Cissy Houston, Grammy-winning singer and mother of Whitney Houston, dead at 91
By Lisa Respers France, CNN
(CNN) — Cissy Houston, Grammy-winning singer and mother of Whitney Houston, has died, according to Gwendolyn Quinn, a representative for The Estate of Whitney E. Houston. She was 91.
According to a statement, the singer was surrounded by family when she died Monday at 10:30 a.m. ET while in hospice for care. She had Alzheimer’s disease, the statement said.
“Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness. We loss the matriarch of our family,” her daughter-in-law Pat Houston said. “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.”
Her daughter-in law added: “Her contributions to popular music and culture are unparalleled.”
Born Emily Drinkard, Cissy Houston was the youngest of eight children to the late Nitcholas and Delia Mae Drinkard, according to a biography provided by the family.
Houston was educated through the Newark Public School system and she attended New Hope Baptist Church, where she later become Minister of Sacred Music.
In 1938, when she was five years old, Houston began her singing career, when she joined her sister Anne and brothers Larry and Nicky in the gospel group, The Drinkard Four, the biography stated.
Later, her sisters Lee and Marie joined the group, which was renamed The Drinkard Singers. Anne Drinkard left the group and was replaced by Lee’s adopted daughter Judy Clay.
Throughout the life of the group, the members included future stars Dee Dee Warwick and Dionne Warwick, Houston’s nieces.
They performed at Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island in 1957 and recorded their first live gospel album, “A Joyful Noise,” at Webster Hall in New York City. It was released in 1959 on RCA Records, marking one of the first times a gospel group released an album on a major record label.
In 1963, with the remaining members of The Drinkard Sisters, Cissy Houston formed the original lineup of The Sweet Inspirations, which provided background vocals for several artists throughout the ’60s, including Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Esther Phillips, Lou Rawls, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, The Drifters and Wilson Pickett.
She released her first solo LP, “Presenting Cissy Houston,” in 1969.
A two-time Grammy Award-winning recording artist, Houston led a successful career as a solo and performing artist, recording ten solo albums, four compilations albums, and five collaborative recordings.
As a first-call backup vocalist, she recorded and performed with a wide range of artists across multiple genres including Franklin, Bette Midler, Beyoncé, Burt Bacharach, Carly Simon, Chaka Khan, David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, and her late daughter Whitney Houston, among many others.
Whitney Houston died in 2012 at the age of 48.
Cissy Houston wrote a memoir in 2013 called “Remember Whitney: My Story of Love, Loss, and the Night the Music Stopped.” During an appearance on “The View” that same year, Houston said she wrote the book “to let everyone know that (Whitney Houston) was really nothing like they thought she was.”
She continued to say her daughter “was a wonderful, giving, loving kid.”
“She did that and she was good to people and just great. Had her little faults but like everybody else,” she said.
Cissy Houston was also the mother of sons Gary and Michael and the grandmother of her several grandchildren, according to her biography. Her granddaughter Bobbie Kristina Brown, died three years after her mother Whitney at the age of 22.
“We are blessed and grateful that God allowed her to spend so many years with us and we are thankful for all the many valuable life lessons that she taught us,” Pat Houston’s statement on Monday added of Cissy Houston. “May she rest in peace, alongside her daughter, Whitney and granddaughter Bobbi Kristina and other cherished family members.”
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CNN’s Alli Rosenbloom contributed to this report.
