Whitney Houston was born on August 9 in 1963,in Newark, New Jersey. When she was 5 she began singing in church. At age 11 Whitney performed her first solo at the same church as she did when 5. All at the same church New Hope Baptist Church in Newark.
Her mother Cissy Houston is a talented Soul/R&B singer, her cousin Dionne Warwick, her grandmother Aretha Franklin, and her brother Gary is also a professional singer, often performing with her sister on stage.
Whitney sang her first professional solo in 1980, and she began modeling the year. In her mid-teens, Whitney was singing backup for artists such as Lou Rawls and Chaka Khan, frequently appearing with Mother Cissy in concert in local New York clubs.
When Arista Records President Clive Davis first spotted Whitney Houston on stage, he saw the gift of stardom in her eyes and signed her almost on the spot in 1983- Whitney was 19.
Clive Davis cast his net far and wide to find the best songs for Whitney to sing, and some to pop world's most prestigious song-writers: Michael Masser, Peter McCann, Linda Creed and Gerry Goffin supplied the songs that formed Whitney's first collection.
In order to establish an identity for Whitney before the release of her first album, Clive had teamed her with well-established soul crooners such as Teddy Pendergrass, and Jermanie Jackson, who both released records featuring Whitney in 1984.Is was that year that Whitney came to the publics attention, thanks to her duet with Pendergrass on her first hit single.
Whitney's debut album was released in the US on Valentine's Day in 1985 and boasted a string of three Number 1 hits. Not only did the album sell over ten million copies in the USA, racking up several million more sales overseas, and became the biggest selling debut by a solo singer. By the end of 1987, the album had sold over 13 million copies.
The winning gambit that clenched the record's success was the video, which gave Whitney a breakthrough on MTV. Thanks to "Saving All My Love For You", Whitney won her first Grammy Award, for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, on Feb 25, 1986.
Whitney's song "How Will I Know" was chosen as the next single from Whitney's debut album. It is a bounced, teenage love song without much substance, but it became Whitney's second US No. 1, early in 1986.Whitney was named "Artist of the Year 1986" by Billboard Magazine, and won 5 American Music Awards in Jan. 1987. At the time, it seemed as if she had reached the peak of her career and couldn't possibly improve on such success.
"Didn't We Almost Have It All" got Whitney nominated for Grammy Award for the 1987 Song of the Year. After that came the movie "Bodyguard", Bobby, and Bobbi!
Bobby Brown first met Whitney at the 1989 Soul Train Awards. After that she invited him to her 26th birthday party. After the party the met again at a Winans concert and became good friends. As time went by, their relation-ship grew and some months later they had fallen in love. What Whitney loved most about him was that he treated her son as an eq2ual: he wasn't intimidated by her stardom, as were so many guys she had dated. On July 18, 1992 Whitney was married to Bobby Brown at her estate in New Jersey. The bride and the groom wore white on that day. The ceremony was followed by a reception for 800, after which the happy couple jetted off for Nice, via London, traveling by Concorde.