They didn’t always love her.
In what must surely be one of the worst errors in the history of pop music, CBS Records passed on Whitney Houston, according to a new documentary.
“Whitney Houston in Focus,” a new doc based on Bette Marshall’s photography book about Houston’s life before she beame a household name, claims that the “I Will Always Love You” singer auditioned for CBS Records president, Al Teller, before she got her big break with Clive Davis.
But Teller — who, coincidentally, was once Davis’ assistant — gave her the thumbs down, saying she needed to mature.
“That was probably the line in his life he most regretted,” Marshall says in the film.
The doc reveals Houston had received an offer from famed music exec, Bruce Lundvall, who was president of Elektra Records at the time, debunking the widely held belief that she was discovered by Davis.
There’s no dispute, however, that Davis, the music man behind stars like Bruce Springstein and Janis Joplin, scooped her up after Teller passed on her and Houston passed on Lundvall.
Audra McDonald and director Benjamin Alfonsi are producers on “Focus,” with the Broadway star also serving as the film’s narrator. The movie premiered at the Doc NYC Festival in 2023 and Starz is streaming it exclusively in honor of Black Music Appreciation Month.
The doc features never-before-seen images of Houston that Marshall shot from 1982 until 1986.
“To have been there at the beginning was a gift. For that experience to have been captured so beautifully in this film is yet another gift,” Marshall said.
Missing from the flick is her tumultuous relationship with Bobby Brown, and her drug use. (After all, the moive mostly covers her teenage years).
“It’s humbling to know that millions of viewers will get to see this side of Whitney. I think they’ll be surprised, and hopefully touched,” Alfonsi said in a statement.
Houston passed away in 2012 from an accidental drowning caused by “effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use,” according to the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office.
Marshall said she’ll always remember her one-time muse, “as the beautiful young girl with a golden voice who hugged me and said ‘Call me Nippy.’”
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