Media outlets were awash with all the tawdry details!
No sir!
Whitney Houston's much-ballyhooed comeback concert - staged outdoors to accomodate throngs of excited fans and hopeful industry-insiders (broacast live! on Good Morning America to far-reaching rapt audiences around the globe) - was anything but the triumphant return the former Diva (and her handlers who- no doubt - wrung their hands in dismay along the sidelines) was shooting for.
Critics far-and-wide not only trounced the troubled crooner's lackluster stage performance - but also shed an unflattering spotlight on a once-glorious voice that now cracked and faltered and wheezed from the get-go - casting doubts on her songbird future.
Whitney was quick to blame an alleged hours-on-end interview (the day before) with Oprah Winfrey for ravaging her golden pipes - and ultimately - snatching the wind out of her sails the following day at the ill-fated concert that brought the curtain down on her lofty dreams of a place in the sun once again.
The Oprah excuse was ludicrous, at best.
Granted, it is wholly possible to suffer a strain from too-much blabbing.
For example, last year at a Film Festival in Dallas, I chatted up so many filmmakers and members of the press one long drawn-out media event, that my own pipes caved in for about a half-a-day or so.
But, in that circumstance, I was straining to make myself heard over a few dozen voices in a packed overheated screening room.
In a one-on-one interview - with quiet on the set - it is highly doubtful that Ms. Houston would ever encounter a smidgen of circumstances inclined to rob her of her ability to vocalize thereafter in any capacity.
Drugs - whack, for instance - just might, however!
Notwithstanding the obvious, Houston's decision to perform in the specific venue chosen for the - um - auspicious occasion - live on stage, outdoors, before a huge crowd in an open-park setting - was (quite simply) a bad career move.
For starters, the accoustics for a concert under the foregoing circumstances, would be pretty much non-existent.
Consequently, any vocalist worth their weight, would have been battling the elements to rise up and be heard above the din (to their detriment).
A smaller more-intimate stage would have been preferable.
Here, Houston was forced to charge about a wide-open expanse like a galloping horse in search of a proper gait to build on, with a hope and a prayer.
Well, they shoot horses, don't they?
But, there's always studio work, Whitney.
And, a dollop of sweetening in the sound-mixing phase, to take the edge off that crack in your voice!
Save going cold turkey, I guess.
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