It’s been 12 years since we lost the great Whitney Houston, but the fact that we’re still talking about her shows how singular her talent was and continues to be. Every now and then, we get reminders of that greatness and today is one of those days.
A Houston fan account posted a video of the singer along with fellow vocal Queen Dionne Warwick ⏤ Houston’s cousin ⏤ singing the 1985 smash hit “That’s What Friends Are For.” The original recording of the song featured Warwick along with Elton John, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder, but this particular rendition saw the endlessly talented family duo performing it as a duet. Hearing the legends sing it together struck an instant chord, and not just with casual viewers. Warwick herself reposted the song to her own X account, with the video obviously serving as a walk down memory lane given her quasi-speechless reaction.
It didn’t take long for more viewers to weigh in with their own emotional reactions. For some, it was the very first time they’d ever witnessed this time-capsule moment, a performance as technical as it is historic given both the singers’ familial tie and Houston’s tragic passing. Viewers who had seen it before, however, were quick to share the nostalgic weight songs like this still carry. “Folks tired of hearing songs this summer do not understand how songs like this had a HOLD ON US FOR A COUPLE OF YEAAAARS!,” one user quipped. “Allllll of the folks backing y’all!?!?! Raaannnge!”
The palpable emotion in the song is hard to ignore. At one point in the video, a bevy of celebrities join Houston and Warwick, including actors like Lauren Bacall and Whoopi Goldberg. On piano is none other than Burt Bacharach, the composer of seminal classics such as “I Say a Little Prayer” and “What the World Needs Now” (and who, yes, 100% had a cameo in 1997’s Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery). Needless to say, there’s a lot of star power in the video, and it didn’t take long for the tears to gently fall.
The overwhelming reaction to the video is that it’s giving “good ‘ole days” ⏤ a flashback to a time before cell phones and social media when the power of live music found people listening and experiencing, not holding up iPhones and watching the scene play out through a screen.
As many of the comments confirm, Warwick and Houston were actually cousins. Warwick’s mother was a sister to Houston’s mother, Cissy, and the familial tie gives the song even more emotional weight.
Warwick had a viral moment of her own recently during an interview with National Public Radio (NPR) wherein she was rated songs in a segment called “Nobody Asked for This (But I’m Gonna Tell You Anyhow).” She listened to the hit song “Please, Please, Please” by Sabrina Carpenter, which the famous singer gave four-and-a-half out of five Dionnes; however, she took umbrage with one lyric in particular: “I’m working late ’cause I’m a singer.” In an instantly meme-able moment, Warwick declared “That does not resonate with me.”
After X account Pop Crave posted about her answer, Warwick quickly clarified what she meant, saying that in her case, she prefers to sleep over staying up late: “This was a joke, but why would this resonate with me? I do not work late. I go to sleep… Sabrina is a wonderful young vocalist doing her thing. I wish her nothing but success and longevity, Pop Crave.” What did resonate with her, of course, was the incredible chemistry she had with Houston, and the resurfaced performance making the rounds reminded us all of that to the tenth degree.
Published: Oct 3, 2024 04:46 pm