Major plans are in the works for a concert tour starring the one and only Whitney Houston — as a hologram.
Houston’s estate announced on Monday, May 20, 2019, that the iconic singer — who passed away in 2012 aged 48 — will tour as a hologram with her original band and back-up singers including her brother Gary Houston after her estate signed a new deal with music and marketing company Primary Wave Music Publishing.
It was also announced that a posthumous new album — presumably featuring unused tracks from her 1985 self-titled debut — and the tour will include fan favorite tracks such as “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” and “The Greatest Love of All.”
The late pop superstar’s former manager and sister-in-law Pat Houston, the executor of Whitney Houston’s estate, told The New York Times newspaper: “Before she passed, there was so much negativity around the name; it wasn’t about the music anymore.
“People had forgotten how great she was. They let all the personal things about her life outweigh why they fell in love with her in the first place.”
Pat added: “The hologram has taken precedence over everything.”
Larry Mestel, Primary Wave’s founder, said the company would only portray the musician in an “elegant” way.
He said: “For Whitney Houston, who had an elegant voice and an elegant way about her, we wouldn’t do a fast-food brand relationship, for example.”
Other potential projects with Primary Wave include a Broadway musical and a Vegas-style showcase.
Houston isn’t the only superstar to be immortalized in hologram form and it was announced last year that the estate of the late Amy Winehouse — who passed away aged 27 in 2011 — teamed up with the BASE Hologram company to create a virtual likeness of the star, which will go out on the road with a live band and backing singers to perform “digitally remastered” versions of her classic hits.
