CISSY HOUSTON,
1933-2024

Gospel and R&B stalwart Cissy Houston, who employed her powerful, three-octave voice on hundreds of records without ever gaining stardom, eventually becoming better known as the mother of Whitney Houston, died 10/7 at her home in Newark. She was 91.

“Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness. We loss the matriarch of our family,” daughter Pat Houston said in a statement. “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.”

Born Emily Drinkard in 1933 in Newark, one of eight children, Houston began singing with her family group, The Drinkard Singers, at age five. The group, occasionally including substitutes Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick (Cissy's nieces), became popular fixtures on the East Coast gospel circuit, recording for RCA and Savoy. But for Houston, the weekend adulation wasn’t enough. “There was no money in gospel,” she explained to Joe McEwen in 1978. “I was working a full-time job as well, and I was worn out.”

So Houston changed lanes and quickly became a studio regular, eventually succeeding the two Warwicks as the informal leader of backup singers (“Cissy’s girls”) prominently featured on dozens of New York-recorded soul and pop hits.

In 1967, while working with Aretha Franklin, Houston’s group, named The Sweet Inspirations by Jerry Wexler, was given a chance to record on their own. Their second single, the churchly, hypnotic soul record “Sweet Inspiration,” became a pop smash, but the song wasn’t a sign of things to come. Somehow, despite the hit, Houston’s growing reputation and a marvelous first album on Atlantic (Sweet Inspirations), the promise of the group was never borne out, and many still considered the Sweets as merely Aretha’s backup unit. Houston left the group in 1970, and a year later released her first solo album, Cissy Houston, on Janus. There were no hit singles, and the album quickly disappeared.

Seven years later she returned with her first album since the Janus effort; it was released on Private Stock, the first of three LPs for the label. The following year she headlined a sold-out concert at New York’s Town Hall, appearing with her band and a 50-voice choir.

In 1989 the Cissy-Whitney duet “I Know Him So Well” became the sixth and final single from Whitney. Three years later Cissy teamed up with Chuck Jackson on the album I’ll Take Care of You.

In 1996 Houston received the Grammy for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album for Face to Face. The same year, she contributed a song to the gospel soundtrack for the film The Preacher’s Wife, which starred Whitney. In 1998, she won her second Grammy, for the gospel LP He Leadeth Me.

In 2006, Cissy teamed with Whitney and Dionne Warwick on “Family First” for the soundtrack to Daddy’s Little Girls. In 2012, after Whitney’s death, Cissy performed “Bridge Over Troubled Water” as a tribute at the BET Music Awards.