A Song for You

by Robyn Crawford

  Being Whitney’s assistant also meant accompanying her when she traveled. I was excited as I stood in line for hours to get my first passport so I could join her on a promotional tour in the European markets.

  In preparation for the trip, Nip and I looked at her itinerary and laid out clothing for each performance, meet and greet, dinner, and interview. She would hold up pieces and say, “What do you think about this?” We assembled outfits with accessories and Whitney tried on each combination and did a fashion show for me, walking the narrow hallway between the front door and the back wall—where we’d set up our sad, tilting ironing board—as if she were on the catwalk. I’d laugh and give her thumbs-up or -down, and when our couch, chairs, and just about every surface was covered with clothing, we took turns ironing everything before it all made its way into her suitcases.

  Nippy and I settled into the gray leather seats of the Concorde headed to London. She had made an earlier trip to Europe with Gene, but this was her first voyage on the supersonic jet. I never imagined this would be how I took my first international flight. And we sure didn’t know that we would soon fly the Concorde the way some people ride the bus.

  When the pilot announced we were ready for takeoff, I was completely unprepared for the 250 mph sprint down the runway, which felt three times as fast. The force was so great that my back was plastered against the seat and I couldn’t lift my head. The cabin was a little claustrophobic, but the adventure took precedence. And I marveled at the fact that we would be in London in three and a half hours, as long as it took to drive round-trip from Fort Lee to Kashif’s house in Stamford. The sky outside the window was so black that all I could see was a line of light coming from the jets, and I swear I could see the arc of the earth. We were flying at twice the speed of sound and it felt like it.

  As we settled ourselves in, Nip grabbed the in-flight menu written in French and English and said we should definitely order the caviar, which came with egg, onion, and toast points—she said she’d had it before with Dionne Warwick. “It’s baby fish eggs and sounds horrible, I know, but it tastes good.” We threw down.

  One of our stops on that first promo tour was a hotel in England. We walked into a huge ballroom filled with press, and Whitney went from table to table answering questions. At one large rectangular table, she was at the head, I sat to her right, and her manager Gene Harvey stood behind Whitney on her left. About ten reporters filled the other chairs, and a woman who was at the far end of the table asked, “How do you feel about the tabloids that talk about your personal life?” She tossed one such rag on the table and shoved it toward Whitney, who, with the reflexes of a cat, curled her right hand into a claw, stopped its momentum, read the headline to herself, and placed it back down on the table. Adopting a posh British accent, Whitney replied, “I don’t have to tell you about your English literature.” She then gave the tabloid a gentle shove back, and in her own voice added with a smile, “And I don’t mean Shakespeare.”

  Ha! That’s my girl, I thought as I followed her to the next group of reporters.

  Whitney Elizabeth Houston was taking off, full speed ahead. We’d now been in each other’s lives for five years, and it was clear that we were in it for the long haul. She had my back, and I had hers. She was in the lead, and I was there riding shotgun, keeping track of our ideas, looking ahead, staying focused, and following through.

  We were still sniffing cocaine, but not very often. We were busy, and being busy was the best thing for us, especially Nippy. I loved rising early and getting a jump on things, whereas Nip was never an early riser. She could stay in her room all day until she got hungry for a snack and never feel as if she was missing anything at all outdoors. She used to tell me that I was too happy in the morning.

  That year, after her album came out, Whitney was asked to participate in “Stop the Madness,” a well-meaning but absurd antidrug recording and music video PSA sponsored by First Lady Nancy Reagan as part of the War on Drugs. When she agreed to do it, I said, “You have to do the right thing now, Nip.”

  “I know I do,” she replied.

  “People are going to think you’re drug free and you’re not. It’s not right to say one thing in public and do another in secret.”

  “I know,” she said, following with her now-worn motto: “Where we’re going, this can’t go.” The thing was, we were already there, and so were the drugs.

  Having outgrown our first apartment, we moved into a luxurious high-rise building with a stunning view of Harlem in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Apartment 16-B was lovely and very comfortable, and Whitney hired an interior designer to style everything to our liking. The color scheme was lavender and cream with gray hues, and we had lots of oversize silk pillows in bright shades of blue, orange, red, and purple. By that time, I was making $300 a week and living rent-free.

  Within a year of settling into the new apartment, in July 1986, we were preparing to embark on Whitney’s first big tour. We desperately needed someone to look after the cats—MisteBlu and Marilyn, Nip’s newest acquisition—whom she loved above everyone else. “They don’t talk back,” she’d say.

  As part of Whitney’s growing team, and as her newly titled “assistant,” I knew when to talk back and when to stay silent, when to pass and when to take the shot. And as we faced weeks on tour, I knew I needed to hire some help—ASAP. Now, Fort Lee was an affluent area, a place where lots of people had live-in nannies, au pairs, housekeepers, you name it. I didn’t doubt that I’d find someone, but this person had to be next to perfect. I wasn’t about to open up the newly big-time world of Whitney Houston to just anyone.

  I got the ball rolling by asking one of Nip’s managers if he could recommend someone. He told me about the woman who took care of his place, whose daughter lived with her and sometimes came along. He gave me the mom’s number and I called.

  I went to their house and met Silvia Vejar, who was twenty-three years old and about five feet tall, with big brown eyes, a kind round face, a medium build, and beautiful long brown hair. Silvia told me she was born in El Salvador and came to the United States with her family at age seventeen, speaking no English. Upon arriving, she enrolled in Fort Lee High School, and also attended night school so that she could catch up to her eleventh-grade class. She had her daughter at twenty.

  I invited Silvia to the apartment for her second interview, and when she arrived, I realized that I had to make a run to the store, so I asked her to come along for the ride. In the elevator, I took a closer look at how she was dressed. She was wearing a light-colored, ankle-length, summer-weight cotton skirt with a loose-fitting T-shirt, an overcoat, and thin-soled, white canvas sneakers on her feet. The problem? It was freezing outside. I was staring at her, wondering, and then her eyes connected with mine.

  I asked, “Aren’t you cold?” She said she was. “Why are you dressed like that? Outside it’s going to be even colder.” She told me that she was a churchgoing woman, and that her church didn’t allow women to wear pants. The elevator doors opened on our underground garage, which even in summer was chilly. We silently made our way to my Mercedes 560SL. I looked over at Silvia and said with a smile, “I don’t believe God would want you to freeze.”

  She smiled and said, “I don’t think so.”

  On the drive to the store, we discussed family, her leisure time, and what she wanted for herself and her daughter. Her accent was heavy. When she said Miami, it sounded more like pajama. Her English speaking and writing skills were rough, but I sensed an ability to understand and learn, and she seemed trustworthy. Not to mention, she was perfectly capable of caring for the pets, and, on top of that, she said she could do manicures, pedicures, and massages!

  I really liked her and felt that Whitney would, too. Silvia lived nearby, was a responsible single mother, and didn’t smoke or drink—which was huge. Now all I needed was a blessing from Nip.

  The next day, when Silvia returned, I was
showing her where things were kept, going over our preferences, and sharing how Whitney was accustomed to having things done. Just as Silvia began to tell me how she liked to work, Whitney entered from the back hall.

  She extended her hand and said, “Hi, I’m Whitney!”

  Silvia gazed up, smiled, and said, “Hi,” and then giggled. “You so young!”

  Whitney was wearing a white terry-cloth robe, her hair pulled back with a headband, fresh faced and makeup free. She smiled at Silvia and said, “Nice to meet you.”

  Whitney asked Silvia a series of questions: how old she was, where she lived in Fort Lee, and how old her daughter was. Still standing, Whitney asked if Silvia and her daughter would be comfortable living in the apartment until our return from the tour. Clearly we shared the same first impression. Silvia assured us that they definitely could and that no one else would be staying with them.

  Silvia got the job. She would stay in the apartment whenever we were traveling, and upon our return, she’d work weekdays from nine A.M. to around five P.M. The directive I gave Silvia was simple: Whitney is the boss. We work for Whitney, and we answer to Whitney. I felt good about passing the baton and was confident that Silvia had the right stuff: honesty, ambition, humor, faith, and the desire to do her very best.

  Whitney was scheduled to make her Carnegie Hall debut on October 28, 1985. That afternoon when we arrived, we learned that Reverend Al Sharpton had his people picketing Whitney because white promoters were involved with her show. Before the concert started, I went out front myself and saw Sharpton hitting the side of a white plastic bucket while a small group of middle-aged black folks walked in a circle holding mops and signs that read Whitey Houston.

  “What do they want me to do? Why is this my battle?” Whitney wondered aloud. Most of the promoters associated with large venues in New York City were white and had everything on lockdown. I don’t recall Michael Jackson or Prince ever being targeted with the same criticism that Whitney faced. Talk of a demonstration had been brewing for weeks, so much so that the NAACP issued a statement denouncing “any boycott planned at the New York City debut of rising black singing star Whitney Houston.”

  On top of the picketing situation, Whitney’s brother Gary compromised that Carnegie Hall concert. Sound check came and went and by early evening, Gary, who was supposed to do a duet with Whitney in the Jermaine Jackson and Teddy Pendergrass numbers, was still nowhere to be found. I kept hearing the production team saying over the walkie-talkies:

  “Anybody got a sight on Gary?”

  “Negative.”

  You could feel the stress. Up until then, Gary had been barely cutting it singing background and, of course, should have been at sound check like everybody else to rehearse “Hold Me” and “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do.” I asked Whitney, “What are you going to do if he shows up?” and she said, “I don’t have time to be worrying about Gary.” Which was exactly my point! Whitney had too much to focus on already; the show was sold out and the audience was packed with celebrities. I said to her, “You don’t need those songs. Nobody’s going to miss them. Plus, Gary was a basketball player. He knows that if you don’t show up to practice, you don’t get to play.” Whitney agreed.

  Gary eventually turned up for showtime. He’d clearly been on a drug mission, and it was obvious to everyone that he was high—looking dried out and ashy, clutching the black toiletry bag he carried everywhere. But Cissy didn’t bat an eye. She told him he was going out on that stage.

  Standing next to Whitney, I thought, This can’t be good. I knew that he shouldn’t be taking the stage in that condition. But Whitney didn’t say a word. Just stood there silently, looking at Gary as her mother pushed him onto the stage. In that moment Cissy was more concerned with positioning Gary to get a recording contract than she was about her daughter’s feelings, despite the fact that it was Whitney’s name on the marquee of one of the most prestigious stages in the world.

  There are moments in life that seem very small, but in the end, they come back to haunt you. This was one of those moments. Whitney knew exactly what was going on with Gary, and when her mother insisted that he go out onstage in that condition, she gave permission to Whitney to think that you could mess around and still get to perform your duties. At least that’s what it felt like to me. You don’t do drugs, skip practice, and then get to step out on the platform—her platform. But instead of setting an example, Cissy handed out a pass. There was no lesson or moral, no repercussion.

  Despite all the chaos, Whitney was shooting up the music charts. Her first hit, Kashif and Lala’s “You Give Good Love,” went to number 1 on the R&B chart and number 3 on the pop chart. “Saving All My Love for You” hit number 1 on both the R&B and the pop charts in the Uinted States and was her first number 1 pop single in the UK.

  The album became the biggest-selling record by a solo female artist to date.

  Whitney received Grammy nominations that year for Album of the Year; Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female; and Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female. But she was deemed ineligible to be considered for Best New Artist because of those earlier recordings with Jermaine Jackson and Teddy Pendergrass. Clive wrote an op-ed in Billboard magazine blasting the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for denying this honor to an artist who released the first album by a female artist to yield three number 1 hits. “Whitney was a major event for our industry and for music itself,” he wrote.

  The Grammy Awards ceremony was held on February 25, 1986. Once again, I was home alone watching her on TV. The event was entirely a family affair, with Mr. and Mrs. Houston attending as if they were still a couple. Whitney came out to sing “Saving All My Love,” for which she’d been nominated for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. She made it gracefully down the steps that led to center stage, singing beautifully. That Grammy performance would earn her a Primetime Emmy award the following year.

  She had me on the edge of my seat, right there, in our apartment, just as she had that very first time I heard her sing at New Hope Baptist. I hollered as if I was watching a game.

  After her performance, Cousin Dionne and Julian Lennon came out to announce the winner of Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. Lennon read off the nominees: Tina Turner, Madonna, Linda Ronstadt, Pat Benatar, and Whitney. Opening the envelope, Dionne jumped up and down then spun around when she announced Whitney’s name. She gave her cousin a long hug, rocking her side to side. Whitney wiped a tear from her eye before making her speech. I cried, too, so proud of her and grateful to be a part of it.

  Whitney called me from LA and I could feel her energy. She was full of pride about her Grammy. Barbra Streisand, whose song “Evergreen” Whitney used to sing in Cissy’s nightclub act, and Marilyn McCoo, who had recorded the original version of “Saving All My Love,” were both sitting right up front. Streisand, who famously suffered from stage fright, came up to Whitney after the ceremony and asked, “How do you do that? Aren’t you nervous?” Without missing a beat, Whitney politely answered:

  “No, I just do what I gotta do.”

  Nine

  The Greatest Drug Tour

  Whitney christened her first tour as a headliner “the Greatest Love Tour,” an homage to what I still consider to be her most significant and everlasting song. When I first met Whitney, she was performing it in her mother’s Sweetwater’s show. Composed and written by Michael Masser and Linda Creed, the song was commissioned by Clive for a 1977 Muhammad Ali biopic titled The Greatest. George Benson made the original recording, but Whitney made it her own.

  I was there when Clive brought Masser to hear her sing it. Michael wasn’t a tall man and wore his reddish-brown hair in a style reminiscent of the Beatles. He gave a first impression of being shy and reserved, until he started talking about music or sat behind a piano. That night, hearing Nip sing, he was blown away. He would later produce the song for her album, but only after he and Whitney convinced
Clive that the time was right. I was surprised to hear about Clive’s doubts. Whitney had been singing it and taking everyone who witnessed it—including the composer and Clive himself—to another place, and still he had his foot on the brake. But Nippy stood firm.

  After Whitney recorded “Greatest,” we were told that the other songwriter, Linda Creed, was battling breast cancer. Whitney and I prayed for Linda, sending her strength and positive energy. Whitney Houston came out on Valentine’s Day 1985. The first single, “You Give Good Love,” dropped a week later, with “Greatest Love” on the B-side, and soon reached number 1. The second and third singles, “Saving All My Love for You” and “How Will I Know,” immediately charted, too.

  In March of 1986, Arista made the decision to release “Greatest Love” as the album’s fourth single. Whitney had been performing it as the encore song in her show. As the song climbed the charts, Michael Masser asked Whitney to call Linda in the hospital to share the good news. She was glad to have the opportunity to talk with Linda and express all the love, admiration, and gratitude she had for her, and said it was an honor to sing and record such a masterpiece.

  Within a month, “Greatest Love” had reached number 5 on the charts. I can’t recall where we were when we were informed that Linda had passed, but the news shook us into silence. After some time, Whitney said, “This song better go.” And I said, “It’s going, Nip. Linda made sure of it.” By May, it was Whitney’s fourth number 1 single, and it would become Linda Creed’s best-known work.

  Back in 1985, Whitney had her first experience touring as the opening act for Jeffrey Osborne and later Luther Vandross. Jeffrey mostly drew a straight-up adult R&B following from his days with the band LTD. My mom was a fan, and I recall her frequently singing along with “Love Ballad”:

  What a difference