When Whitney Houston appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show in the aboriginal weeks of 1991, Arsenio’s different impermanent was Roseanne Barr, who had notoriously sung “The Star-Spangled Banner” astatine a San Diego Padres crippled the erstwhile year. The big asked Barr if she had immoderate proposal for Whitney, whose show astatine the Super Bowl XXV successful Tampa was conscionable weeks away. “Don’t drawback your crotch and spit,” Barr replied. It was benignant of funny, and besides absurd, fixed however overmuch much unit Whitney would bear, arsenic a Black pistillate singing the opus connected January 27, amid the heightened information and nationalist panic that marked the archetypal weeks of the Gulf War.
Whitney was tapped for the Super Bowl, 1 imagines, due to the fact that of the potency of her Olympic ballad “One Moment successful Time”—which proved, if not her patriotism, past her willingness to enactment fundamentally nationalist sports agendas. But her philharmonic attack to the anthem was much pro-Black than pro-American. She and Rickey discussed versions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” she loved, particularly Marvin Gaye’s minimalist rendition astatine the 1983 NBA All-Star Game. Gaye’s was possibly the astir inventive, not to accidental subversive, Black mentation of the anthem since Jimi Hendrix had shredded the opus astatine Woodstock successful 1969.
But portion the portion played, she sang her bosom retired into a dormant mic—a show truthful afloat embodied and perfectly synced to the portion that astir radical would ne'er cognize the difference.
The video shows an impossibly chill Gaye successful a crisp bluish suit and a tie, his eyes concealed by tinted shades. His lone accompaniment—a drum instrumentality and a keyboard—has already started by the clip helium walks onto the court, adjusts the mic, and starts singing successful a mode that is much seductive than solemn. He parcels retired phrases according to a signifier lone helium tin discern, past steers the opus backmost toward the archetypal astatine “rockets’ reddish glare,” arsenic if to beryllium helium knows however it’s expected to go, and is intentionally avoiding it. The assemblage seems to some emotion this and not rather judge it is happening. It’s so audacious.
But Gaye’s rendition, portion possibly a spot mocking (“thy star-spangled banner,” helium sang, not “that”) was besides truthful tender and skillful arsenic to remake the booming opus of American mightiness and masculinity into an ode to Black philharmonic ingenuity. By the clip helium was done, the location of the brave wasn’t America—it was immoderate spot radical could works their feet successful the maelstrom of this state and beryllium wholly themselves.
Whitney didn’t deconstruct the opus similar Gaye did, but she did instrumentality his mentation arsenic impervious of the song’s malleability. “It wasn’t rushed,” was however she described it to Rickey. “He was capable to instrumentality his time.” Gaye had changed the clip signature, from the oom-pah-pah European waltz clip of 3/4 to the much modular (and much gospel) march of 4/4.
Whitney and Rickey did the same. Rickey besides had the jazz bassist and bandleader John Clayton Jr. make an orchestral statement that synthesized jazz, classical, and gospel idioms. (Clayton had played successful some the Count Basie Orchestra and the Amsterdam Phil-harmonic.) The result, arsenic Rickey describes it, was “this brainsick quilt of a classical orchestration with jazz and gospel influences, acceptable to 4/4 time.” He flew to Tampa to grounds it with the symphony orchestra, but the conductor complained the statement was “too dissonant and strange.” Where Whitney, Rickey, and Clayton heard an innovative admixture, the conductor—presumably little experienced with specified syncretism—heard a clash. Meanwhile, the NFL recovered the statement excessively slow. They feared radical wouldn’t beryllium capable to sing on to it. Would Whitney rerecord it, they asked John? The reply from Whitney’s campy was simple: No.
The program was for her to deterioration a sleeveless achromatic cocktail formal with heels, Robyn says, successful keeping with the orchestra’s ceremonial attire. They’d anticipated lukewarm upwind successful Florida. At the dependable cheque that day, Whitney realized she’d frost successful the dress, truthful Robyn suggested the tracksuit she’d brought. Whitney did her ain makeup, enactment connected her Nike Cortez sneakers, and fastened an ivory bandana astir her head. It’s present hard to ideate it otherwise.
The full appearance—Whitney’s comportment, her manus gestures, and outfit—seems “arranged to convey casual confidence,” Danyel Smith writes successful a 2016 portion for ESPN. Even Whitney’s prime to clasp her hands down her back, Smith says, “reads intelligibly arsenic a subject at-ease.” Whitney had prerecorded the song—a necessity successful specified settings, Rickey says, owed to the overwhelming din of the crowd. But portion the portion played, she sang her bosom retired into a dormant mic—a show truthful afloat embodied and perfectly synced to the portion that astir radical would ne'er cognize the difference.
Whitney wasn’t chasing Black typical status. But she knew her look of assured complexity itself could embolden different Black people—perhaps particularly girls and women.
The opus is lone 4 sentences long. Whitney’s mentation lasts a specified 2 minutes. Yet successful that space, she writes a large American novel. Taking her clip with each word, she asks america to instrumentality thing for granted. She sings the archetypal verse straight, without embellishment; past moves into a quiet, suspenseful imaginativeness of the emblem “o’er the ramparts”; and reharmonizes the song’s penultimate thrust—“our emblem was—still there”—to fto america cognize it’s not implicit yet. By the clip she’s topped what is already the pinnacle of the opus with a butterfly flourish—“free-ee-ee!”—Whitney has planted her emblem successful the anthem. It’s hers.
People wept successful the stands, high-fived 1 different astatine home. Whitney was the people’s champ; their girl. They called vigor stations to petition it truthful often that DJs played tapes recorded from the TV, until Arista released the opus arsenic a single. It sold implicit a cardinal copies. Whitney donated proceeds to the Red Cross Gulf Crisis Fund. (She would again donate her net to foundation when, aft the September 11, 2001, attacks, Arista rereleased the single.) Whitney’s mentation was instantly under-stood to beryllium definitive. When trumpet subordinate Wynton Marsalis played the anthem astatine the NBA All-Star Game successful Philadelphia 2 weeks later, helium repeated Whitney’s flourish connected “free.” The writer Cinque Henderson lists respective others who person since done the same: Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson, Patti LaBelle, Mariah Carey, and Beyoncé.
Some person since asked what it meant for a Black woman, typical of America’s slightest escaped demographic, to reassure her chap citizens that their federation was inactive the onshore of the free. The student Farah Jasmine Griffin has argued that Whitney and different Black women who person sung for the state astatine specified large events tin beryllium seen arsenic handmaid-ens to American power, embodying not the “mother of the nation” but its mammy—a nurturing, unifying fig who is “just similar 1 of the family” but “has nary rights oregon privileges wrong it.”
Yet the mode Whitney interpreted the anthem—on what Rickey tells maine was her archetypal take—expressed an inclusive state that was particularly poignant for Black artists and listeners. Robyn writes, “Her gospel inflections claimed the opus for African Americans, galore of whom felt a transportation to it for the archetypal time.” The powerfulness Whitney expressed was much abstract than Beyoncé’s heavy-handed, and inactive astonishing, Super Bowl halftime show successful 2016, successful which the creator stormed the tract with a battalion of women dressed arsenic Black Panthers.
Yet Whitney combined Black artists’ ideals from that aforesaid revolutionary era: Nina Simone’s explanation of freedom, successful the aboriginal 1970s, arsenic the lack of fear, and Gaye’s licence to explicit oneself, down to each past funky idiosyncrasy. In Whitney’s clasped hands, her forebears’ fearless self-expression becomes full confidence. She is simply a vocalist with endowment to burn, delighted by her ain capacity, arsenic atrocious arsenic she wants to be. And she’s extending her greatness to us. We spot this successful the knowing sidelong glimpse she issues astatine the extremity of her performance, stretching up her arms arsenic if to say, We got this.
Whitney wasn’t chasing Black typical status. But she knew her look of assured complexity itself could embolden different Black people—perhaps particularly girls and women. The effect was akin to the 1 writer Joan Morgan ascribes to The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998). Morgan argues that Hill’s multifaceted persona—as a righteous, romanticist Ivy League–educated rapper and fashionista—was and remains important for fans, for this reason: “It allows you to assistance yourself support to go the happening you cognize successful your bosom you are but person ne'er seen.”
In an epoch earlier the preponderance of prerecorded tracks, popular stars had to person large unrecorded bands, and Whitney—alongside Michael, Janet, Prince, and Madonna—had 1 of the best.
A decennary earlier Hill expressed her genius done songwriting, Whitney precocious a antithetic benignant of authenticity—not by penning her ain lyrics but by threading her quicksilver habits of temper and caput into her vocal art. To ticker her rehearsing for, past performing “All the Man That I Need” connected Saturday Night Live—delivering antithetic inflections wrong a substance of hours; and, connected the amusement itself, slapping her palms similar a tambourine and moving the emotion opus into church—is to witnesser a vocalist whose vocals were synced to her impulse and moved faster than thought. Here was a noncommercial expressive authenticity much cardinal than Whitney’s expected restoration of her gospel oregon R&B roots.
She could explicit these ideas successful the infinitesimal not lone acknowledgment to years of signifier but due to the fact that she was present supported by world-class musicians—“a set of atrocious motherfuckers” (in Bette’s phrase) who would facilitate the top performances of her life. In an epoch earlier the preponderance of prerecorded tracks, popular stars had to person large unrecorded bands, and Whitney—alongside Michael, Janet, Prince, and Madonna—had 1 of the best.
In 1989, Rickey curated the ensemble that would circuit with her for astir a decennary and paid them good capable to support them from moving with those different artists. Wayne Linsey, a fun-loving, self-described “civil rights baby” and preacher’s kid from Atlanta, played keys, alongside Bette, who was the 1 achromatic subordinate and the 1 woman. The guitarist was Ray Fuller, a big-hearted Chicago autochthonal who’d worked with Quincy Jones, George Duke, and Dionne. The drummer Rickey Lawson was a Detroiter who’d toured with Stevie and Michael. Bashiri Johnson was a quiet, superb New York percussionist who’d been mentored by James Mtume and played with Madonna, Michael, and Luther. Kirk Whalum was different preacher’s son; a soul-pop sax subordinate from Memphis who, similar everyone else, approached his playing arsenic a originative and spiritual mission. Bashiri tells me, “We conscionable wanted [Whitney] to consciousness similar she was lasting connected apical of the upland and we were supporting her with each of our mightiness and endowment truthful she could conscionable sing. And that’s what she did.”
After her Super Bowl triumph, Whitney, fired up and fearless, wanted to execute for the troops successful the Middle East. Few people, Cissy writes, thought this was a bully idea. Military representatives and Washington authorities alike advised against it—telling Whitney she could get kidnapped oregon killed. So she sang for 3,500 troops who had conscionable returned from the Persian Gulf. HBO had wanted her to bash a peculiar anyway. Welcome Home Heroes with Whitney Houston, her archetypal unrecorded televised concert, held astatine the Naval Air Station successful Norfolk, Virginia, aired connected Easter Sunday, March 31, 1991. HBO unscrambled the awesome to marque it accessible to fifty-three cardinal households. Both technically and culturally, it constituted 1 of the top unrecorded shows of the precocious twentieth century.
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Excerpted from Holding Lightning: The Life, Loves, and Art of Whitney Houston by Emily Lordi. Copyright © 2026 by Emily Jeanne Lordi. Published by Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
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