PBS’s Austin City Limits succeeded in bringing in Sam Smith on January 17. The British singer-songwriter performed for 25 minutes on set entertaining the audience with his powerful vocals. He started the show with “Together” which is his collaboration with Nile Rodgers and Disclosure. He then sang Whitney Houston’s “How Will I know”. But the surprise was the transition that he brought in Houston’s track and made it a piano ballad from a traditional 80s dance-pop track. Sam’s performance was brilliant since he was able to bring the track to his own style while drawing inspirations from Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston’s powerful vocals. Sam Smith’s performance on Austin City Limits was supplemented by Future Islands, an indie rock band.
Sam has always been a huge fan of Whitney Houston since the days of his childhood. Once his parents told him that he won’t be able to sing Houston as they believed his voice would break and he would lose hold of the high pitch vocals. Sam was so disappointed that he started crying. But he never gave up and started training hard to ensure that he would eventually be able to sing the highest songs. Sam’s other inspiration, Mariah Carey, had an album released around same time which Sam loved and sang to master high-pitch vocals.
