Cissy Houston has died at the age of 91

Cissy Houston, the Grammy-winning soul and gospel singer and mother of Whitney Houston, has died. According to the Associated Press, Houston died at home in New Jersey, where he was being treated for Alzheimer’s disease in a hospice. She was 91.

Houston was a founding member of the R&B group Sweet Inspirations and sang as a backup singer 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 in songs like “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison, “Son Of A Preacher Man” by Dusty Springfield and “The Burning Of The Midnight Lamp” by Jimi Hendrix Experience. The albums won her two Grammys in the “Traditional Gospel Album” category after she launched a solo career in 1970 Face to face And He guides 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 full of pain and sadness. “We are losing the matriarch of our family,” Houston’s daughter-in-law Pat Houston made this statement to the AP, calling her contributions to popular music and culture “unprecedented.” The statement continued: “Mother Cissy was a strong and prominent figure in our lives. A woman of deep faith and conviction who cared deeply about family, service and community. Her career spanning more than seven decades in the music and entertainment industry will continue to be close to our hearts.”

Cissy Houston was born Emily Drinkard in 1933, the eighth of eight children. She began singing as a young child in the family gospel group Drinkard Four, later renamed the Drinkard Singers. The group performed TV Gospel Time and at Carnegie Hall, among other high-profile performances. In 1955 she married Freddie Garland, with whom she had a son, the future NBA player Gary Garland. From 1959 to 1990 she was married to entertainment manager John Russell Houston, with whom she had son Michael Houston and daughter Whitney Houston.

In 1963, while pregnant with Whitney, she formed the group Sweet Inspirations with Doris Troy and her niece Dee Dee Warwick. The group sang as backup singers 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 the rise of her daughter Whitney and performed with her The Merv Griffin Showsang on her early records and appeared with her in films The preacher’s wife. They often performed together in concerts. In the video for Whitney’s hit “Greatest Love Of All,” Whitney can be seen leaving the stage at the Apollo in Harlem and hugging her mother.

Later in Houston’s life, her family suffered several tragedies. Whitney died in 2012, then Bobbi Kristina in 2015. After a 2018 documentary claimed that Dee Dee Warwick had abused Whitney Houston as a child, Cissy and Dionne Warwick denied those claims.