Whitney: Her best live performance

You Give Good Love (Live from The Tonight Show)

How Will I Know (Live from Brit Awards)

One Moment in Time (Live from Grammy Awards)

I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Live from That’s What Friends Are For)

The Star Spangled Banner (Live from Super Bowl)

All the Man I Need (Live from Welcome Home Heroes)

Medley: I Loves You Porgy, And I Am Telling You / I Have Nothing

My Love is Your Love (Letterman Show)

Whitney Houston - Lover Man, My Man & All The Man That I Need (Billboard Awards 1991)

Believe in You and Me (Live from WMAs)

I Will Always Love You

Live in Monaco, just magical!!

There is Music in You - Live at the Rosie O'Donnell Show 1998

'Didn't We Almost Have it All' - Live Saratoga Springs, NY 1987

This Day

LIVE at VH1

Why Does it Hurt So Bad - Live MTV Awards 1996

Didn't We Almost Have It All

in Saratoga Springs, NY

I Learned from the Best - Manheim, Germany 1999.

Greatest Love Of All

1990 Arista Records

He, I Believe - Wembley Stadium, London (1988)

A Song for You - Welcome Home Heroes Concert, Norfolk, VA (1991)

'In Return' - Yokohama, Japan 1991

This Day - Rehersal, TV special - 1992

Aretha Franklin Tribute - Washington D.C. 1997

Stormy Weather Live

I loved her Star Spangled Banner but not a peep of that was live

Whitney Houston is that rare singer who sounded better live than on studio records.

Bobby…BOBBY

We've settled this in previous threads.

The "Loverman/My Man/All The Man That I Need" medley from 1991 Billboard Awards.

Whitney's finest moment live

I Loves You Porgy/Summertime - Washington, DC 1997

The shocking Wanna Be Startin Something (September 7, 2001):

Diana Ross Tribute - Washington DC, 1997

My vote is for "All the Man That I Need". It's her most soulful and powerful performance.

Dionne Warwick Tribute - Washington DC, 1997

'I Have Nothing' - Johannesburg, South Africa (1994). Peak Whitney!

I Am Changing 1984

Ever heard her sing in the shower? Sounds like she’s underwater trying to come up for air.

Master Blaster - Johannesburg, South Africa (1994)

Love Medley - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1994)

Natural Woman - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1994)

Love Medley - Santiago de Chile, Chile (1994)

All At Once - AMAs 1987

The one where she ate pussy after.

I literally got goosebumps just scrolling through this thread (without sound). There will never be another Whitney.

The Super Bowl performance is winning by a huge margin, with >62% of the votes.

In that Diana Ross tribute her backup singers do most of the song. Was that a wig or her natural hair? That hair style looked really bad on her.

Abraham, Martin and John

Mr Bojangles

Wasn't her Super Bowl performance pre-recorded?

[quote] Whitney Houston is that rare singer who sounded better live than on studio records.

I disagree. Her live versions were almost unrecognizable to the recorded version. R1 is exhibit A.

Once there was Jabba. But now, we bring you Whabba, the Whitney Houston troll!

R49 yes it was pre-recorded and shouldn't even be considered here.

That's what good live performers do R50.

I think the Super Bowl pre-record had more to do with sound techniques and acoustics than her voice. She's proven time and again that she can deliver a great live performance.

One Moment In Time

[quote] Her best live performance

As a heterosexual.

[quote] I think the Super Bowl pre-record had more to do with sound techniques and acoustics than her voice.

I totally understand why they'd want to prerecord a layer of that for the Super Bowl. But it ain't live, it's Memorex.

[quote] That's what good live performers do [R50].

Not to the point where it's unrecognizable. Or when she's talking her way through it.

Her musical director, Rickey Minor, who came up with the arrangement addresses the super bowl live controversy here. Says Whitney sang live in the stadium but the NFL made the call to use the pre-recorded audio. Read the whole article at link.

[quote]“She never heard it until she sang it for the pre-record, as in all of the Super Bowl and big events like that, they require singers to do a safety vocal,” he said. “That is pretty much that first take and her first time hearing it, which is really unusual. Singers, actors, they always say the first take; that's really the truth. You're reacting to what you're hearing in the moment, rather than trying to craft a perfect vocal.”

[quote]The pre-recorded version that is almost entirely from that first take ended up being the audio used on the day of the Super Bowl, despite Houston still singing live on the field. The debate on whether the audio heard was the live performance from that day or a pre-recorded version slightly muddied the waters of the performance’s legacy, since lip-syncing is such a polarizing topic and there were multiple conflicting messages being shared by many of the parties involved in the performance.

That performance has been dissected for thirty years. It is, indeed, iconic and belongs here.

This is the best article I've read about how the Super Bowl performance unfolded. My favourite part: The NFL tried to change it back to normal and Whitney shut it down.

[quote]"Then on Jan. 17," as Steeg further recalled it, "senior executives with the NFL asked to hear the recording. A tape was overnighted to Buffalo, where the AFC championship game was played. The next day I was told the version was viewed as too slow and difficult to sing along with. Could I ask to have it redone." Perhaps the NFL was afraid there would be discontent in the stands, as there had been when Jose Feliciano dared to find himself and the times in the anthem before Game 5 of the 1968 World Series. So Steeg called John Houston, Whitney's father and her manager at the time. "The conversation was brief," Steeg said. "There would be no recording."

It's pretty clear Whitney had agency and was not the product or puppet the media was portraying. They were always trying to credit a white man (Clive Davis) for her success, but here's the kicker: Clive never found another Whitney.

R58 I don't get it. She sang live but at the last minute the SB producers decided to dub in an earlier rehearsal performance instead? So, what the stadium heard was not what we heard on TV at home? I don't know. It sounds cagey on her musical director's part, as if he doesn't want to admit outright that it was lip-synched.

r50/r57 Whitney's appeal is that she sang a song the same way, twice. That's the mark of a great live performer and an improviser. It comes from her gospel training, that's why the live performances were more soulful than the studio versions.

R59 Clive Davis was very instrumental in Whitney's career. Don't try to rewrite history.

That's what he's saying, r60. The stadium heard her live but the TV audience heard the pre-record.

Esquire Magazine confirming the behind-the-scenes shenanigans:

[quote]But behind the scenes, NFL executives nearly derailed the whole performance. Execs argued that the gospel-style take would be deemed over the top. That Houston's approach was simply too much for the occasion. They reportedly asked that the song be redone, but Houston's father shut them down. No recording.

Their take:

[quote]The National Anthem, as we know it today, is due in large part to Houston. Though the Super Bowl had been tapping top-tier talent to sing the Anthem since Diana Ross' 1982 performance, no one had taken the artistic license that Houston did. Super Bowl renditions were predictable and deliberate, more akin to a singalong than a track open for interpretation. Houston upended that tradition. The closest thing the Super Bowl had seen to a deviation was the year before, when Aaron Neville performed the Anthem in his signature vocal style. There's a rich history of Black artists reinterpreting the National Anthem for political and creative purposes—notably Jimi Hendrix and Marvin Gaye (whose own version inspired Houston's performance). But this was the first time an artist had reimagined the Anthem at the Super Bowl, the biggest sporting event in America.

After Whitney Houston, now everybody puts their spin on the national anthem, sometimes with disastrous results. Many try to copy Whitney's inflections, particularly the way she sings "free", which wasn't part of the original music.

What an amazing thread with all those amazing links!

She won an Emmy for singing Saving All My Love for You on the Grammys.

Apparently after that Whitney performance of Saving All My Love For You, Streisand walked up to her and asked “how do you do that ?”--according to Robyn Crawford's book.

From Dreamgirls: I am Changing

13 minutes of perfection, Live from London

Always loved this

There have been so many tributes/covers of Whitney's music in the last decade, but I've yet to hear a single artist improve upon Whitney's version.

[quote]That's what he's saying, [R60]. The stadium heard her live but the TV audience heard the pre-record.

That doesn't make sense. It would have been obvious it's two different versions. A comfortable live performer as Whitney was can always to slight variations to a song.

I tend to believe she lip synced and was aware that she was singing to a pre-record. Not because she wasn't able to sing the song live, but because the acoustics of the stadium and technical circumstances demanded it.

If you watch her closely it becomes pretty obvious she's not singing live here.

I like Saving All My Love for You at David Letterman.

Whabba whabba whabba!

[quote] I like Saving All My Love for You at David Letterman.

[quote]I tend to believe she lip synced and was aware that she was singing to a pre-record.

That's what you believe, but no one involved says she did. And I don't think you were there.

r73 That's as close to the original that I've heard her sing live. Perfect.

I Believe in You and Me - UK TV show1997

Until You Come Back Me/My Love Is Your Love - AMA1999

ENOUGH with these extra 'filler' songs. Makes one have to wade through all of it to talk about the list the OP posted.

Now I'm too tired to reply.

It Hurts Like Hell - Leipzig, Germany 1999

The Love You Save (Jackson 5) - Buenos Aires 1994. Sounds like a young Michael Jackson

People involved in the super bowl production did say she sang to a pre-record, but I can understand that some people STILL deny it. I think it's obvious from her gestures and the way she moves her mouth that she lip synced. The differences are subtle but obvious. I also said Beyonce lip synced during Obama's second inauguration.

You can see the difference between a singer performing a song and trying to match mouth movements and gestures of a performance on a pre-recorded tape. It's completely two different things.

Her live performance of her platinum selling Urban/Hip-Hop chart topper, "Crack Is Wack (Whitney Too Rich To Do Crack)".

NONE. STOP POSTING DIVA BULLSHIT.

It's the Porgy and Bess medley. That performance is simply insane.

[quote]People involved in the super bowl production did say she sang to a pre-record, but I can understand that some people STILL deny it. I think it's obvious from her gestures and the way she moves her mouth that she lip synced. The differences are subtle but obvious.

It would be nice if you provided a link. Especially considering there are at least 3 different sources on this thread alone stating that she, at best, sang live to the stadium or, worst, into a dead mic. Her neck muscles suggest she was, indeed, vocalizing.

Related, but it's interesting that a singer so renowned for her live performances (as this thread proves) is hounded for this one performance in an attempt to discredit her entire career. We're talking about a woman who insisted on singing live even in her sad last years when her voice had long deserted her, to embarrassing results and international ridicule. This even as her contemporaries had taken to lipsynching by default. Why would she lip-synch at her vocal peak when she wouldn't do it after she'd lost the voice?

Her mike was off!

Nobody is discrediting her R85. I said numerous times that she obviously was capable of singing live. But on this occasion the technical aspects of the show demanded she perform to a pre-recorded version. That's just what it is.

No way something as huge as the Superbowl would allow singing without it being recorded before. It learned from the whole Janet Jackson debacle and it would never leave anything to chance again.

The fact that it was recorded means she definitely sang it. Plus, it was apparently her first take

R83 = Taylor Swift, feeling excluded.

I agree with your statement, R88. But Janet was over a decade after Whitney. So Whitney's pre recording had nothing to do with what the powers that be learned from Nipple Gate.

All the singers prerecord the Star Spangled Banner for Super Bowl. God forbid they should fuck it up.

It Hurts Like Hell - Stuttgart, Germany 1999

Medley - Buenos Aires, Argentina 1004

^ *1994

Even on off-days when her voice was hoarse, her engagement and interaction with the audience made for a good concert.

Love Song Medley - Brunei, 1996

I'm Every Woman 1994

God Bless the Child

God Bless America

Where Do Broken Hearts Go - Montreux, Switzerland 1987

R5 doesn't count. She may have sung live, but the microphone was dead, and the vocals were pre-recorded. It WAS a moving performance, but the vocal performance wasn't live.

I Will Always Love You, sung by Whitney Houston, is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

^ Good thing you're not the majority of people then. It's one of the best-selling singles in history.

I’m “partial”(tee hee) to her private performance for some sultan during her declining years where her teeth began falling from her gums like pearls from a broken string mid-song.

^Another lie. Autopsy said she implants and veneers.

[quote]her private performance for some sultan

This sultan, r103?

There were actually 16 songs on the 2014 album.

Clive Davis was responsible for the track listing, and it's not clear why the "Lover Man, My Man & All The Man That I Need" performance was not included.

I will link to his other choices in the following posts...

Clive chose "Greatest Love of All" from (That's What Friends Are For: Arista Records 15th Anniversary Concert, 1990).

Here's the version from the 1987 Grammys.

"I'm Your Baby Tonight", Welcome Home Heroes, 1991:

"A Song for You": Welcome Home Heroes, 1991:

I'm Every Woman (Live at HBO's The Concert For A New South Africa, 1994)

I WIll Always Love You:

"I Didn't Know My Own Strength", The Oprah Winfrey Show, 2009

The 1994 Concert for South Africa has been mentioned several times in this thread. Full concert in HD:

R112 is better than I remember. There were good performances even in the final years.

Whitney's best live performance was her last, when the Dyke Bitch was high as Fuck& drown in the bathtub. Dumb Fucking .. Gurgle

You're a disgusting OLD PIG and jealous RACIST Fag, R115! Everyone knows who you are. We all HATE you on this site.

Whitney Houston was the greatest voice of the last 50 years. And a very beautiful woman. May she rest in eternal peace.

Her voice is perfection and her delivery is sensitive and restrained. This is my favorite performance of IWALY. So very beautiful. That night with Pavarotti.

Learn From The Best

I prefer singing to screaming

With a voice as big as the sea. Whitney was the very best.

R115 needs to be banned, or his sockpuppet outed.

To R115, I have a sock puppet. I didn't know that what is his name!! Can I name him Jake? I used to use Jake as my trick name in the late 1980's!

Rare clip. Gospel

Probably her best ever live medley. Magic to the ear.

Whitney’s vocal was a undisputed beast in her prime. No peers, absolutely no competitors. Only Celine comes close to the 2nd.

Whitney, Cissy and Gary did a showstopping version of Wonderful Counselor at the Grammy Awards R123. The Whitney solo performance is new to me! Can't take the church out of the girl. That beautiful last colatura upward run. Amazing.

In Return. Whitney was really sick in Japan. A real cold. All of her performances there show this, but she managed to bring shorter phrases meaning and her beautiful head voice and full heart to every performance. The cry at the end of this song was not really like her. It was a lot like Cissy Houston.

I think she had a great voice, but there are better artists with lesser voices. Most of all, she could not sustain a concert or a show. She was best as a one off. We’ll never really know how great she might have been if it wasn’t for her addictions.

She didn't only sing this once...., but she didn't sing it often. She sang much more difficult material but this "Mariah" type song was challenging for Houston. Too much breathiness and mid range runs -it didn't allow her to use her superhuman chest belt or perfect head voice to their best advantage. It keeps her too much in mid voice. She's not in great voice here - but it's gorgeous and rich & raspy - full of feeling. She has that vocal node catch in her voice - Whitney on a bad day was better than most anyone else. Her voice had seismic power, agility and lush beauty - and her heart was always on full display.

R127 is 100 year old charlie.

Whitney - always better LIVE. This is an artful performance. Every part - the band, the backup, the soulful play with the "hit" recording - she's in total control of her slightly inhibited voice and delivery of the song. Her vocal production is not at it's purest - but this is by far the best performance of this song.

They finally found a clean copy of this performance. It was barely rehearsed and completely fantastic. Two of the greatest singers EVER. Whitney with her gorgeous tone, incredible chest belts and operatic head voice trills X Natalie Cole with her vocal soar and church girl exclamation notes! They were real life friends and it shows. Rhythmic and vocal fire.

R28, why did Clive Davis not include that medley on the album?

She would be a better singer later, but her voice was superhuman in the late eighties. This is amazing.

February 11, 2022 is the10 year anniversary of Whitney's death.

Were you shocked by the news?

[quote]The stadium heard her live but the TV audience heard the pre-record.

That makes no sense, she obviously sang to a pre-recorded track, because she tried to mimic to that pre-record. The sound of the open stadium and all the things that can go wrong during such a big event required that she lip synced.

That's just how it is. Wasn't her decision, because she obviously was capable of giving a great live performance.

Ten years clean and sober on February 11th!