Putting Together A Fitting Whitney Houston Grammy Tribute May Be The Toughest Job

Talk about a high pressure job. Producers are scrambling to put together a fitting Whitney Houston Grammy tribute tonight in less than 24 hours. On Saturday, at Staples Center, rehearsals were under way for the 54th Annual Grammy Awards, which airs tonight on CBS, and news of Houston’s death arrived while Rihanna was on stage singing “We Found Love.” Producers swapped stunned looks and immediately reached for the phones, scrambling to find the right tone and content for a memorial segment on the show. The pressure these producers must be feeling is remarkable. To put together something meaningful to a music legend in such a short amount of time is a tough job. Whitney Houston’s death has no doubt completely overshadowed the Grammy’s.

“It’s too fresh in everyone’s memory to do more at this time, but we would be remiss if we didn’t recognize Whitney’s remarkable contribution to music fans in general, and in particular her close ties with the Grammy telecast and her Grammy wins and nominations over the years,” said Grammy executive producer Ken Ehrlich, a key figure in the Grammys since the early 1980s. They ended up putting together a short but meaningful tribute with singer Jennifer Hudson and music legend Chaka Khan. ”She’s a good friend of the Grammys,” Ehrlich said. “She’s had some very significant appearances on the show. It felt right to ask to her to come and help us honor Whitney, which she will do musically.” This will be Hudson’s third performance at the Grammys. She received a standing ovation for her moving rendition of “You Pulled Me Through” in 2009, in what was one of her first performances after the murder of her mother and brother.

But can they capture it with a short tribute? “She was undoubtedly one of the greatest superstars of all time, and to hear this news it greatly upsets me,” former American Idol judge and X Factor creator Simon Cowell told CNN Saturday night. “She was the benchmark. She truly was.” From the mid-’80s to the late ’90s, Houston was the reigning Queen of Pop.  The New York Times wrote that Houston “possesses one of her generation’s most powerful gospel-trained voices, but she eschews many of the churchier mannerisms of her forerunners. She uses ornamental gospel phrasing only sparingly, and instead of projecting an earthy, tearful vulnerability, communicates cool self-assurance and strength, building pop ballads to majestic, sustained peaks of intensity.”