Songoftheday 9/10/20 - Well there's a bridge and there's a river that I still must cross, as I'm going on my journey ohI might be lost...

 

 

"Step By Step" - Whitney Houston

from the album The Preacher's Wife (Original Soundtrack) (1996)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #15 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 7

 

Today's song of the day is from Whitney Houston, who had her third hit movie in a row with The Preacher's Wife in 1996, which already spun off a top ten pop hit with her cover of the Four Tops' immortal soul classic "I Believe In You And Me" at the start of 1997.  Her next single from the soundtrack actually started its life as the B-side of a single from Scottish new wave legend Annie Lennox. "Step By Step", written by Lennox, was a non-album track on her "Precious" single in 1992...

Houston, with the help of producer Stephen Lipson (who had worked with Lennox), changed the lyrics a little, but must have gotten approval, since Annie sings backup on the gospel-like redo (also, Whitney doesn't take any writing credit)...

Houston's "Step By Step" became the second top-40 pop hit from The Preacher's Wife in March of 1997. The song climbed to #12 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, and got to #26 on their Adult Top-40 format list. It also rose to #29 on the R&B chart, while the remixes of the track from DJ's like Tony Moran and Junior Vasquez helped it land at #3 on the Dance Club Play tally. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in Spain (#2), the Czech Republic (#2), Denmark (#4),  Hungary (#4), Austria (#6), and Germany (#8). It also made the top-40 in Finland (#11), Australia (#12), Belgium (#12W/#13F), The UK (#13), The Netherlands (#13), Ireland (#14), Italy (#14), Sweden (#15), Switzerland (#15), Iceland (#19), Canada (#23), Poland (#25), and France (#30).

The final single from the record, the Babyface creation "My Heart Is Calling", ascended to #35 on Billboard's R&B chart, while stalling down at #77 on the pop Hot 100. 

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the dance remix done from Tony Moran that helped make the song a top-3 dance hit in the U.S...

There was an alternate edit of the video for the European market...

Next up is Whitney performing live in concert in 1997...

And lastly, at a show in Poland in 1999...

Up tomorrow: Before there was Kanye, there was Brandy's brother.