Revivalist Exclusive: Sy Smith Speaks on Working w/ Whitney, New LP + More
The enchanting Sy Smith sits down with our Revivalist brethren to go in-depth on her forthcoming LP Fast and Curious, touring with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and singing back-up for the late great Whitney Houston at the tender age of 23. If you're not familiar watch her kill the sound dead in this performance of "Look of Love" with the BSO (above) get a taste of the interview (below)--and read the full Q&A at Revivalist.
Since this is something that just happened, the loss of the great Whitney Houston, I wanted to ask how your experience was working with Whitney?The experience singing with Whitney was unbelievable. I was a kid, I was like 23. My first gig with her was live at Constitution Hall on HBO. It was my first major gig with anybody let alone Whitney Houston. The amount of pressure was crazy. Back then, we weren’t singing to tracks or recording ourselves and singing on top of that, or singing on top of backgrounds that were already running from the protools set up or anything like that, everything you heard was live. That was us; us being me, Sharlotte Gibson and Pattie Howard. I can’t stop looking at the clips from that show. It was such a special night and for everyone that shared the stage with Whitney that night. This performance was the beginning of my relationship with Rickey Minor who was the music director for Whitney at the time. I went on to do a lot of phenomenal things with Ricky after that night and still work with him from time to time.
