"All the Man That I Need" is a song written by American songwriters Dean Pitchford and Michael Gore. The song was first recorded as "All The Man I Need" by Linda Clifford in 1982, for her album I'll Keep on Loving You.

In 1991, Whitney Houston had a number one multiple chart hit with the song, recorded as "All The Man That I Need", from her 1990 album, I'm Your Baby Tonight. Whitney's version featured production from Narada Michael Walden and the single became a major worldwide hit, received mainly positive reviews from music critics, and reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart; it remains her fourth biggest hit in that chart.

"All the Man That I Need" was originally written in 1981, by Dean Pitchford and Michael Gore. They had Linda Clifford in mind when they wrote the song. They had previously written the song "Red Light" from Fame for her in 1980.

Linda says, "'All the Man I Need' was actually written for my husband and myself. I recorded it in 1980, when I recorded 'Red Light' from the movie Fame. Whitney Houston recorded it years later." As Linda states, writers Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford actually wrote that song for Linda and Nick for the 'I'll Keep Loving You' album. Linda had gotten out of a bad marriage some years earlier and when Michael and Dean saw how happy Linda and Nick were together; the song kind of wrote itself.

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. 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 Houston had recently 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, Whitney, so 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 on her album I'm Your Baby Tonight.

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