Cee Lo Green demo for Whitney Houston leaks
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Cee Lo Green is best known for his Goodie Mob and Gnarls Barkley days, dishing out advice on “The Voice” or that ubiquitously profane hit that burned up charts and made the Lady Killer a household name.
But Green has also spent a great deal of his career quietly penning tracks for other artists, including Jennifer Hudson, Brandy, Amerie and the Pussycat Dolls.
Green even came close to working with the late pop diva Whitney Houston. The fine folks at Bling47 have unearthed a vintage (circa ‘07) demo that Green did for the singer. “All Alone Now,” which the record label posted Thursday, is a collaboration between Green and B47 co-founder Waajeed specifically for Houston.
“The A&Rs at RCA were calling every and anybody to find a sound for [what became the pop titan’s final album, 2009’s “I Look to You”]. I worked on seven or eight different versions, finally deciding on this one, with additional parts from Simon Katz from Jamiroquai,” they wrote in a post for the song.
“Lyrically, Cee Lo nailed it! At the time she was going though her very public separation with Bobby Brown. He wrote the words as if she was speaking directly to him.”
The downbeat pop tune didn’t make the cut, but fans of another big-voiced diva, Beyoncé, will recognize the tune as an outtake from her “I Am … Sasha Fierce” sessions. Her version, called ‘I’m Alone Now,’ features harder guitar riffs and synths, a haunting melody and lyrics about a a jilted lover trying to find confidence after a relationship has crumbled.
Though we’ll never hear how the song would have sounded had Houston sung it, listen to both Green’s original and Beyoncé’s take below:
Cee Lo Green, ‘All Alone Now’ Beyoncé, ‘I’m Alone Now’
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-- Gerrick D. Kennedy
