Cissy Houston, the Grammy-winning soul and gospel singer and mother of Whitney Houston, has died. Houston died at home in New Jersey under hospice care for Alzheimer’s, the Associated Press reports. She was 91.
Houston was a founding member of the R&B group the Sweet Inspirations and sang backup for artists such as Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Chaka Khan, Roy Hamilton, and her niece Dionne Warwick. She was also a prolific session singer; you can hear her voice on songs including Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl,” Dusty Springfield’s “Son Of A Preacher Man,” and the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “The Burning Of The Midnight Lamp.” She won two Grammys in the Traditional Gospel Album category after going solo in 1970, for the albums Face To Face and He Leadeth Me. Houston was the aunt of Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick, the cousin of opera singer Leontyne Price, and the grandmother of Bobbi Kristina Houston.
“Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness. We loss the matriarch of our family,” Houston’s dauhter-in-law Pat Houston gave this statement to the AP, calling her contributions to popular music and culture “unparalleled.” The statement continues, “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.”
Cissy Houston was born Emily Drinkard in 1933, the eighth of eight children. She got her start singing as a young child in the family gospel group the Drinkard Four, later renamed the Drinkard Singers. The group performed on TV Gospel Time and at Carnegie Hall among other high-profile gigs. In 1955, she married Freddie Garland, with whom she had a son, the future NBA player Gary Garland. From 1959-1990, she was married to entertainment executive John Russell Houston, with whom she had son Michael Houston and daughter Whitney Houston.
In 1963, while pregnant with Whitney, she started the Sweet Inspirations with Doris Troy and her niece Dee Dee Warwick. The group sang backup for artists such as Otis Redding, Lou Rawls, and Elvis Presley, who gave Houston the nickname “Squirrelly.” The group’s single “Sweet Inspiration” was a top 20 hit.
Houston later played a role in her daughter Whitney’s rise, performing with her on The Merv Griffin Show, singing on her early records, and appearing with her in the movie The Preacher’s Wife. They often performed together in concert. In the video for Whitney’s hit “Greatest Love Of All,” Whitney can be seen exiting the stage at the Apollo in Harlem and embracing her mother.
Later in Houston’s life, her family suffered tragedy several times over. Whitney died in 2012, then Bobbi Kristina in 2015. In 2018, after a documentary alleged that Dee Dee Warwick had abused Whitney Houston as a child, Cissy and Dionne Warwick denied those claims.
