Los Angeles (AP) — Cissy Houston, a two-time Grammy-winning soul and gospel singer who collaborated with Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, and other luminaries and experienced victory and agony as Whitney Houston’s mother, has died. She was 91.
Cissy Houston died Monday morning in her New Jersey home while receiving hospice care for Alzheimer’s disease, her daughter-in-law Pat Houston told The Associated Press. The renowned gospel singer was joined by her family.
“Our hearts are heavy with anguish and sadness. “We have lost the matriarch of our family,” Pat Houston stated in a statement. She described her mother-in-law’s contributions to popular music and culture as “unparalleled.”
“Mother Cissy has been a powerful and towering presence in our lives. A lady of strong faith and conviction who prioritized family, ministry, and community. Her more than seven-decade career in music and entertainment will be remembered fondly.
Houston began performing in churches at a young age and was part of a family gospel act before breaking into mainstream music in the 1960s as a member of the famed backing group The Sweet Inspirations, which included Doris Troy and her niece Dee Dee Warwick. The ensemble sang support for a number of soul artists, including Otis Redding, Lou Rawls, and The Drifters. They also performed backup for Dionne Warwick.
Houston’s numerous credits include 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 performed on stage with Presley, whom Houston remembered fondly for singing gospel during rehearsal breaks and calling her “squirrelly.”
“At the end of our engagement with him, he gave me a bracelet inscribed with my name on the outside,” she recounted in her memoir “How Sweet the Sound,” released in 1998. “On the inside of the bracelet he had inscribed his nickname for me: Squirrelly.”
The Sweet Inspirations had their own top 20 song, the soul-rock “Sweet Inspiration,” recorded at the Memphis studio where Franklin, Springfield, and others produced successes and issued four albums in the late 1960s. In 1967, the ensemble featured on Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and delivered backing vocals for The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Burning of the Midnight Lamp.”.
Houston’s final appearance with The Sweet Inspirations was in 1969, when the group shared the stage with Elvis Presley in a Las Vegas engagement. Her final recording session with the group resulted in their biggest R&B hit, “(Gotta Find) A Brand New Lover,” written by Gamble & Huff’s production team and featured on the group’s fifth album, “Sweet Sweet Soul.”
During that period, the ensemble would sometimes play live concerts with Franklin. After the group’s popularity and four albums together, Houston departed The Sweet Inspirations to pursue a solo career, where she thrived.
Houston rose to prominence as a session vocalist, recording over 600 songs across a variety of genres. Her vocals have appeared on songs by Chaka Khan, Donny Hathaway, Jimi Hendrix, Luther Vandross, Beyoncé, Paul Simon, Roberta Flack, and Whitney Houston.
Cissy Houston went on to record other albums, including “Presenting Cissy Houston,” “Think It Over” from the disco period, and the Grammy-winning gospel albums “Face to Face” and “He Leads Me.”
In 1971, Houston’s trademark vocals appeared on Burt Bacharach’s solo album, which included “Mexican Divorce,” “All Kinds of People,” and “One Less Bell to Answer.” She sang a variety of songs, including Barbra Streisand’s smash song “Evergreen.”
Houston never left her home New Jersey or musical roots; she ruled for decades over the 200-member Youth Inspirational Choir at Newark’s New Hope Baptist Church, where Whitney Houston sang as a youngster.
Cissy Houston claimed to have discouraged her daughter from pursuing a career in show business, although they spent most of Whitney’s life together in music, from church to stage performances to television, movies, and the recording studio. Whitney’s success appeared certain, not just because of her apparent abilities but also because of her background: Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick were cousins, Leontyne Price was a cousin once removed, and Franklin was a close family friend.
Whitney Houston made her national television debut when she and Cissy Houston sang a medley of Franklin classics on “The Merv Griffin Show.” Cissy Houston sang backing on Whitney’s multi-platinum first album, and the two collaborated on “I Know Him So Well,” off the 1987 smash song “Whitney.”
They sang together frequently in concerts and starred in the 1996 film “The Preacher’s Wife.” Their most memorable moments were most likely from the video for one of Whitney’s biggest singles from the mid-1980s, “Greatest Love of All.” It was shot as a mother-daughter tribute, with Whitney departing the stage of Harlem’s Apollo Theater and hugging Cissy Houston, who waited in the wings.
Whitney’s voice and reputation were harmed by drug troubles, which ultimately led to her death on February 11, 2012, in a Beverly Hills bathtub. Cissy Houston blamed Whitney’s “deep” drug use on husband Bobby Brown, according to her 2013 biography “Remembering Whitney.” Brown admitted to having drug issues but dismissed his in-laws during a 2016 interview with Larry King.
Cissy and Whitney Houston had a tumultuous relationship at times, with Whitney calling her mother “Big Cuda,” as in barracuda. In her biography, Cissy characterized her daughter as “mean” and “difficult” at times, but “almost always,” she was “the sweetest, most loving person in the room.”
Cissy Houston was suffering again in 2015, when her granddaughter Bobbi Kristina Brown, Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston’s only child, was discovered unresponsive in a bathtub, spent months in a coma, and died at the age of 22.
Cissy Houston briefly married Freddie Garland in the 1950s; their son, Gary Garland, played guard for the Denver Nuggets and subsequently performed on several of Whitney Houston’s tours. Cissy Houston was married to Whitney’s father, entertainment executive John Russell Houston, from 1959 to 1990. In addition to Whitney, the Houstons had a son named Michael.
She subsequently stated that she would have been content to continue in gospel, but John Houston persuaded her to pursue studio work. When rockabilly legend Ronnie Hawkins (along with drummer Levon Helm and other future members of The Band) required an extra vocal, Cissy Houston stepped in.
“I wanted to have my task done soon. I was present, but I did not have to participate. “I was in the world, but I wasn’t of the world, as St. Paul put it,” Houston wrote in “How Sweet the Sound,” recalling how she quickly began working with the Drifters and other musicians.
“At least in the music studio, we were living together in the way God intended. She added, “Some days, we spent 12 or 15 hours together there.” “The skin-deep barriers of race seemed to fall away as we toiled side by side, creating our little pop masterpieces.”
Pat Houston expressed gratitude for the many excellent lessons she gained from her mother-in-law. She stated that the family is “blessed and grateful” that God enabled Cissy to spend so many years.
“We are touched by your generous support and outpouring of love during our deepest time of grief,” Houston said on behalf of the family. “We respectfully request our privacy during this difficult time.”
