Showbiz411

The title of Whitney Houston’s new and final single is “Never Give Up.” It’s an unreleased track from “I Will Always Love You,” a greatest hits package just about to drop from RCA. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63G-5FfwfzQ. Jermaine Dupri and Brian Cox produced the track, which was co-written by them with Johnta Austin. It shows off Whitney’s extraordinary vocal power at her height, long before everything fell apart. “I Will Always Love You” has 18 tracks, all hits, from “You Give Good Love” to “I Look to You.” Interestingly, it excludes all the tracks from Whitney’s 2002 album “Just Whitney” — made apart from Clive Davis, and almost completely ignores her last album, I Look to You, including the Alicia Keys song, “Million Dollar Bill.”

Roger Friedman

Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News. Friedman previously wrote the Intelligencer column at New York Magazine, He writes for Parade magazine and has written for Details, Vogue, the New York Times, Post, and Daily News and many other publications. He is the writer and co-producer of a film about R&B Music called “Only the Strong Survive,” which was released by Miramax in 2003 and was a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals.