I organised an audition for her when she was a teenager with CBS who turned her down ("pretty girl but can't sing"). So she went to Clive Davis at Arista. I always found her sweet and enchanting. She was on The Brits I hosted in 1987 and during rehearsals after her number I said on mic "I think I've just fallen in love". She gave me the biggest smile ever.
I've not seen her in years but adored her voice and always found her a lovely person.

I remember her astonishing Star Spangled Banner (I was at that Superbowl) and featuring it in The Brits 1991 when Sinead didn't bother to turn up to collect her winning Best Female Award - it provoked hysterical industry reaction as they (rightly) saw it as a comment from me on Sinead's bad manners. But my main reason for showing it was because it was so terrific.

Shame Popbitch didn't credit you as the person who organised the CBS Records audition for Whitney. If they did it I'm sure it would have surprised and impressed a lot of people.

Was this Whitney's first record company audition? Can you tell us the story of your involvement with discovering Whitney and getting her the audition.

I was consultant to Dick Asher at CBS at the time; my friend and lawyer Paul Marshall told me about Whitney; I set up an audition for her with Al Teller and Micky Eichner and that was the result. Clive, however, got it immediately.

Thanks for the insight. She had the looks, a great voice and a bankable back story so it's amazing that such experienced record men would pass.

After 67 years it's consoling to realise that executives generally are no more useless now than they were then!

It's always been just a handful of inspired people that run all industries (and countries)... the majority don't have a clue. My only sadness is that there aren't more inspired executives in music - the only two young ones we used to champion at the Tipsheet were Richard Russell and Simon Cowell.

Who can we encourage today?