Insider: All the years of smoking crack damaged whitney houston's vocal chords .... N

[sexynikki]

[Whitney's] years of drug abuse had ravaged her vocal cords so badly that when she hit the studio she sounded less like The Greatest Voice Of All and move like Mavis the karaoke queen down your local.

She couldn't even hold the high notes of her own song I Will Always Love You. So top music industry exec Clive Davis insisted she have singing lessons.

"She was smoking a lot and taking a lot of drugs. Her voice was almost unrecognizable. Thousands have been shelled out to train her back up to the original.

Word is that the singing lessons worked and that she sounds way better now. We'll see ... her new album is out later this year....[media]http://www.mediatakeout.com/photo/1216128745whitneycrackhead.jpg[/media]