In 1983, Whitney Houston appeared on The Merv Griffin Show to sing “Home.” The performance reveals the bright, complex selfhood Whitney sought to express even in spaces that were framed for her, not by her.
Whereas hosts today speak with artists themselves, not their male chaperones, the segment begins with Merv introducing not Whitney but Clive Davis, the head of her label, Arista, whom he praises as “a giant of a man, probably the most knowledgeable man the record business has ever known.”
The gesture was likely meant to secure the gentleman’s agreement, whereby Clive would break new Arista artists on the show.
Their exchange was as good a point of origin as any for the mythology always ready to spring up around the female artist: She is the raw material, the spark of gold, that the great man discovers and shapes.
Black women are often commandeered in this way, their rise attributed to some power beyond themselves, and to the men who recount their own crucial role to whomever will listen.