Her only complaint about him was his hair, which “Ji” was wearing like a slicked, combed-back Afro. I’d never seen anything like it. Whitney said, “When I touch his hair, it’s hard as a rock!”
The Jacksons had all given up their signature ’fros for Jheri curls and relaxers. When Nip asked him what he used in his hair, he said it was something his brother Michael gave him. That didn’t seem to intimidate her. She told him, “Well, you should stop using what Michael gave you!”
Determined to put on a brave face, the next time he called, I was even nicer: “Hey, Jermaine. How are you? She’s right here.” I passed Nip the phone, and he asked her to pass it back to me.
“I love your friend,” he told me.
“You do, huh?” I said. “I guess we’ll see about that.” And I handed the phone back.
Months later, they performed “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do” on As the World Turns, a popular soap opera. Whitney’s eye makeup was a little heavy, but she was beautiful as always, and her hair was close cropped, bringing out her facial features. Any other viewer probably thought the looks she gave Jermaine were part of the emotional interpretation of a gifted songstress. It’s true that Whitney would come to be known for her unparalleled ability to translate sentiment into song, but I knew those looks intimately, and she wasn’t acting at all. Jermaine was trying to play it cool, but Whitney’s true feelings—like her voice—overpowered his performance. I took some solace in the fact that she had sung him under the table. But now they were lip-syncing, and, God help me, I had to endure this process on set watching take after take after take ’til the cake was baked.
I wasn’t going anywhere, but it was clear that I needed to protect my feelings. Ever since that conversation about ending our physical relationship, I had figured she would have guys hot on her tail, perhaps get married, and possibly have children—I could totally see it—but I hadn’t anticipated that witnessing any of that would hit me like a ton of bricks. I tried to focus on myself and decided to reach out to some of my basketball and college friends and spend more time with my family.
Sometime between late ’84 and mid-’85, while Whitney was on a promotional tour with Gene Harvey, I went out dancing at the Paradise Garage in New York for Marty’s birthday along with his friend Robert. Right before entering the club, we each took a tab of mescaline—my first time doing both. Once we were inside, the music was so loud, I felt my heart racing, pumping in time with the beat. My brother leaned over to tell me he and his friend were going to hit the dance floor, and as they walked away, they disintegrated as if someone had said, “Beam me up, Scotty.” I sat down on a riser feeling overwhelmed, confused, and lost—as if I was in a tunnel. Suddenly I heard someone calling, “Robyn? Robyn Crawford?”
It was Flo, a point guard on a New York summer-league basketball team and an acquaintance of my friend Valerie.
“Robyn,” she sighed. “You’re fucked up, aren’t you?”
I tried to tell Flo that I had been there with my brother until he disintegrated. She asked, “What does he look like?”
“He looks like me,” I told her. That wasn’t very helpful, but Flo promised she would stay with me until we found him. She took me up to the rooftop patio for some air and that was better. I have no idea how long we were up there, but it was daylight by the time Marty found me.
When I got home, I fed MisteBlu, and as he ate, it sounded as if there was a microphone in his bowl. I got in the bed and prayed to God in the name of Jesus: “If you will please, Lord, just get me through this, I will never take mescaline again.”
The Jacksons were finally coming to Madison Square Garden in the summer of 1984. When Jermaine arrived in NYC, he told Whitney that he’d call her after rehearsal and get her some tickets. Now even I started to get excited. Though I was for Michael, I grew up loving all the Jacksons—including Tito—and my girl had a hookup! We were going to see the Jacksons up close and personal!
But the dates came and went. Jermaine never called, and we never went to the show. The phone conversations slowed down big-time after that, and eventually they stopped altogether. Whitney didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t, either. I tried to make her feel better by saying she was worrying over the wrong Jackson. After all, most girls had Michael on their walls, not Jermaine. Hell, even she admitted that as a young girl she had intended to marry Michael when she grew up. “You’re so crazy, Robyn!” She laughed, but I wasn’t kidding.
The following weekend, Whitney decided to travel alone to Antigua. I was at home when Jermaine called.
“Speak to Whitney?”
“She’s not home,” I said.
“She’s not?” he asked. “Did she leave a number?”
“Yep,” I said. “But she didn’t tell me to give it to you.”
After she and “Ji” were over, Whitney sent me some mixed messages, especially when it looked as if I might have some things of my own going on. As a part-time airline employee, one had to work various stations in order to qualify for full-time status. I was now in operations, loading and unloading luggage and driving carts to and from the aircraft to the baggage claim conveyor belts, and guiding aircraft on the tarmac. One of the Piedmont pilots took an interest in me during a weekend layover one night, as I was guiding his aircraft in to a stop.
After the crew unloaded the plane and I walked back indoors, a supervisor told me the captain wanted to have a word with me. He was a nice-looking, cocoa-skinned man, probably in his midthirties, who made a charming first impression. He told me that he was based in Greensboro, North Carolina, and staying at a hotel not far from Newark airport for the weekend. He invited me to come by for a bite or something. Hmm, I thought. Maybe this is a good opportunity for me to do something for me, or maybe not. We’ll see. I took his number and told him I would call him. Remembering Jermaine, I decided that if I paid him a visit, one of my first questions would be “Are you married?”
The next day, Nippy was lying low at the apartment, and I told her that I might stop by the hotel after my shift to see the pilot who’d spotted me out on the tarmac. She gave me a quick “Okay,” and I was out the door. Once at the hotel, I called him from the lobby and asked for his room number. I had no reason to be afraid of him, especially since I made it clear that my people knew where I was, and all the crew members were staying there as well. Anyway, it turned out he was married with two children, and I told him I had a rule against that. He was understanding about it and said he appreciated my company. I wanted to get out of there and suggested we go for a ride, and we ended up at a casual dinner. I called Nippy from the restaurant and told her we might swing by the apartment. She sounded as though she didn’t care if we did or not, so we did.
Shortly after arriving, I was in the kitchen grabbing a drink when I called out to Nippy—and she entered with a foul attitude that filled the room. She glanced at the pilot, gave him a dry hello, and in one dismissive wave, turned and went back to her room. He and I looked at each other with the same stupefied expression. We left quickly, and I giggled a little bit when he asked why my roommate was so mean. I said she wasn’t really, and that she must have been tired.
We went back to the hotel, where he invited me to stay and watch a movie. I said, “I’m happy to stay for an hour, but I’ll have to leave after that.” When it was time for me to go, he begged me for just a kiss. I obliged, but before closing the door behind me, I told him that he should be kinder to his wife and family.
When I returned home, I asked Whitney, “What was up with that? He thought you were mean!” She said she didn’t care what he thought. Then she took a beat, apologized, and said, “I just don’t want him in here.”
At least she was honest. I never saw the pilot again.
Seven
You Give Good Love
Before she’d even begun recording her first album, Whitney was in demand. In 1983 she was asked to record the singl
e “Hold Me” with Teddy Pendergrass. Teddy had been the lead singer of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, whose 1975 song “Wake Up Everybody” was a key release from Philadelphia International Records, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff’s CBS label, backed by Clive Davis. After that, Pendergrass went out on his own, releasing a string of platinum albums. His powerful baritone was versatile: As a soloist, his tunes ran the gamut from hot and heavy ballads to more introspective songs like “You Can’t Hide from Yourself.”
In 1984, Pendergrass’s album Love Language marked his return to music after a near-fatal car accident two years earlier that had left him paralyzed from the neck down. Teddy still could sing, and Whitney carried her part. “Hold Me” would eventually be included on Whitney’s first album as well. Finally the time had come to record songs on her own.
First up with an original tune for Whitney was Kashif Saleem, the producer of Evelyn “Champagne” King’s number one R&B hits “Love Come Down” and “I’m in Love.” We first met Kashif when Clive brought him to Sweetwater’s and were a little thrown by how Kashif looked. Based on his music and name, we both had a vision of him as the funkiest man on the planet, and here was this regular-looking guy before us. He looked like Michael Jones—the name he was given at birth.
Kashif’s mild-mannered appearance was almost as much of a surprise as when we met Kenny G. Whitney and I had just gotten off the elevator on the ninth floor at Arista heading to Clive’s office when his door opened, and out he walked with a young man about five feet eight. Clive gave Whitney a welcoming hug and introduced us to Kenny G. As he and Clive resumed their conversation, walking toward the elevators, Whitney whispered, “Ain’t this some shit. Kenny is white?” His G Force album cover is an inverted image, like a film negative, showing Kenny G sporting an Afro and wearing sunglasses and a polo with the collar turned up, so we had no idea. Incidentally, Kashif also produced most of the songs on his breakthrough album.
At Sweetwater’s, Kashif extended an invite to his new home in Stamford, Connecticut, formerly owned by Jackie Robinson and his wife, Rachel. Kashif said Mrs. Robinson would be there on Saturday, so Nippy accepted his invitation to hang out with him and meet black royalty.
As promised, when we arrived that afternoon we were introduced to Mrs. Rachel Robinson, a beautiful, light-skinned, petite woman, her salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a bun. I’d seen pictures of her with Jackie and their children in magazines, and now here she was right in front of me. I said hello but was speechless after that. All I could think about was her husband and what I had learned about the challenges and the obstacles that they had to endure to stay together. And now he was gone.
When I tuned back in, Kashif was chatting about his involvement with Rachel’s charitable organization while Whitney looked on, listening. Kashif told us he never had a family of his own, having grown up in foster care in New York City. He had a rough upbringing and was horribly abused at a young age. By some miracle, he discovered music and taught himself to play multiple instruments. His final foster mother provided him with more stability, but in church, he’d get his hands slapped if he played anything other than sacred music on the piano. His foster mother died when he was fifteen, leaving him to fend for himself, until B.T. Express, the group responsible for “Do It (’Til You’re Satisfied),” invited him to join them on the road. He’d been making music ever since.
He was an early adopter of technology, with a love for the Minimoog, a synthesizer that gave ’Shif his signature sound. Whitney took to calling him “the Professor” because of the look of concentration he wore on his face, sweating as he moved the levers on the mixing console, coupled with the way he pushed up his glasses, which were perpetually sliding down his nose, with his index finger.
Kashif had written a new song called “Are You the Woman” and talked to Clive about recording it as a duet with Whitney but was told it wasn’t the right direction for her. I suspected ’Shif submitted the song during the Jermaine hookup and then ended up having to use it on his own record. In the meantime, he casually asked Whitney to sing background on a number of tracks he was readying for his sophomore album and she agreed.
“Hey, Professor, was that good?” Whitney would call out from the booth. “Professor, what you want me to do now?”
Usually the answer was “Another take. Another one just like the other,” or “More breath,” or “Sing ‘huh’ three times like panting—‘huh huh huh’—for me.” The studio was an intimate, comfortable space and sometimes I sat at the board beside him (though he jumped up a lot, moving and grooving) or in a chair off to the side near the console, my eyes on Nip, following the process but making sure she was enjoying herself.
Kashif was like a technician who loved experimenting with his keyboards, drums, and electronics, mixing vocals and sounds. Whitney sang background vocals on “Ooh Love,” “I’ve Been Missin’ You,” and “Send Me Your Love” on that album. The vibe felt good in Stamford. We stayed for one weekend and then went back the next. Kashif told us to make ourselves at home, and we did. His chef concocted healthy smoothies and fed us lots of veggies, nuts, fish, steak, whatever we wanted.
Whitney was in the zone, having a blast playing around, improvising and adding her magic to each vocal line, tag, chorus, or sound effect. Her method was just as meticulous as her approach to singing lead. I sat there watching her go into the vocal booth and sing, come out for a listen to the playback, go back in, then come out again to have another listen. Whitney would ask, “What are you hearing?” or “How was that?”
She’d pause while thinking about his answer and then say, “I’m coming in to listen.” Whitney knew exactly when she’d nailed it. She didn’t need anyone to tell her when she got it. She could feel it. Even I could hear it, if I was paying attention—which I always was.
“Should I be charging him for this?” she said after finishing laying down background vocals for “Fifty Ways” on our second trip to Kashif’s house. She was starting to feel as if he was taking advantage. A few times during the session, I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was done, but he seemed to be pushing her to give a little more nuance here and there. Up to this point, Nip had seemed cool about what he was asking and had gone along. But I knew she felt the song was a wrap and she was done. Michelle, Nippy’s “little sister”—who, by the way, is five feet eleven—joined us on this trip. She too could see Whitney was becoming increasingly agitated. On the drive home, Nip talked about how much she had sung and how she deserved to be paid.
I sensed there had to be a solution, and it was my job to help figure it out. It was no secret to Clive that Whitney was working with Kashif in Connecticut, so we agreed that I would call Arista and speak to someone in legal who could steer me in the right direction. It was clear there was a lesson to be learned, but for now, I was driving back to Jersey with Nip’s mouth in overdrive about Kashif’s concocting some potion, using her vocals for his project. Or in Whitney’s words: “Professor trying to be slick!” She was funny, and Michelle and I laughed our tails off. But then Whitney got serious, saying, “They did this same shit to the Sweet Inspirations! Atlantic has all of those tracks of B vocals in the vault and you hear them sampled on the radio today. Well, they’re gonna pay me!”
The next time we saw Kashif was at a studio in Manhattan, where he introduced us to songwriter LaForrest Cope. Lala was talented and funny, with a beautiful spirit. We three bonded immediately. She sat down at the piano, played a few chords, then started to sing.
I found out what I’ve been missing
Always on the run . . .
Whitney leaned on the piano and broke into a smile, signaling that she connected with those lyrics. “Yeah! That’s it!” she exclaimed. Lala modulated just a little bit and came back down to that chorus that hooked you in the simplest way. Inspired, Whitney went right into the booth, got behind the mic, and sang.
After “You Give Good Love” was releas
ed, syndicated columnist Ann Landers wrote a column lamenting pop music’s move toward sex-laden lyrics. Later, in an interview, Whitney pointed out Landers must not have actually listened to the words. I agreed. It was about someone giving you love in the purest way. It was about the willingness to fully expose yourself.
I thought the issue with Kashif and the background vocals was settled after I submitted an invoice to Arista. But one day after speaking to her mother, Whitney asked me to tell Kashif she wanted to take her vocals off the songs or her name off the credits. I called to deliver the message. “Really?” he said with surprise. “But she sounds great.” We went back and forth a few times about removing her name until Whitney, who was sitting next to me, said, “Let me talk to him,” and, taking the phone, told him she wanted him to remove her vocals altogether. Kashif said he would.
Several months later, when Send Me Your Love was released, I called Arista and requested a copy. Whitney sat in an armchair, her legs resting on an ottoman, while I stretched out on the floor in front of the stereo. We listened all the way through and then Whitney said, “He didn’t take me off.” Kashif did replace her lead vocal tag in the middle of “Baby Don’t Break Your Baby’s Heart” with Lala’s voice. But on other songs, he only pulled her vocal back, and he used her breaths for a drum sound on “Ooh Love.” She is all through that LP and you can hear her giving those songs a lift and punctuating the hooks. This is especially true on “I’ve Been Missin’ You,” where he layered in another singer named Lillo Thomas. You won’t find her name in the credits, but Whitney Houston set the tone and flavor for that track vocally. I know why he didn’t take her off. He couldn’t do it—she was killin’ it.
A Song for You Page 9