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Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston

American R&B/pop singer, actress and former fashion model

Whitney Houston was born on born August 9, 1963 in Newark, New Jersey. At the age of eleven, Houston began to follow in her mother\'s footsteps and started performing as a soloist in the junior gospel choir at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where she also learned to play the piano. Her first solo performance in the church was "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah". Houston spent some of her teenage years touring nightclubs where her mother Cissy was performing, and she would occasionally get on stage and perform with her.

In 1978, at age 15, Houston sang background vocals on Chaka Khan\'s hit single "I\'m Every Woman", a song she would later turn into a hit for herself on her monster-selling soundtrack album The Bodyguard. She also sang back-up on albums by Lou Rawls and Jermaine Jackson. In the early 1980s, Houston started working as a fashion model after a photographer saw her at Carnegie Hall singing with her mother.

Houston is one of the world\'s best-selling music artists, having sold over 170 million albums and singles worldwide. She is ranked as the fourth best-selling female artist in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with 55 million certified albums.

In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of the Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart\'s fiftieth anniversary, ranking Houston at number nine. She has been listed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.