{"id":2445805,"date":"2019-06-27T22:01:47","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T04:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=850660"},"modified":"2019-06-27T22:01:47","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T04:01:47","slug":"hear-whitney-houston-and-kygos-steve-winwood-higher-love-cover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/hear-whitney-houston-and-kygos-steve-winwood-higher-love-cover\/","title":{"rendered":"Hear Whitney Houston and Kygo\u2019s Steve Winwood \u2018Higher Love\u2019 Cover"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/WhitneyHouston.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">When <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/whitney-houston\/\" id=\"auto-tag_whitney-houston\" data-tag=\"whitney-houston\">Whitney Houston<\/a> recorded her cover of Steve Winwood\u2019s 1986 hit \u201cHigher Love\u201d in 1990, it was meant for her third album <em>I\u2019m Your Baby Tonight<\/em>. By that time, Houston was already a multi-platinum pop star, and the plan for next LP was for the superstar to pivot further into a more R&amp;B sound.<\/span> <span>\u201cWhen [producer] Narada Michael Walden sent me \u2018Higher Love\u2019 with the Whitney vocal, we didn\u2019t want her being a cover artist at that time,\u201d Clive Davis, the veteran record label impresario who helped discover Houston, recalls. \u201cThe only place it was released was as a bonus cut in Japan.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">For many Houston fans, her version of \u201cHigher Love\u201d has been elusive and never heard before. Now seven years after her death, the singer\u2019s estate has revived the cover as the first of many forthcoming projects celebrating her musical legacy. According to her sister-in-law Pat Houston, who doubles as the sole executor of Whitney\u2019s estate, \u201cHigher Love\u201d felt like a particularly timely release.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe current cultural environment has been thirsty for something uplifting and inspiring,\u201d Pat Houston tells <em>Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cWho better to inspire than Whitney, the most exhilarating vocalist of all time?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DbmiyLe2OnY?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Instead of remastering the original production, the estate and RCA targeted superproducer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/kygo\/\" id=\"auto-tag_kygo\" data-tag=\"kygo\">Kygo<\/a> for a collaboration. Pat felt particularly sold on working with him because of his tasteful <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=tYhI4f0vlvc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">trop-house remix of Marvin Gaye\u2019s \u201cSexual Healing.\u201d<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cKygo was the first person that was mentioned. He put his spin on it and did a fantastic job,\u201d she adds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">For Kygo, he felt it was important to balance not wanting to mess with perfection with creating something fresh and new. Since many people have not heard Whitney\u2019s rendition of \u201cHigher Love,\u201d he had a bit more freedom to completely strip away the original production and start from scratch, building a fresh single around a legendary performance from one of music\u2019s most iconic vocalists.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cI was trying to make it sound like something that she would\u2019ve done, but also something that\u2019s my style,\u201d he tells <em>Rolling Stone<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The Houston estate were hands-off while Kygo was in the studio working on the collaboration. \u201cYou can\u2019t tell Michael Jordan how to shoot a basketball,\u201d Pat compares. \u201cWe knew when his name was brought up that it would be successful in the hands of someone of his caliber.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Whitney Houston and Kygo\u2019s \u201cHigher Love\u201d comes on the heels of the estate\u2019s recently-announced partnership with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/05\/20\/business\/media\/whitney-houston-hologram-album.html?smtyp=cur&amp;smid=tw-nytimes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"s2\">Primary Wave Music Publishing<\/span><\/a>. Other plans include a \u201chologram\u201d tour, a full album of unreleased material and more branding opportunities. For Pat, the goal is to not only share something special with the singer\u2019s longtime fans but also help keep her alive for a whole new generation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cWe want to remind people why they fell in love with Whitney in the first place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Additional reporting by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/author\/david-browne\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">David Browne<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/whitney-houston-kygo-higher-love-850660\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Whitney Houston recorded her cover of Steve Winwood\u2019s 1986 hit \u201cHigher Love\u201d in 1990, it was meant for her third album I\u2019m Your Baby Tonight. By that time, Houston was already a multi-platinum pop star, and the plan for next LP was for the superstar to pivot further into a more R&amp;B sound. \u201cWhen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 16:35:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}