Cissy Houston, Legendary Gospel Singer and Whitney Houston’s Mother, Dies at 91

Cissy Houston, a two-time Grammy-winning soul-gospel artist and mother of Whitney Houston, has died at 91.

Cissy Houston died Monday morning in her New Jersey home while under hospice care for Alzheimer’s disease as revealed by her daughter-in-law Pat Houston. 

“Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness. We lost the matriarch of our family,” Pat Houston said in a statement. She said her mother-in-law’s contributions to popular music and culture are “unparalleled”.

“Mother Cissy has been a strong and towering figure in our lives. A woman of deep faith and conviction, who cared greatly about family, ministry and community. Her more than seven-decade career in music and entertainment will remain at the forefront of our hearts.

“We are touched by your generous support, and your outpouring of love during our profound time of grief. We respectfully request our privacy during this difficult time.”

Houston, before her death, enjoyed a  successful singing career alongside legends like Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin.

Born Emily Drinkard in New Jersey in 1933, Houston was the youngest of eight children. She began singing at a young age at the church. She was just five when she and three siblings founded the Drinkard Singers, a gospel group that lasted 30 years, performing on the same bill as Mahalia Jackson among others and releasing the 1959 album “A Joyful Noise.”

She shot into the music scene in the 1960s as a member of the prominent backing group The Sweet Inspirations with Doris Troy and her niece, Dee Dee Warwick. The group sang backup for a variety of soul singers including Otis Redding, Lou Rawls and The Drifters. They also sang backup for Dionne Warwick.

Houston’s many credits included Franklin’s “Think” and ”(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man.” The Sweet Inspirations also sang on stage with Presley, whom Houston would remember fondly for singing gospel during rehearsal breaks and telling her that she was “squirrelly”.

After the group’s success and four albums together, Houston left The Sweet Inspirations to pursue a solo career where she flourished.

Houston became an in-demand session singer and recorded more than 600 songs in multiple genres throughout her career. Her vocals can be heard on tracks alongside a wide range of artists including Chaka Khan, Donny Hathaway, Jimi Hendrix, Luther Vandross, Beyoncé, Paul Simon, Roberta Flack and Whitney Houston.

Cissy Houston went on to complete several records, including “Presenting Cissy Houston,” the disco-era “Think It Over” and the Grammy-winning gospel albums “Face to Face” and “He Leadeth Me.”

In 1971, Houston’s signature vocals were featured on Burt Bacharach’s solo album, which includes “Mexican Divorce,” “All Kinds of People” and “One Less Bell to Answer.” She performed various standards including Barbra Streisand’s hit song, “Evergreen.”

Never far from her native New Jersey or musical origins, Houston presided for decades over the 200-member Youth Inspirational Choir at Newark’s New Hope Baptist Church, where Whitney Houston sang as a child.

Cissy Houston would say that she had discouraged her daughter from show business, but they were joined in music for much of Whitney’s life, from church to stage performances to television and film and the recording studio. Whitney Houston made her debut on national television when she and Cissy Houston sang a medley of Franklin hits on “The Merv Griffin Show.” Cissy Houston sang backup on Whitney’s eponymous, multi-platinum first album, and the two shared the lead on “I Know Him So Well,” from the 1987 mega-seller “Whitney.”

They would sing together often in concert and appeared in the 1996 film “The Preacher’s Wife.” But drug problems damaged Whitney’s voice and reputation and eventually ended her life: she was found dead in a Beverly Hills bathtub on February 11, 2012. Cissy Houston would blame husband Bobby Brown for Whitney’s drug problems in the 2013 memoir “Remembering Whitney.” 

In 2015, Cissy Houston lost her granddaughter Bobbi Kristina Brown, the only child of Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston who was found unconscious in a bathtub, spent months in a coma and died at age 22.

Cissy Houston was briefly married to  Whitney’s father, an entertainment executive named John Russell Houston, from 1959 to 1990. 

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