The late great Pop/R&B icon Whitney Houston has returned to Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for the first time in 10 years thanks to a producer’s remix of one of her old songs.
Norwegian producer Kygo remixed Whitney’s cover of “Higher Love” that she featured on her 1990 hit album “I’m Your Baby Tonight”. Whitney herself covered the song originally recorded by Steve Winwood in 1986. But’s Kygo’s 2019 remix that brought Whitney to the No. 68 spot on the Hot 100.
Following her untimely passing in 2012, the remix marks Houston’s first appearance on the chart since 2009’s “Million Dollar Bill,” off her final album, “I Look to You.” The song is a unique gem as the pop diva’s original recording of “Higher Love” had previously only been available as a bonus track on the Japanese edition of her 1990 album.
As Sony Music Chief Creative Officer Clive Davis told Rolling Stone, Houston’s label Arista Records “didn’t want her being a cover artist at that time” so they shelved the song in favor of more R&B-oriented material.
It was revealed that last month that Whitney’s team reached out to Kygo to give “Higher Love” a modernized remix.
“I was honored when the Whitney Houston estate reached out and presented me with the opportunity to work with one of the greatest female vocalists of all time,” Kygo said in a Jun. 28 press release sent to HuffPost.
According to Whitney’s sister-in-law, estate executor and former manager Pat Houston, the timing for new music couldn’t be better.
“The current cultural environment has been thirsty for something uplifting and inspiring,” she told Rolling Stone. “Who better to inspire than Whitney, the most exhilarating vocalist of all time?”
The new song is the first of several musical projects planned to carry forth Houston’s artistic legacy. In a New York Times interview published in May, Pat Houston revealed the estate’s plans for a posthumous album, a hologram tour and a Broadway musical all in the Whitney’s honor.
Take a listen to the new song below and watch a vintage clip of Whitney performing “Higher Love”.
