Exclusive Whitney Houston Grammy Tribute Coverage: Patriotic & Christian Themes Cover-Up Addiction

Whitney Houston Grammy Tribute Concert Stage and Audience: Exclusive Photo by Truthquake.com

EXCLUSIVE REPORT: Whitney Houston was honored Thursday night by the Grammys – National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences – in Los Angeles.

Truthquake News staff was present in the Nokia Theatre that was about three-fourths filled with a couple thousand Whitney Houston fans to be taped for the forthcoming November 16 TV broadcast titles “We Will Always Love You: A Grammy Salute to Whitney Houston.”

The general theme was Whitney’s music pre-2000, that she was a religious Christian and she was patriotic. The concert was setup to invoke nostalgia and barely mentioned anything she did past 2000 – past the time when she had public drug and alcohol addiction problems. The creators of the show, such as Arista record company CEO Clive Davis, seemed to be trying to cement the public image of Whitney as a superhuman devoid of flaws.

A major reason for the tribute concert is to make advertising money for the telecast, strengthen Whitney Houston’s image as a dead music legend, sell albums, singles, movie DVDs and videos. Clive Davis and his wife were present, and he would probably not show if he did not think it would help increase music sales.

The Grammy show producers made sure to add a heavy dose of American patriotism to the tribute special concert – likely to strengthen her fan ties with older people and Midwest viewers who may have forgotten why they used to like Whitney or may have turned their back on her after her drug problems or the revelations by her ex-husband Bobby Brown, friends and former gay lovers that she had been in several lesbian relationships throughout her life.

Her performance of “The Star Spangled Banner” U.S. national anthem at Super Bowl XXV in 1991 was shown three times throughout the night and once in its entirety. Even though showing it this many times was overkill, the performance was significant since Whitney released the song twice to radio and as a single – in 1991 and after 9/11 in 2001. Also, in 2001 it peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and it was the only time a musician sold over a million copies of the national anthem.

Briefly, Whitney’s song “My Love Is Your Love” was played in a medley with other songs. However, for the Grammy tribute, that album that was a comeback commercial success for the singer was not emphasized.

Her last album I Look to You was overlooked at the event too and was only represented with the album cover photo being shown on the big screen above the stage. The album may not have sold as many copies as past albums, but it did debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart and shipped out one million copies in the U.S. alone. Its title song peak at #70 on the Hot 100 and “Million Dollar Bill” with Alicia Keys peaked at 100 on the Hot 100 and in the top 20 of the R&B charts.

Again the de-emphasis of Whitney’s last three albums was most likely to just force people to remember nostalgic, younger Whitney music.

After the show producer made a speech, which will probably not be included in the telecast, Halle Berry opened the show with a short speech about her love for Whitney and how she stood behind her as a fan for her whole life. Berry was crying a little, but being that she is an actress who wants to be liked and placed in the next biggest selling movie, the tears may not have been completely real or completely for Whitney.

Jennifer Hudson then performed and had her hair styled to look like the crimped mohawk mullet style Whitney had in the “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” music video. She sang that song and “I’m Every Woman” and “How Will I Know.”

During her medley, she danced with a group of dancers. She sang in the crowd for part of the performance. The whole audience was standing out of their seats, dancing and clapping the beat.

Then, Britney Spears walked on stage with a long, blonde weave and made a speech about Whitney before introducing some more video clips of the dead singer. Britney somewhat foolishly under-emphasized Whitney by saying that her greatest musical influences were Madonna, some other names and then tacked Whitney on at the end of the list: “last but certainly not least Whitney Houston.” Why even mention the other singers at Whitney’s tribute?

After, vintage video clips of Whitney’s performances and part of an interview with her were shown. At one point she even made a feminist statement about how men would never survive without women. People in the audience cheered.

This interview with Whitney in the 1990s was interspersed throughout the concert after the different famous presenters and singers. She was articulate and intelligent in the interview.

Following, Clive Davis delivered a speech about discovering Whitney as a teenager.

Celine Dion was supposed to perform live but did not show. Instead, the show producers played a video of her as a teen singing Whitney’s “The Greatest Love of All” song.

Then, LL Cool J spoke about Whitney and the cheers and catcalling from the women in the audience were loud. One would think their ovaries were going to explode based on their enthusiasm for the rapper-turned-actor who is reportedly bisexual according to Wendy Williams and her sources.

A video of Whitney singing “I Will Always Love You” was played after. It was introduced as the song that only Whitney could do justice – even though it was originally written and performed by Dolly Parton.

The full version of Whitney singing “The Star Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl was played, and the crowd at the concert erupted in cheering as if she was alive in the room.

The lights were dimmed for Usher to sing “I Believe in You and Me” from The Preacher’s Wife movie with an orchestra. As he rotated on a circular platform, many of the women were screaming again like with LL Cool J.

The concert’s producer than made Usher sing the song a second time because of technical difficulties with filming the performance. His first version of the song sounded best and most like the way Whitney sang it. In the second singing, Usher left out the part where Whitney modulates the notes up the musical scale to end the song. In the first version, he did it well.

A video of Whitney was shown singing “The Greatest Love of All” – Celine Dion could not be the only one to sing this song it seemed.

The director then thanked Whitney’s daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown, mother Cissy Houston and family for being in the audience. Sister-in-law Pat Houston was there with Bobbi Kris’s boyfriend and fiance Nick Gordon. Bobby Brown was not present.

Following, CeCe Winans and Yolanda Adams made a speech together about Whitney and her devotion to Christianity and religion. They said Whitney began singing in the Baptist church in Newark, NJ and ended her life there – that part was a little strange since they were talking about her funeral being at the same church.

Immediately afterward, they sang together “Count on Me” that was originally sung with CeCe and Whitney. Behind them, a picture of Whitney from The Preacher’s Wife movie in a yellow robe singing with a gospel choir was shown on the main screen.

Many of the people started yelling out in the fashion Christian Holly-rollers would if they were in church – even though the song was about friendship – not religion.

The performance was a good way to end the show and was arguably the most powerfully-sung song of the night due to Yolanda Adams having such as strong voice.

By ending the show with the song that was made to sound like a gospel song, it helped reenforce the idea that Whitney was a religious and spiritual person, which she was in real life, but many of her deeds in life likely would have been frowned upon by the most religious Protestant Christians.

Some people including Chaka Khan said publicly after her death that they did not understand why Clive Davis held his Grammy party on the night of Whitney’s death in February and in the same Hilton hotel because it was disrespectful. Some relatives and fans, such as sister-in-law Leolah Brown stated they believed Whitney was murdered – brought back into addiction and allowed to die – because, like Michael Jackson or Elvis Presley, she was worth more dead than alive since she was not selling well the past several years.

In the 911 call on the night of Whitney’s death, the people in her hotel room said they did not perform CPR on her when she was drowning in the bathtub, and the same people hung up the phone when the lobby concierge was trying to reach them to make the emergency call. Some people have suggested not only was Whitney apart of a murder death plot, but she was also a pawn in a Satanic blood ritual for members of the Illuminati New World Order to sacrifice her to bring fortune on the next incarnation of a Whitney-like performer to do their mass-population mind-control brainwashing.

Before Whitney’s death, she told Diane Sawyer that Clive Davis had an abusive, almost magical hold over her – a “Svengali relationship” with her – but she claimed she broke free of his hold. More recently, she was working with him again, which raises the question of whether it was a willing relationship or more of a slave and master or drug addict and dealer relationship.

Even though Whitney was a greatly talented person, she was also flawed like everyone. Tributes and mass-marketing machines, such as the music business, try to make people forget about performers being humans. This need for business executives to paint an image of their entertainers as perfect superheroes and the pressure that it inflicts on the actual person is likely one of the main reasons Whitney Houston struggled throughout her life, suffered from drug and alcohol addiction and died early.

The Grammy tribute concert will likely achieve what the producers and directors of the show wanted, and Whitney Houston’s legacy will be solidified more and will cause more products to be sold while the reasons behind her death and possible murder will fade away.