people were talking about Whitney's voice was shot....you know she couldn't hit those super high notes again..but one of her last performances here with Kim Burrell... she's able to get by strictly on the Soul in her voice...
see the thing about Whitney's career...
she kind of came out the box making a brand of R&B that was really pop sounding.. so that didn't really highlight the soul she had in her voice...
If you listen to her voice on the clip of her singing in church when she was 16 years old.....
I mean honestly Whitney Houston's was like the female version of Donny Hathaway.... there was really no limit to what she could do with it.. Had she sang music that was more soul or a less pop R&B style..or even funk...she would have been the best in that too..
you put her in the context that say Chaka was in when she came out...her voice would have hit with that too..
I think of Luther...one thing about his career was that his early releases had a much more R&B feel..so later when his sound went more pop, people still had a connection of him making more soulful R&B type of music.... Whitney didn't really have that...You give good love to me was a cool R&B track and the album has some stuff in that way...but soon after coming out...Whitney sound was crafted to be more pop sounding R&B...I'm not dissing it...but that's just what it was..she made some great historic songs doing that....
but she had soul....that's what distinguishes her voice from others.... people act like because she made pop r&b she had as much soul as Karen Carpenter or something....(again..not a diss to Carpenter either who really had a beautiful voice) .... but Whitney's voice wasn't milk toast... She had power...range....she didnt' have the depth say of Aretha Franklin but she could sing in that same style..and if you had put her in the formats to be a straight soul R&B singer she would have still hit the ball out of the park..
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