It's not often that music mogul Clive Davis takes to The Today Show to make a special announcement, but that's exactly what the former Columbia President, Arista founder and current Chief Creative Officer at Sony Music Entertainment did this morning to unveil his latest passion project. Five-time Grammy winner Davis was on hand to present the first-ever live album from one of his most famous discoveries, the late Whitney Houston. "This is her legacy," said Davis of Whitney Houston Live - Her Greatest Performances, the new CD and CD/DVD release coming from Arista and Legacy Recordings on November 10.
"She was without question the greatest vocalist in the world," Davis said this morning of Houston, yet amazingly, she never officially released a live album during her lifetime. The new Whitney Houston Live traces her career from one of her breakthrough moments - the 1983 Merv Griffin Show performance during which Davis introduced the 19-year old to the world, belting Charlie Smalls' showtune "Home" from The Wiz - through her 2009 appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show singing Diane Warren's "I Didn't Know My Own Strength" from her final studio album, I Look to You.
After the jump: what will you find on both editions of this new set? Plus: the full track listing and pre-order links!
The CD/DVD collection includes 16 tracks on CD (also available as a stand-alone CD release, sans DVD) drawn from various sources such as The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson ("You Give Good Love"), The 31st Annual Grammy Awards ("One Moment in Time"), Arista's 30th anniversary bash ("I Wanna Dance with Somebody"), Late Show with David Letterman ("My Love is Your Love") and Super Bowl XXV (her famous rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner"). Among the choice covers on the set are her Welcome Home Heroes performance from 1991 of Leon Russell's "A Song for You," a 1994 American Music Awards medley of Porgy and Bess' "I Loves You, Porgy" and Dreamgirls' "And I Am Telling You..." with The Bodyguard's "I Have Nothing," and the Four Tops' hit "I Believe in You and Me" from the World Music Awards in 2004. Houston had previously recorded "I Believe in You and Me" in 1996 for the film The Preacher's Wife, and she would return to "A Song for You" for I Look to You.
The DVD includes the television performances of all 16 tracks on the CD plus bonus performances of Whitney and Mariah Carey's duet on Stephen Schwartz's Academy Award-winning Prince of Egypt theme "When You Believe" from the 1999 Oscars ceremony, and a promotional music video of "My Love is Your Love."
Whitney Houston Live - Her Greatest Performances is available on November 10, and can be pre-ordered at the links below!
Whitney Houston Live: Her Greatest Performances (Arista/Legacy, 2014)
CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
CD/DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
- Home (Live on The Merv Griffin Show - 6/23/1983)
- You Give Good Love (Live on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson - 4/5/1985)
- How Will I Know (Live on The BRIT Awards - 2/9/1987)
- One Moment in Time (Live on The 31st Grammy Awards - 2/22/1989)
- Greatest Love of All (Live at the Arista Records 15th Anniversary Concert, Radio City Music Hall, New York City - 3/7/1990)
- I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me) (Live at the Arista Records 15th Anniversary Concert, Radio City Music Hall, New York City - 3/7/1990)
- The Star Spangled Banner (Live at Super Bowl XXV, Tampa Stadium, Tampa, FL - 1/27/1991)
- All the Man That I Need (Live on Welcome Home Heroes With Whitney Houston, Naval Air Station, Norfolk, VA - March 31, 1991)
- I'm Your Baby Tonight (Live on Welcome Home Heroes With Whitney Houston, Naval Air Station, Norfolk, VA - March 31, 1991)
- A Song for You (Live on Welcome Home Heroes With Whitney Houston, Naval Air Station, Norfolk, VA - March 31, 1991)
- Medley: I Loves You, Porgy/And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going/I Have Nothing (Live on The American Music Awards - February 7, 1994)
- I'm Every Woman (Live on The Concert for a New South Africa - November 1994)
- I Will Always Love You (Live on The Concert for a New South Africa - November 1994)
- My Love is Your Love (promo video) *
- My Love is Your Love (Live on Late Show with David Letterman - 12/10/1998)
- When You Believe (Duet with Mariah Carey) (Live at The 71st Academy Awards - 3/21/1999) *
- I Believe in You and Me (Live on The 16th Annual World Music Awards - 9/15/2004)
- I Didn't Know My Own Strength (Live on The Oprah Winfrey Show - 9/15/2009)
* DVD only
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Can't wait! Her official Music Store: http://www.myplaydirect.com/whitney-houston has this exclusively on Purple Vinyl, and I've ordered that version!
This is long overdue. Great choice of performances.
This is a nice stopgap, but a little bit of a gyp. Four of these performances are on her Greatest Hits dvd. I don't know why Clive Davis and HBO simply refuse to release her "Welcome Home Heroes" & Nelson Mandela tribute concerts in their entirety on DVD.
14 new DVD tracks plus a CD for $15-20 is a gyp?? I guess everything should be free
I wasn't complaining about the price. What I said was: I don’t know why Clive Davis and HBO simply refuse to release her “Welcome Home Heroes” concert & Nelson Mandela tribute concert- "Whitney: The Concert for a New South Africa"- in their entirety on DVD. It just doesn't make any sense. Fans have been mistaking that bootleg dvd and cd, "A Song for You", for the real thing for years, when it's actually a low quality, abridged version of her "Welcome Home Heroes" concert that originally aired on HBO. It's officially out of print, and the laserdisc is the only format where the concert was included in its entirety. The VHS of it didn't include all of the songs. And the South Africa concert has been a bootleg cd and dvd as well.
Sorry, maybe Clive Davis has no control at all, as I would guess.
Personally, I don't care for live records. I'd prefer remastered and expanded reissues of all her 80's and 90's albums instead. 🙂
I would LOVE to see proper remastered expanded deluxe editions of her back catalogue including all remixes, edits, etc. from the various commercial and promotional singles plus any unreleased gems that may lay languishing in the vaults. So many smaller labels are able to churn successful compilations of the sort for artists whose sales and following pale to Whitney's; surely the powers-that-be at her label could produce something spectacular for her many devoted fans.
A missed opportunity to issue her rousing performances of "I Wanna Be Where You Are" and "Tomorrow" from the Arista 10th Anniversary party; also, cheers to the suggestion to issue Welcome Home Heroes and A Concert for South Africa as stand-alone releases. In fact, each of her tours is deserving of home video release. Hopefully in time...