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Many years ago when I first moved to Los Angeles, I got a call from my dear friend Suzee (I called her CoCo) inviting me to go hear a new singer rumored to be “the next Diana Ross.”
CoCo worked for what was then known as Avalon Attractions, and she often invited me to many of the big shows of the day. They were mostly always held at the Forum, and I felt like a big shot picking up my Forum Club passes and mingling with all the V.I.P.’s of the eighties.
I remember this particular invitation to a small club on Sunset as if it were yesterday, because I almost didn’t go. I thought to myself “That’s not the Forum!” But I made my way to the Roxy just the same, and I waited for CoCo to bring me inside. And am I glad I did.
The club was indeed small, but the minute I spotted Gladys Knight and Dionne Warwick sitting at a nearby table, I knew we were all in for something BIG.
I think my heart stopped when she walked to the stage, and that was before she even sang a note…
Of course we were all there to see a young singer named Whitney Houston.
I can’t remember being so moved by a LIVE performance, and I knew I was forever changed by what I’d witnessed. She would do two shows that evening.
One at eight, another at ten.
I stayed for both.
I walked home alone that night, stopping behind a church on Holloway Drive called Saint Victors. It was there, as a fellow twenty-something-year-old singer, I sat feeling somewhat fragile and broken.
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