R&B Bridgez: Celebrating Whitney Houston’s ‘I’m Your Baby Tonight’

This R&B Bridgez celebrates one of our favorite albums 35th Anniversary, Whitney Houston‘s “I’m Your Baby Tonight.”

Whitney’s third powerhouse solo album “I’m Your Baby Tonight,” displayed her versatility on a new collection of tough rhythmic grooves, soulful ballads and up-tempo dance tracks.

With back-to-back #1 Billboardhits for the title trackand “All the Man That I Need,” followed by “Miracle” and “My Name Is Not Susan” feat. Monie Love.

Whitney’s third best-selling album, “I’m Your Baby Tonight,” was released 35 years ago today on November 6th, 1990.

Sales records were set once again, as the album became an international multi-platinum best-seller, to the tune of 10 million copies worldwide.

With over 200 million combined album, singles and videos sold worldwide during her career with Arista Records, Whitney Houston established a benchmark for superstardom that will quite simply never be eclipsed in the modern era.

She was a singer’s singer, who influenced countless other vocalists; female and male.

The only artist to chart seven consecutive #1 Billboard Hot 100 hits (“Saving All My Love For You,” “How Will I Know,” “Greatest Love Of All,” “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),” “Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” “So Emotional,” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go”).

The first female artist to enter the Billboard 200 album chart at #1 (her second album, Whitney, 1987).

And the only artist with eight consecutive multi-platinum albums (Whitney Houston, Whitney, I’m Your Baby Tonight, The Bodyguard, Waiting To Exhale, and The Preacher’s Wife soundtracks; My Love Is Your Love and Whitney: The Greatest Hits).

For “I’m Your Baby Tonight” Whitney Spoke to “Hits” Magazine (1991)!

Why the three year break between albums?
After seven #1 hits and two albums that were very successful, I thought it was time to take a break, just cool out for awhile and look at it all from the outside — kinda re-group, pull it together and see what I had going on here.

Did you have a good time working with Stevie Wonder on “We Didn’t Know”?
Oh, I can’t begin to tell you how much I loved that session, how memorable it was for me. It’ll definitely go in my memoirs. It was a dream come true for me to sing with that man. To me, he’s the ultimate musical genius — and we became great friends, which I love most of all.

How about Luther Vandross?
Luther and I have been friends for so long, and I can’t tell you how much I love him. That’s my baby! We laugh all the time, and working with him was a thrill. I want to duet with him next time. You try not to think about if it doesn’t. You try to think about what it’s going to do.

You co-produced one track, “I’m Knockin.” How did you like that?
It was fun. It was time-consuming and hard work, but I had fun listening to myself, going out and singing, then coming back to listen and going out again, trying to figure out how to do it best. I found out the producer’s job is to find out which way is the best.

The up-tempo songs on the new album seem to have more of a slam to them. One of the most frequent criticisms of your other albums was their pop orientation.
I know there were things my music carried that were very poppy, very slick, very catchy, which is what we wanted to do and what we aimed for. We wanted mass appeal — moms, kids, dads. We wanted everybody to like what Whitney was doing. And it’s great we achieved that. This album really says, “OK, if you guys don’t think I can do anything else, take this!!” I grew up singing gospel music, and gospel trains you to sing anything you want.

How did you like working with LA. and Babyface?
I love their work. They create the funkiest grooves, the baddest grooves there are. But they also give you songs, words and a story, which to me is what makes hit records.

Take A Trip Down Memory Lane with “I’m Your Baby Tonight!”