A young woman revelling in her talent and voice - starting out a little slow and then just finding it.

What a sad end, which I think started with that thug she married.

In any event, this clip, wow. She had some pipes, no question. Another amazing talent ruined and lost too soon.

It's easy to forget what all the fuss was about, given what she turned into, but this woman was amazing. You can really hear her aunt, Dionne Warwick, in the middle of this number. What a family, but so troubled.

And the tragedy of it is going to get lost in the overhype.

Well. Thank God for her Catholic school upbringing and the military, where her father made his career. Without those two staid institutions keeping her talent non-combustible while she was growing up, she may never have shared her tremendous gifts with the rest of us, and ended up dying much younger than she did.

Whitney Houston is the best example I've seen for a reevaluation of the idea that marijuana is essentially pretty harmless. Whatever they have in the GMO version these days, was obviously pretty destructive in her case. Although I just wonder if all this talent just lies mapped together with the gene for inevitable self-destruction, and if we shouldn't just be grateful for the short period in which she shone before becoming a sad object of mockery.

NJ lost another daughter last week, Dory Previn:

"In the 1970s, after [her divorce from Andre Previn ('Lemon-Haired Ladies')], she released six albums of original songs and an acclaimed live album. Previn's lyrics from this period are characterized by their originality, irony and honesty in dealing with her troubled personal life as well as more generally about relationships, sexuality, religion and psychology. She continued to work until her death as a writer of song lyrics and prose."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dory_Previn

"Previn died, aged 86, on February 14, 2012. At the time of her death, she was living on her farm in Southfield, Massachusetts, with her husband, Joby Baker."

For example,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USGWnC-OkrI&feature=fvwrel

In a country of 300,000,000+ folks, there are scores with better voices and more talent than the awesomely well-voiced and talented Whitney Houston.

It's not brain chemistry or genes that map talent and self destruction together, it's the way the music and movie industry has worked ever since the invention of truly mass media. Turns out that we're not wired to be turned into commodities for the consumption of the masses and the profits of the suits who destroyed her.

Gifts like hers (strong family of origen, education) are typically a degree of protection against self-ruin, but in the hands of the machine (as in Welcome to the Machine), the young people are just grist for the money mill and those gifts can actually be risk factors (because they invite an excessive degree of trust in the lizards that serve the machine).

Like pro athletes, arcs like Whitney are simply the inevitable result of fame for a significant fraction of those who are struck by it at a tender age.

Interesting points. How do you explain the Beegee non-identical twins, one of them a raging alcoholic and drug addict for years before he finally sobered up in mid-life, while his brother became a tee-totalitarian vegan in his twenties and today is still composing important musical works? They were subjected to exactly the same stressors of fan mass hysteria and greedy business masters. The difference, in my opinion, was their individual predilection for developing drug and/or alcohol dependence.

The question is whether that predilection is genetically determined as a simple brain chemistry equation, with certain high levels of talent being genetically associated in the DNA with strong addiction potential. Another possibility is that talent in certain individuals is associated with poor emotional stability/self esteem and a dearth of personal confidence, so that the ravaging forces of fame really just destroy them over time. Think Michael Jackson. In those cases drug and alcohol abuse may be just a symptom of their personal helplessness, helping speed the implosion.

Of course, it may all just be random combinations of the fortunate with the unfortunate.

I just hope these brave guys can survive fame:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEpnwCPgH7g