Dubai: Janis Joplin. Kurt Cobain. Michael Jackson. Amy Winehouse. That Whitney Houston would one day find herself in such sorry company could not have been predicted by anyone who saw and heard the beautiful gospel singer-turned-pop star at her musical peak in the 1980s and 90s.
Then, she was a groundbreaking African-American fashion model, scion of an acclaimed musical dynasty (niece to Dionne Warwick, god-daughter to Aretha Franklin) and the soundtrack to countless love stories with her definitive version of Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You.
On Saturday, she was simply another tragic, grisly Hollywood story, declared dead at 48 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel mere hours before America's biggest music awards show, the Grammys, where she herself had, during her career, picked up six gongs.
Coroners on Sunday completed their autopsy on the body of singer Whitney Houston and confirmed that she was found in the bathtub of her hotel room, but said the cause of death would not be determined until more lab tests were completed.
Turbulent years
Organisers of the Grammys, which took place last night, scrambled to create a fitting, if last-minute, tribute; Jennifer Hudson and Chaka Khan, both of whom knew Houston, were chosen.
Houston's decline had been playing out for years, however; from her turb-ulent union with Bobby Brown to the drug use that destroyed her voice and thus any hopes of a comeback — not that she didn't try. "The biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy," she said in 2002.
On Saturday night, Clive Davis, the man who discovered and mentored Houston, had been due to throw his annual pre-Grammys gala in the same hotel, and all evening the media waited to see if he would go ahead.
He did — only a few floors away from where the LA coroner was examining Houston's body — leading tributes from the world's biggest music stars.
"I am personally devastated by the loss of someone who has meant so much to me. She was full of life, looking forward for tonight. She loved music and she loved this night that celebrated music," said a sombre Davis at the event, reading from a sheet of paper. "Simply put: Whitney would have wanted the music to go on."
