It is almost always sad when a human being dies. When it is unexpected, that adds to the tragedy. Whitney Houston died last week, unexpectedly. It could have been from drugs, but it could have been from a lot of other possibilities. Any which way it is tragic, for her family, especially her daughter.
For me, the tragedy is that Ms. Houston was so talented. Today, in popular culture, talent actually seems to be a rare thing. You didn't need to hear Simon Cowell tell you how vocally talented she was, you could hear it for yourself. An example from my past was in the late 80's, the television was on to an awards show (I cannot remember – sorry but it was 25 years ago!) and Whitney sang “I'm Saving All My Love For You”. My whole family noticed her voice, it was glorious. My father, who is not into popular music at all and prefers Jazz, said “Wow, she is really good”. If he could notice her talent, the whole world could, and did. Unfortunately, now it seems that talent is a small part of a bigger “package” that producers produce for an audience. Not that I am saying Ms. Houston wasn't the whole package, she was a beautiful woman, but that was secondary to her voice.
Ms. Houston was not a songwriter. She was a vocal stylist and sang songs that others wrote. That is unfortunate, since that means that she did not earn as much money from her work if she was a songwriter and performer. But, I do think she would get a song and could take it to levels that even the songwriter could not imagine. The perfect example of this is her version of “I Will Always Love You”. If you didn't know this little fact, Dolly Parton wrote that song. She is a talented songwriter. If you hear that song, you can know she is a talented writer. But as a performer, for that song at least, she is all wrong, her interpretation was too subtle, but that is because she has a limited voice. Ms. Houston took that song to the highest levels. Ms. Parton's voice works so much better on a song like her “Jolene” (a beautiful and sad song in it's own right), but I think “I Will Always Love You” will be one of Ms. Houston's greatest contributions to popular music.
This was a different blog for me to write. I am sure many people are a bit confused since I usually rant about politics, review other independent books, or discuss writing and PR of my book “The Chronicles of IDIOT”. But the death of Whitney Houston struck me in a way that made me think about talent.
You cannot just be talented and the world will see you for what you are. A person with talent may know they are good at something, but that does not mean they will be successful. My son has a talent for drawing (I think) but he still has a lot of work ahead of him before he could be paid for that talent. Ms. Houston worked hard in her youth, perfecting her craft, singing in her church choir and learning music. There are many children who want to be talented in sports or music and think that will write their ticket to fame and fortune. It may, but that will be for a tiny amount of those children. For a lot of kids they may just want to be talented, but are not and that will be a hard thing to deal with as well. Or they may be talented but just not lucky enough to be recognized. Luck has a lot to do with becoming a success and has much more to do with success than talent.
I would not call myself a talented writer. I do enjoy writing but I am not cranking out thousands of words a day. There are other priorities in my life. But, I find writing fun, and getting my opinions out there in my blog is really fun. That is the last thing I would like to say about talent. You may be very talented at something, but if you don't enjoy it, how can you enjoy life? Andre Agassi is a good example. He is a talented Tennis player, but if you read anything in his biography, you find that he did not enjoy it, his father pushed it on him. I find that very sad. It seemed that Ms. Houston enjoyed singing. That did not make her life perfect, as we all know, since we should all know that success does not bring happiness. Hopefully doing what you love gives you happiness. She had an incredible vocal talent, and I hope she loved what she did and am glad she shared her voice with the world.
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