![\"East](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_hum-121025-calum-one.jpg\")
East Yorkshire singer Calum Scott appearing on the BBC’s One Show, performing his new duet with the voice of the late Whitney Houston(Image: bbc.co.uk)<\/p>\nRecording new version of Whitney\u2019s I Wanna Dance With Somebody was \u2018an honour\u2019East Yorkshire singer Calum Scott appearing on the BBC’s One Show, performing his new duet with the voice of the late Whitney Houston(Image: bbc.co.uk)<\/p>\n
Calum Scott has spoken of the \u201chonour\u201d of recording a duet with the late Whitney Houston. The Beverley-born singer<\/a> was one of the guests on the BBC<\/a> \u2019s One Show sofa on Friday (October 10) and performed the stunning new acoustic version of Whitney\u2019s hit, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, with video and photographs of Whitney playing in the background.<\/p>\n First, Calum, who won the Hull Daily Mail\u2019s Star Search<\/a> talent contest in 2013 ahead of his huge rise to stardom<\/a>, explained how the collaboration came about, with Whitney\u2019s family seeking him out to record the track, using the superstar\u2019s original vocals. He told show hosts Alex Jones and Lauren Laverne \u2013 and fellow guest Stephen Mulhern \u2013 about the \u201cmagic\u201d of the experience.<\/p>\n Calum, who celebrates his 37th birthday today (Sunday, October 12), said: \u201cWhitney was in our house all the time when I was growing up. My mum\u2019s favourite artist was Whitney – and Diana Ross, Celine Dion, Michael Jackson \u2013 huge names.<\/p>\n \u201cWhitney was just always there on the way to school\u2026 obviously not \u2018there\u2019\u2026 but she was with us on holidays and in the house. I heard a lot of Whitney growing up.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen this opportunity came around it felt just like, so familiar.\u201d Calum said it was one of the \u201chonours of his career\u201d, explaining how when he was touring with Ed Sheeran, they were in touch with some of the writers of I Wanna Dance With Somebody.<\/p>\n A \u201cmash-up\u201d of his song, Dancing On My Own, and the chorus of the iconic Whitney track, happened in front of a stadium full of people who were \u201djust loving it\u201d, he said. \u201cThat video made its way over to the Whitney Houston estate and Pat Houston [Whitney\u2019s sister-in-law] reached out and said, \u2018we love this\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Calum was offered Whitney\u2019s original vocals to record an official version, which has become the latest single off Calum\u2019s new album, Avenoir. \u201cWe turned around a version in a week, we put strings on it – I did what I do best and made an upbeat song sound sad and depressing,\u201d Calum said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt speaks to the lyrics in this version and, more impressively than that, Whitney recorded to the upbeat, studio version and we\u2019ve lifted her vocals from tape straight onto this version. It\u2019s so beautiful.<\/p>\n \u201cIt lends to both ballad and an upbeat version.\u201d Calum said he had worked closely with the Houston family on the song and it was important he kept Whitney\u2019s voice exactly the same and to try to match her voice was \u201cvery intimidating at first\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember going into the vocal booth and I said to the producer, \u2018I don\u2019t want to hear the song until I\u2019m in the room, so I can have that magic, that first-time magic\u2019. Her voice comes through with just the piano and it\u2019s so beautiful and so stunning and then I just completely forgot to sing.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we had to wind it back and then I had my chance to sing with her and it was actually quite easy. It\u2019s a voice that I\u2019ve grown up on.<\/p>\n \u201cThis opportunity, for the Houstons to give their approval, for me felt like such a high order. The original key is hard to sing in and then we did the key change – I was wearing tight pants like this, I\u2019ll tell you that.\u201d<\/p>\n Calum said: \u201cI had an email from Pat Houston and she said, \u2019we just love the song, we\u2019ve shown Whitney\u2019s brother the video and he loves it\u2019. I was like, what an email to receive and my next one was a Deliveroo order!<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you think that life can\u2019t get any better \u2013 I mean, ten years ago I was on Britain\u2019s Got Talent and then every step I\u2019ve gone, it can\u2019t get better than this. I\u2019m touring with Ed Sheeran, it can\u2019t get better than this; then I\u2019ve got a duet with Whitney Houston.\u201d<\/p>\n He admitted to having goosebumps listening back to the newly-laid-down song. Details such as the sound of the snare drums from the bleed of the headphones Whitney was wearing have been kept in it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve left all of that on because my highest priority was being as respectful to her and all her fans across the world, who are rightly going to judge this version.\u201d He closed the One Show by performing the song, turning to applaud Whitney\u2019s image showing on the screen behind him.<\/p>\n Calum said the past ten years had been \u201cutterly life-changing\u201d and \u201call the more magical because I would never have been able to predict it\u201d. He said: \u201cI was working in human resources, after school, for eight years.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a dream come true; the dreams keep coming and I think it\u2019s made magical by the fact that I didn\u2019t see it coming. It\u2019s the surprises in life.\u201d<\/p>\n Calum\u2019s Avenoir world tour kicks off next week, opening in Portugal on Tuesday, October 14. Some of the final concerts will take place in Manchester and London next May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recording new version of Whitney\u2019s I Wanna Dance With Somebody was \u2018an honour\u2019East Yorkshire singer Calum Scott appearing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[192,55084,162934,4080,77,162935,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-494938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-beverley","10":"tag-calum-scott","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-star-search","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115364274604041291","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Calum](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_hum-121025-calum-one_02.jpg\")
Calum Scott, second left, talking to One Show hosts Alex Jones and Lauren Laverne \u2013 and fellow guest Stephen Mulhern(Image: bbc.co.uk)<\/p>\n