she was a stradivarius, she was pure, she was strong, and i am talking about her voice, and she was -- she had finesse and power and when you saw her live you heard the church in her, but you also heard the clarity of pop in her, and that combination is what made her so appealing worldwide. >> rose: ray kelly, danielle smith and jon pareles when we continue. >> funding for charlie rose was provided by the following.çó >> rose: additional funding provided by these funder. >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia, news and information services worldwide. >> from our studios in new york captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: ray kelly is here, he is new york city's longest serving commissioner of the police. he first served under mayor den kins in the early 1990s mayor bloomberg appointed him in 2002, he held, under his command the city sustained a downward trend in crime and reached historic lows, his response to the world center attacks is a counter-terrorism bureau and one of the largest anti-terrorism places

she had what a stradivarius was to a violin. the best voice of the 20th century.tone of a singer in the 20th century in my estimation. >> own: she came from this very rich musical background. her mother, cissy houston, aretha franklin, her godmother. deonwarwick a cousin. >> yes. and you know, there's even more singers that are in her background. cissy was a member of a wonderful group called the sweet inspirations. she and her sisters made up a group. the houston legacy of singing goes back for two generations even before whitney in newark, new jersey. these are fabulous, fabulous soulful singers in the gospel tradition. >> own: you rkedith r. what was that like? >> i worked with her. i produced songs on two of her albums just whitney and one on a song on her christmas album one wish. whitney is really funny and really warm. real he'll somebody who comes in a room and introduces herself to everyone in the room. i asked her to say if she wouldn't mind saying hello to my parents. she spoke to hem for about 20 minutes on the warm. a very warm and radiant person. as