A Song for You

by Robyn Crawford

  Chanson papillon, we were very young

  Like butterflies, like hot butterfly.

  “Listen to Chaka! Look where she goes.” She was teaching. “Watch how they go now. Listen. Right here, right here.”

  She’d play the track over and over, and I was her willing student. Whitney explained that Chaka’s phrasing was brilliant and that her voice was like an instrument. When she was up high, she sounded like a trumpet or emulated the sound of a tenor sax. Whitney was also blown away by her enunciation.

  “This is a Catholic schoolgirl. You can understand every word she says.”

  The prior summer, Val had proclaimed her love for Chaka, but I didn’t get it back then. Now I listened closely, and sure enough, every word came through clear as a bell. Whitney deconstructed every line, and I came to understand Chaka’s gifts.

  “People don’t appreciate Chaka enough,” Whitney was fond of saying.

  Along with breaking down the genius of other singers, Whitney took great pleasure in schooling me about her mother’s recordings. She clearly had played each album over and over and knew every note her mother sang. Whenever a record that had her mother on it was playing, Nippy spoke with the reverent tones reserved for one-name stars like Aretha. Even though it was backing vocals, Whitney acted as if Cissy were singing lead. “I want you to hear my mother’s whole thing,” Whitney said one day, and she played me every last song her mother appeared on, proudly demonstrating why Cissy was paid triple scale.

  Daydreamin’ and I’m thinking of you

  Look . . . at . . . my mind . . . floating . . . away

  I’d always found the opening of Aretha’s “Day Dreaming” hypnotic, but following the listening session with Whitney, I realized Cissy’s voice was responsible for the sweetness. And I still have every album she was on and can isolate her voice on songs like Donny Hathaway’s “I Know It’s You,” Chaka’s “Roll Me Through the Rushes,” and Luther’s “You’re the Sweetest One.”

  After hours of immersion in Cissy’s discography, Nippy gave me a copy of her mother’s self-titled album, because “Things to Do” was a song that I particularly enjoyed. I looked down at the cover photo of a smiling Cissy Houston dressed in an orange mandarin-collar shirt, bursting through ripped gray paper, and tried to reconcile the woman with the voice like glass with the mother who Whitney said made her feel small.

  Over time, Whitney told me all about her mother’s years with the Sweet Inspirations and shared stories about how they had to go through back doors and kitchens to perform at venues in the segregated South because black people were barred from entering through the front. Whitney said her mother frequently gushed about how handsome Elvis was and said he was a kind man who took great care of them. One of Cissy’s most cherished possessions was a gift he gave her, a piece of jewelry.

  Like most black families, mine was into music. My father listened to Johnny Mathis and Phyllis Hyman; my mother was a huge fan of Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand, and Morgana King. My brother, Marty, was big into Black Ivory, Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band, Motown, and club music because he loved to dance. When I was twelve, Marty, my cousins, and I even had a group called the 5 Shades of Soul. Until basketball won all my attention, we sang Bloodstone’s “Natural High” and the Five Stairsteps’ “O-o-h Child” at family barbecues and in competitions around Newark.

  Whitney started bringing me around her cousin Felicia and her “cousin” Larry, who was really just a close friend. They were like the Three Musketeers. In their church choir, they performed medleys, so sometimes they would pick a song on the radio and sing it together.

  I told Whitney I’d always wanted to be in a church choir, but that never happened for me. When I was small, we used to go to the Kingdom Hall downtown, where my great-grandmother was an elder, but they didn’t sing and they didn’t praise. There was no rhythm and no real celebration at all. My mother, a spiritual seeker, spent years going to different houses of worship hoping to find a place she belonged. As I child I went to church, but in my teens I was so busy with basketball I rarely made it. Bina and Marty followed Mom farther on her quest. The most important thing to my mother was that her children understood there was a higher power, and we did. We didn’t play gospel music in our house, but if you listened to Aretha Franklin, you heard the gospel; there was no way around it.

  Singing in the choir was important to Whitney, but there were times when she really didn’t want to go to her family church, saying it was “fake and filled with hypocrites.” One night when we were supposed to meet, she called and confided in me that her mother was making her go out with their minister, Reverend Dr. C. E. Thomas, and his son. Whitney felt as if it was a double date designed to cover for her mother and the minister, who was married. I never saw him coming out of Cissy’s bedroom, but I did see him sitting at her kitchen counter in his undershirt.

  Whitney said she wasn’t comfortable going, but Cissy told her, “That’s what daughters do.” Disturbed, disappointed, and irritated, she went. When I saw her the next day, she said, “He liked me, but I have no interest in him.”

  To my knowledge, it never happened again.

  Even though it was summertime, Whitney was in church at least three times a week. She had practice on Thursday nights, and no matter where we were or what we were doing she would jet. Her mother was the ministress of music and ran the choir rehearsals. Whitney was always on time. She was Cissy Houston’s daughter, so she had to be. I understood. In my mind, choir practice was like basketball practice: If you’re late, you hold up the entire team.

  Whitney, Larry, and Felicia talked about their songs and solos as if they were preparing for a game. And in a way, they were; in East Orange and Newark, these choirs were as popular as basketball teams. Choirs would compete with or visit different churches, and Whitney was a main draw for the Junior Choir of New Hope Baptist Church. There were nearby churches that had star singers, too. Less than five miles away on Chancellor Avenue, a very young Faith Evans was singing at Emmanuel Missionary Baptist Church.

  When she and her cousins were finished strategizing about their upcoming concert, Whitney said, “Robyn, I want you to come.” New Hope Baptist Church was having its music service and everyone knew that their choirs threw down. The congregation was used to visitors, but this was a particularly popular program and it was sure to be packed. I was the only one Whitney invited and was excited about that and the opportunity to hear her sing.

  Though I no longer attended church regularly, I was familiar with scripture, and I believed in the Good Book. My brother and sister were baptized along the way, but somehow I never had holy water poured on me. I suspect it was because I was traveling to away games or practicing, so I was rarely home on Sundays. Still, I had wanted to know the Word for myself, so when I was fifteen years old I read from Genesis straight though to Revelation, and it felt as if I was transported backward in time. The scathing depiction of Sodom and Gomorrah left a deep imprint, and every time I sinned, I knew I needed Jesus to show me His kindness and mercy. I believed that His story was true, and that He quite possibly did all the good deeds and miracles that the Book said He did.

  Whitney knew the Bible like the back of her hand. She told me about women in the Bible who I hadn’t remembered, like the stories of Ruth and Esther, who stood up for the people of her kingdom and went before the king. There were some powerful women in the Book, and she knew them all. As for Jesus, she loved Him and found Him to personify everything that anyone should aspire to be.

  I answered yes to Whitney’s invitation right away, but it created two dilemmas. First: I would have to wear a dress. My mother always believed that when you go to church, you dress for God. I had to represent. Blessedly, it was summer. I damn sure wouldn’t have wanted to wear stockings. I hated stockings. I dreaded wearing a dress, but it was a worthwhile sacrifice to hear Nip sing for real. I went into the back of my closet and found
a simple lavender short-sleeved pullover that flared out a little at the bottom, and it was comfortable enough. The next time I willingly wore a dress would be at my mother’s funeral.

  Second: I was entering into her mother’s world. Excited as I was about hearing Whitney sing, her church was really her mother’s domain, and I wasn’t too happy about that. Each time I came to the house to pick up Whitney, I could feel the hostility coming from Cissy all the way from the car. Before I met her, Whitney warned me that her mother never liked anyone she brought around.

  “My mother can be harsh, but that’s who she is,” she said.

  When Sunday came, I borrowed my mother’s car and drove to New Hope Baptist Church, which sat down the street from the notorious Baxter Terrace housing projects. The redbrick church’s interior was a bit run-down, but worshippers from the struggling to the well-off found their way there that first Sunday in August. It was filled to capacity.

  I didn’t want to sit too close to the front, but I didn’t want to be too far in the back, either, because I wanted Whitney to see me, so I sat in the seventh row slightly left of center. The hard wood pews made me sit upright, at attention. I was acutely aware that I was in Cissy Houston’s house. This was where she and her siblings first came together as the Drinkard Singers before she formed the Sweet Inspirations. A small brass plaque that read “Lee Warwick” reminded me that New Hope was also the church home of Whitney’s cousins Dee Dee and Dionne. The whole family had come through that church. It was intimidating, and I felt like an outsider.

  Reverend Thomas spoke and asked for any new members or guests to stand up, so I did. As he welcomed us, I couldn’t help recalling what Whitney had told me about him and Cissy.

  Introducing the Junior Choir, he said, “People want to hear me preach, but the Lord likes to be praised.”

  The church said, “Amen.”

  A sea of young people in black and white rolled in from the back and came down the aisles to the front of the church. Whitney passed by, but she didn’t see me. She was wearing a black straight skirt and a white button-up shirt, had swept up her hair in a small bun, and was made up in her Fashion Fair foundation and a light pink lipstick that looked natural. Once she took her place in the pews adjacent to the pulpit, she looked at me but didn’t smile. She had her game face on. She was focused. It was the smirk on Larry’s face that helped me relax. They were just kids, so even in their seriousness they were silly, and after a minute, I could see Whitney, Larry, and Felicia cutting up, quietly joking with one another while fifty girls and boys took their places.

  Whitney’s mother stood before the choir dressed in earth tones that softened her appearance. Her brother Larry Drinkard, the organist, wore big, thick glasses that made his eyes look tiny, but he could play!

  Cissy said, “Okay, y’all. Now, everybody ready?”

  The choir rose up and sang. Some of the songs were familiar to me but I didn’t know all the words. You had to be going to church regularly to know all the words. Their voices were so powerful, the choir sounded like a giant speaker, and I felt the rumbles in my chest. A few people in the congregation started keeping time by tapping their hands on the sides of their legs; others joined in with a soft double handclap. For a while, that’s how Cissy clapped, too, and then she led her choir. Her left hand was in the air while her right moved up and down directing voices to rise or lower at her command. They were killing it.

  Then Larry, Felicia, and Whitney made their way to the front. Felicia sang alto, Larry falsetto, and Whitney alto and soprano, creating a lovely blend. Their voices were welcoming, and for a moment I wanted to go up there and join them, but it wasn’t the same as hearing them sing along with the radio. Their singing had a force that wasn’t present when they were playing around. When they began to sing “Oh Mary Don’t You Weep,” the trio snapped and clapped. Whitney and Felicia swayed back and forth trading lines:

  Mary . . .

  Oh, Mary . . .

  Oh, Mary, don’t you weep

  Tell Martha not to moan

  The church said, “Amen.”

  The threesome separated, and Whitney stepped forward, now wearing a floor-length white robe. Before she even opened her mouth, I heard murmurs; members of the congregation were bracing themselves. There was stillness, and then she approached the mic, closed her eyes, and began singing the first few words while the piano played softly:

  When Jesus hung on Calvary,

  People came from miles to see . . .

  “Sing, Nip,” said Larry.

  “Go ’head, Nip,” Felicia added.

  Even Reverend Thomas called out, “Sing, Whitney.”

  And then something just swept through the whole place. Whitney’s face was radiant and her mouth moved with urgency, her voice rising as the words came out. She started to sway gently and the congregation clapped in time.

  She’d opened high, and as her voice rose she brought us higher. People couldn’t contain themselves. Nip was in the spirit, and folks started praising and catching the Holy Ghost and moaning.

  “Woo.”

  “Praise the Lord!”

  Her singing was open and vulnerable, angelic and powerful. On that day, I sat in that church and I watched that little body stand there in that white robe and fill the place with her voice. She held on to her sway; it wasn’t even a rock, it was just enough to shift her weight from left to right. Easy. Gentle. She enunciated every word as she opened and closed her mouth. Her hands stayed pretty much by her sides, she stood firm, and the expression on her face would change with the lyrics. Her eyes were closed and people were hooting and hollering and falling out.

  They said, “If you be the Christ,

  Come down and save your life.”

  Oh but Jesus, my sweet Jesus,

  He never answered them,

  For He knew that Satan was tempting Him.

  If He had come down from the cross,

  Then my soul would still be lost.

  Whitney’s singing grew more and more insistent. Midway through, she partially opened her eyes. She scanned the room and looked in my direction before closing them again. Whitney was in that moment, too. She was in it and you could tell she was in it. She was delivering that day.

  He would not come down

  From the cross just to save Himself;

  He decided to die!

  Whitney was pleading with us to understand how grateful we should be that Christ had suffered, erasing our sins and giving us new life. Now, I’d spent many Sundays in church, but this was a completely new experience for me and I felt a kind of deliverance. I didn’t need her to convince me that there was a higher power—I already believed that—but I felt nearer to God and closer to Whitney.

  I rose out of my seat and just stared at her. I had thought I knew her, but here I was witnessing a different side. All of a sudden, in that moment, I realized that Whitney Elizabeth Houston was something else, something special; there was greatness and power pent up inside that body.

  I sat down and saw a woman ecstatically running between the aisles vocalizing her praise in a language of her own and heard other people speaking in tongues.

  Whitney hadn’t moved. She just kept on singing. She was the quiet in the storm of her own creation. She was amazing.

  I wasn’t looking at the people around me, but I could feel them. You could feel the energy in that room and that she was behind it. She was singing those words just like they needed to be sung. Whitney brought the song to a climax using her full voice, then gave everything she had, lifted us up, and held the final note for what felt like forever while the whole church vibrated.

  HE DECIDED TO DIE . . . JUST TO SAVE . . . ME!

  When she was done, while the last reverberations of that impossibly long note still hung in the air, Whitney opened her eyes, then calmly turned around and went back to her pl
ace in the choir loft. Someone handed her a fan and she dabbed her face with a white tissue, drying beads of sweat across the bridge of her nose and on her forehead.

  The church was still feeling it, though. One woman had passed out, and two rather large and strong white-gloved nurses were fanning her to help bring her back. Tears streamed down the faces of many women and some of the men. It’s a miracle the walls didn’t just open up and let everything fall. She was a wonder.

  After the service, Whitney waved me over to the side of the stage. Larry joined us and told me that I looked nice, and Nip smiled at me. I followed her down the stairs to the basement for the reception, and for a minute she seemed tiny, at odds with what I’d just witnessed.

  “Wow, Nip, what does that feel like for you up there?” I asked. “People were so moved.”

  “Oh, I don’t think about that. I don’t look at them. There’s a clock at the back of the church, and I set my eyes on that clock and then I close them and just do what I got to do.”

  “But you could feel it!” I insisted. “There were people falling out. People were rising to their feet.”

  “They should be moved. They should be.” She said this not in a boastful way but with conviction, as if to say it wasn’t about her, it was about the song.

  But I knew different. While Whitney was singing, I had stood up to get a better look at what I was seeing and feeling. I wanted to get close to her. She had the power to move people through song and she knew it. And that day, standing in that church, I felt the power. There was no denying she had it, and there was no doubt in my mind that I was in the presence of greatness.

  She asked if I was hungry and sent someone to fix me a plate. There were so many people and everybody wanted to talk to Whitney, but it wasn’t like anyone was looking for an autograph then. She was theirs. Larry and Felicia were chitchatting with other members of the Junior Choir.