Whitney Houston 2, 2003), and gospel singer Emily "Cissy" (Drinkard) Houston. Her elder brother Michael is a singer, and her elder half-brother is former basketball player Gary Garland. Her parents were both African American. Through her mother, Houston was a first cousin of singers Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick. Her godmother was Darlene Love and her honorary aunt was Aretha Franklin, whom she met at age 8 or 9 when her mother took her to a recording studio. Houston was raised a Baptist, but was also exposed to the Pentecostal church. After the 1967 Newark riots, the family moved to a
Whitney Houston Live: Her Greatest Performances the full range of her talent. Shorn of the studio’s confining arrangements and gauzy production, the Newark native had the freedom to display those hairpin turns of phrase, last-second switches in key and playful improvisations that rank her among the greatest singers of all time.' Glenn Gamboa of newsday gave it Grade A and wrote, 'Houston was an extraordinary singer, an artist who rarely delivered a song the same way twice. Early on, her improvised inflections, her runs, her stops and starts—they all seemed brilliantly planned and elegantly executed. "Whitney Houston Live" documents how great the singer was before her