Cissy Houston, a two-time Grammy-winning soul and gospel artist who sang with Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley and other stars and knew triumph and heartbreak as the mother of Whitney Houston, has died. She was 91.<\/p>\n
Her daughter Pat Houston told the Associated Press that Cissy Houston died on Monday morning in her New Jersey home while under hospice care for Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n
The acclaimed gospel singer was surrounded by her family at the time of her death.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur hearts are filled with pain and sadness. We\u2019ve lost the matriarch of our family,\u201d Pat Houston said in a statement. She said her mother-in-law\u2019s contributions to popular music and culture are \u201cunparalleled.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMother 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.<\/p>\n
Her more than seven-decade career in music and entertainment will remain at the forefront of our hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n
A church performer from an early age, Houston was part of a family gospel act before breaking through in popular music in the 1960s as a member of the prominent backing group The Sweet Inspirations with Doris Troy and her niece Dee Dee Warwick.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Houston\u2019s many credits included Franklin\u2019s \u201cThink\u201d and \u201d(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,\u201d Van Morrison\u2019s \u201cBrown Eyed Girl\u201d and Dusty Springfield\u2019s \u201cSon of a Preacher Man.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u201csquirrelly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of our engagement with him, he gave me a bracelet inscribed with my name on the outside,\u201d she wrote in her memoir \u201cHow Sweet the Sound,\u201d published in 1998.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the inside of the bracelet he had inscribed his nickname for me: Squirrelly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sweet Inspirations had their own top 20 single with the soul-rock \u201cSweet Inspiration,\u201d made in the Memphis studio where Franklin and Springfield among others recorded hits and released four albums just in the late \u201960s.<\/p>\n
The group appeared on Van Morrison\u2019s \u201cBrown Eyed Girl\u201d and sang background vocals for The Jimi Hendrix Experience on the song \u201cBurning of the Midnight Lamp\u201d in 1967.<\/p>\n
Houston\u2019s last performance with The Sweet Inspirations came after the group hit the stage with Presley in a Las Vegas show in 1969.<\/p>\n
Her final recording session with the group turned into their biggest R&B hit \u201c(Gotta Find) A Brand New Lover\u201d a composition by the production team of Gamble & Huff, who appeared on the group\u2019s fifth album, \u201cSweet Sweet Soul.\u201d<\/p>\n
During that time, the group occasionally performed live concert dates with Franklin.<\/p>\n
After the group\u2019s success and four albums together, Houston left The Sweet Inspirations to pursue a solo career where she flourished.<\/p>\n
Houston became an in-demand session singer and recorded more than 600 songs in multiple genres throughout her career.<\/p>\n
Her vocals can be heard on tracks alongside a wide range of artists including Chaka Khan, Donny Hathaway, Jimi Hendrix, Luther Vandross, Beyonc\u00e9, Paul Simon, Roberta Flack and Whitney Houston.<\/p>\n
Cissy Houston went on to complete several records, including \u201cPresenting Cissy Houston,\u201d the disco-era \u201cThink It Over\u201d and the Grammy-winning gospel albums \u201cFace to Face\u201d and \u201cHe Leadeth Me.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1971, Houston\u2019s signature vocals were featured on Burt Bacharach\u2019s solo album, which includes \u201cMexican Divorce,\u201d \u201cAll Kinds of People\u201d and \u201cOne Less Bell to Answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
She performed various standards including Barbra Streisand\u2019s hit song, \u201cEvergreen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Never far from her native New Jersey or musical origins, Houston presided for decades over the 200-member Youth Inspirational Choir at Newark\u2019s New Hope Baptist Church, where Whitney Houston sang as a child.<\/p>\n
Cissy Houston would say that she had discouraged her daughter from show business, but they were joined in music for much of Whitney\u2019s life, from church to stage performances to television and film and the recording studio.<\/p>\n
Whitney\u2019s rise seemed inevitable, not only because of her obvious talents, but because of her background: Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick were cousins, Leontyne Price a cousin once removed, Franklin a close family friend.<\/p>\n
Whitney Houston made her debut on national television when she and Cissy Houston sang a medley of Franklin hits on \u201cThe Merv Griffin Show.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cissy Houston sang backup on Whitney\u2019s eponymous, multi-platinum first album, and the two shared the lead on \u201cI Know Him So Well,\u201d from the 1987 mega-seller \u201cWhitney.\u201d<\/p>\n
They would sing together often in concert and appeared in the 1996 film \u201cThe Preacher\u2019s Wife.\u201d Their most indelible moments likely came from the video for one of Whitney\u2019s biggest hits from the mid-1980s, \u201cGreatest Love of All.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was filmed as a mother-daughter homage, ending with a joyous Whitney exiting the stage of Harlem\u2019s Apollo Theater and embracing Cissy Houston, who stood in the wings.<\/p>\n
But drug problems damaged Whitney\u2019s voice and reputation and eventually ended her life: she was found dead in a Beverly Hills bathtub on Feb. 11, 2012.<\/p>\n
Cissy Houston would blame husband Bobby Brown for Whitney\u2019s getting so \u201cdeep\u201d into drugs, writing in the 2013 memoir \u201cRemembering Whitney.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown acknowledged his drug problems but was dismissive of his in-laws in a 2016 interview with Larry King.<\/p>\n
Cissy and Whitney Houston had a complicated dynamic at times \u2014 Whitney nicknamed her mother \u201cBig Cuda,\u201d as in barracuda.<\/p>\n
Cissy described in the memoir that her daughter as \u201cmean\u201d and \u201cdifficult\u201d at times but wrote \u201calmost always,\u201d her daughter was \u201cthe sweetest, most loving person in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2015, Cissy Houston was grieving again when granddaughter Bobbi Kristina Brown, the only child of Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston, was found unconscious in a bathtub, spent months in a coma and died at age 22.<\/p>\n
Cissy Houston was briefly married to Freddie Garland in the 1950s; their son, Gary Garland, was a guard for the Denver Nuggets and later sang on many of Whitney Houston\u2019s tours.<\/p>\n
Cissy Houston was married to Whitney\u2019s father, entertainment executive John Russell Houston, from 1959-1990. In addition to Whitney, the Houstons also had a son, Michael.<\/p>\n
Cissy Houston was born Emily Drinkard in Newark, the youngest of eight children of a factory worker and a housewife.<\/p>\n
She was just 5 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 \u201cA Joyful Noise.\u201d<\/p>\n
She later said she would have been happy to remain in gospel, but John Houston encouraged her to take on studio work.<\/p>\n
When rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins (along with drummer Levon Helm and other future members of The Band) needed an extra voice, Cissy Houston stepped in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to get my work done, and get it done quickly. I was there, but I didn\u2019t have to be part of them.<\/p>\n
I was in the world, but I wasn\u2019t of the world, as St. Paul put it,\u201d Houston wrote in \u201cHow Sweet the Sound,\u201d remembering how she soon began working with the Drifters and other singers.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least in the recording studio we were living together as God intended us to. Some days, we spent 12 or 15 hours together there,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThe skin-deep barriers of race seemed to fall away as we toiled side by side creating our little pop masterpieces.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pat Houston said she is thankful for the many valuable lessons learned from her mother-in-law. She said the family feels \u201cblessed and grateful\u201d that God allowed Cissy to spend so many years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are touched by your generous support, and your outpouring of love during our profound time of grief,\u201d Houston said on behalf of the family. \u201cWe respectfully request our privacy during this difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The post Whitney\u2019s mother, Cissy Houston dead at 91<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n The post Whitney\u2019s mother, Cissy Houston dead at 91<\/a> appeared first on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cissy Houston, a two-time Grammy-winning soul and gospel artist who sang with Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley and other stars and knew triumph and heartbreak as the mother of Whitney Houston, has died. She was 91. Her daughter Pat Houston told the Associated Press that Cissy Houston died on Monday morning in her New Jersey home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}