Background
"All the Man That I Need" was originally written in 1981, by Dean Pitchford and Michael Gore, and was intended to be recorded by American singer Linda Clifford. Clifford recorded her version of the song for inclusion on her album I'll Keep on Loving You, and subsequently released it as a single, but it failed to chart. In 1982, the American musical group Sister Sledge recorded another version of the song as a duet with the singer David Simmons. Their version failed to make a large impact on the Billboard Hot 100, but reached a moderate peak of number forty-five on the Hot R&B Singles chart.
Later, Pitchford revealed that although different versions of the song were made, no one was really scoring a major success with it. "I figured that it was one of those songs that was going to get cut a number of times and not ever have its day," he said. However, he was a close friend of Arista Records' president Clive Davis, and it was over a dinner with him that the subject of the song "All the Man That I Need" again came up. After a discussion between the two regarding the song, a demo version of it was sent to Davis. Davis, was impressed with the song, but felt they would be unable to do anything with it at that time as this was around the period that Houston had just in fact finished recording her second album. Then came a long and agonizing wait for Pitchford while Arista went about the task of marketing Houston's second album and so of course this meant that any plans for a third were still some way off. During this interim period, Pitchford's publishers received many requests from interested parties who wanted one of their acts to record the song. However, in the end Houston finally recorded it, with production from Narada Michael Walden in 1989.
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