In any era, Whitney Houston’s remarkable voice would have ensured her a highly successful career as a singer. In earlier decades that would perhaps have been all, as it was for black female singers from Billie Holiday to Aretha Franklin, whose celebrity was considerable, but remained largely confined to the musical arena. Houston was far more, an American icon with a universal appeal that spanned both white middle America and a black urban audience, fêted from the inner-city ghetto to the White House.
Hits such as Saving All My Love for You, Greatest Love of All, I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me), Didn’t We Almost Have It All and I Will Always Love You helped her to worldwide record sales estimated to be