Phoenix Symphony, Rashidra Scott plan tribute to Whitney Houston.
Late singer to be honored with Phoenix Symphony tribute show
Broadway singer Rashidra Scott travels around the country performing “The Music of Whitney Houston” with top-flight orchestras. But it’s not her first time portraying a celebrity onstage.
Scott made her Broadway debut in 2007 in “Avenue Q,” the Rrated “Sesame Street” spoof (complete with hand puppets), playing child actor Gary Coleman, all grown up and down on his luck.
If you’ve seen “Hair,” you’ll know her stint
as “Abraham Lincoln” doesn’t quite count as impersonating a real person. Her latest Broadway gig comes a little closer: In “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” she plays “a Shirelle” and another singer whose fictional name might have been changed to avoid a libel lawsuit — the character helps break up Carole King’s marriage.
“I’m Janelle — HomeWrecking Hussy Number 1, as I like to call myself,” Scott says.
Her credits on the Great White Way also include “Sister Act,” but the role she’ll be revisiting with the Phoenix Symphony in Mesa on Saturday, Feb. 27, is the one she says she was born to play.
“I’m pretty sure my mom first heard me singing when I was 4,” Scott says. “She had company over and Whitney Houston’s ‘ Greatest Love of All’ came on the radio, and I tried to show off...
“There was something about her singing that connected and resonated with me as a 4-year-old. She helped me find my voice.”
“The Music of Whitney Houston” is part of a portfolio of tribute concerts created Brent Havens and his Virginia-based Windborne Productions. He arranges rock and pop music for symphony orchestras and conducts the performances. Most of the shows are classic rock, including the Who, Queen, Pink Floyd, the Eagles and most recently Journey. But for a (slightly) younger demographic, he also offers Michael Jackson, U2 and Houston, whose ’80s and ’90s hits include “How Will I Know,” “All the Man That I Need” and, of course, “I Will Always Love You.”
Houston died in 2012, which, candidly, is one reason she was a good candidate for Windborne.
“Most of the artists that we do are not going to be performing anymore, and you’re not going to get a chance to hear them,” Havens says. “You can go down to the local bar and see a tribute band, but what really sets us apart is we have a 75-piece orchestra that can fill in additional colors that you’re not going to hear anywhere else. The orchestra gives it, not a different flavor, because we really try to stick to the originals, but it gives an extra richness to the sound.”
What sets the Houston program apart from the others, Havens adds, is that it’s all about the unique talent of a single singer. Or two, really — Houston and Scott.
“It’s probably the toughest show that we have for the vocalist,” Havens says. “And Rashidra just kills this show. She is so good. With her doing seven or eight Broadway shows a week, she has pipes that are just astounding. You really get goosebumps listening to her. So more than any of our other shows, it’s really about the vocalist out front.”
Scott says she wasn’t exactly feeling that love from Havens when they first started working together.
“He was a ball-buster,” she says. “I remember leaving that first rehearsal. My mom picked me up, and I literally could not speak for the first 10 minutes in the car, because I was just so overwhelmed with the weight and the gravity of: You are leading this, you are the face of this. There are going to be thousands of people in the audience waiting to hear Whitney, and you have to know all of these songs backward and forward.”
But as hard as she worked to do those songs justice, Scott says she doesn’t try to impersonate Houston herself.
“She was the voice, and she is the voice, and no one can ever compare to that, ever,” she says. “So it’s humbling, for lack of a better word, to have the opportunity to take people back to where they were and whatever their emo- tional connection is to her songs.”