That was huge to her. It didn't matter how she acted or what she said, I would tell her how I felt and what I thought.

We all need that from those we love. We need to know that they have our backs, but that they will also let us know when our egos become too big for our own good.

Still, despite all our conversations, I'm uncertain how she was able to sustain a new marriage and a baby and her meteoric rise, which reached Michael Jackson status. I'm sure that during that time is when her coping mechanism turned dark. Rather than being with family and friends—which is very difficult to arrange when you're touring the world—she chose other means.

Sometimes the only thing you can do to help those you love is to let them know that you're always there, no matter what. That's what I did. I think the fact that CeCe and I were around, helping out where we could, allowing her to be part of our lives and careers, was a gesture that meant more than words to Whitney.

Now, look, don't embarrass us.
BeBe to Whitney, playfully, before her Super Bowl solo

When Whitney sang the National Anthem at Super Bowl XXV in Tampa Stadium on January 27, 1991, time nearly stood still, and America's song would never be the same. She set a standard so high, so flawless, that most consider it untouchable. More than twenty years later, it remains a legend—a YouTube hit, a record-breaking single, the defining musical moment of a generation newly at war in the Persian Gulf.

Desert Storm was only ten days old when Whitney stepped up to the mic and, backed by the Florida Orchestra, made history. A
reported worldwide television audience of 750 million watched, about one-fifth of them Americans. And for the first time ever, our troops in the Middle East were able to be part of the moment too, via live telecast. It created a shared experience for humanity, bringing Americans together from nearly every corner of the world.

“She was pure of timbre and bursting with emotion,” wrote Lisa Olson,
AOL Fanhouse
columnist, in recalling that breathtaking performance. It was “the night when Houston's majestic voice bounced off stars and circled the planet.” And when Olson learned of Whitney's death, it comforted her—like it does so many people now—to remember how Whitney, for that two minutes on a January evening, “humbled us, left us in awe, and made us feel so very connected and alive.”

Whitney called me before she sang, and I told her what I always told her: “Now, look, don't embarrass us.” And what I meant was that since we all (Whitney, CeCe, and myself) had gospel roots, she had to
represent
. And she knew it.

We were always playing around about not embarrassing each other—but we still respected the notion. It's what made us so close. I said it to her then, just like I heard her saying it to me while I was seated in the church pew at her funeral.

After Whitney and I exchanged a few playful barbs with each other on that Super Bowl Sunday, we hung up. Then she walked onto a global stage while I, along with the global community, watched that skinny young woman from East Orange—in her red, white, and blue warm-up suit—sing her guts out.

But did the world watch and listen to Whitney sing as much as we watched and listened to Whitney paint a picture of hope and confidence that we so desperately needed at that pivotal time in
our nation's history? “If you were there,” she would later say, “you could feel the intensity. . . . A lot of our daughters and sons were overseas fighting. . . . We needed hope . . . to bring our babies home, and that's what it was about for me; that's what I felt when I sang that song.”
GO TO ThewhitneyIknewVideos.com TO VIEW THIS AND OTHER BONUS MATERIAL.

While the troops were serving in Desert Storm, Whitney brought her own storm to the world's stage. With each word and note, she seemed to be saying, “We will make it through this time together—come what may.” The football fans forgot all about football for that brief moment in time. They were caught in her whimsy, a magic that she wove into the sky just in time for the F-16 fighter jets to rip through, stamping her performance with an emphatic, “Yes, we are brave! Yes, we are free!”

And there she stood, arms raised in a confident “V”, her fists tight and her mouth open, holding that perfect note, then melting into her angelic smile. What could eclipse that moment? Everyone watching
knew
they had witnessed not only a never-to-be-forgotten performance but also the transcendence of an artist into the stratosphere of fame. If you didn't love Whitney up to that point in her career, you loved her now. You loved her forever.

I remember when she finished, she called me and asked, in her typical playful way, “Well, how was that? Did I embarrass you?”

“Um, you
nailed
it. In fact, you probably sang it so good you ruined it for the rest of us. No one can sing that song now without thinking of that performance you just pulled off.”

Before Whitney's death, she and I discussed the new album project I was working on. It was a collection of patriotic songs, including “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and she would kid me about it, reminding me that she had nailed that song and sold a ton of copies to boot (all of her proceeds on the platinum-selling single went to charity). Jokingly, she said, “You sure you want to record it?”

“I'm not afraid of you, girl! My God is your God,” I proclaimed. And we laughed.

But she always encouraged me—always stood by my abilities as a songwriter and a singer (though few people know that she arranged the vocals for that “Star-Spangled” moment). She thought I had the right to do the patriotic album and couldn't wait to hear it. But I wasn't fooled: “The Star-Spangled Banner” will always be Whitney's song. Those remarkable two minutes at the Super Bowl are forever etched into her legacy.

Yet even after she did something so amazing for so many people to experience, she remained the playful girl I met that night in Detroit. When I watch the video of her singing that song on such a grand stage, I see what everyone else around the world saw:
true
Whitney. When she sang, her eyes glimmered and her mouth smiled and the words smiled and rose too, and then the tones rising out of her took on a new aura. Each one of us could see the rockets' red glare; we could hear the bombs bursting in air. They were bursting from the veins in her neck as she effortlessly pushed those notes into the solar system.

Just like we did when she performed it live, now we watch on our computers and still hold our breath, marveling at her gift. We choke up at the end because we know that Whitney isn't merely singing a song, she's communicating her heart. And that's what separates
singers who sing, from the singers who
sang'e
. It's that magic fusion that we just can't explain other than, “God, this voice had to come from you. It had to come from heaven.”