Whitney Houston RIP

The world's media will no doubt cover her death in depth, so I won't attempt a full obituary, but The Vinyl Word raises a glass to Whitney Houston, who has died aged just 48. Whitney came from soul music royalty: her mother is Cissy Houston, cousins include Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick and her godmother is Aretha Franklin. She became the most-awarded female artist of all time and sold over 170 million records. Like other members of her family she began singing gospel before joining her mother on stage in clubs around New York.

Signed by Arista records she went on to have seven consecutive US number ones (Saving All My Love for You, How Will I Know, Greatest Love of All, I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me), Didn't We Almost Have It All, So Emotional and Where Do Broken Hearts Go) and successful studio and movie soundtrack albums. She made her acting debut in The Bodyguard and it seemed that nothing could go wrong for her with its lead single I Will Always Love You becoming the best selling single by a female artist in music history. The album makes her the only female act in the top 10 list of best selling albums of all time. Whitney continued to star in movies and contribute to their soundtracks, including Waiting To Exhale and The Preacher's Wife.

But during the nineties stories of drug use by Whitney and her husband Bobby Brown emerged and she became progressively less reliable. Her career suffered, but despite that, she continued to have music success. Her death is as yet unexplained, but no doubt the true story will soon come out. RIP Whitney.