Grammy winner Cissy Houston, Whitney Houston's mother, dies at 91

LOS ANGELES - Cissy Houston, the mother of the late Whitney Houston and a two-time Grammy winner, died at the age of 91. 

According to her daughter-in-law Pat Houston, Houston died Monday morning in her New Jersey home while under hospice care for Alzheimer's disease, her daughter-in-law Pat Houston told The Associated Press. 

"Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness. We loss the matriarch of our family," Pat Houston said in a statement. She said her mother-in-law's contributions to popular music and culture are "unparalleled."

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"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."

Houston was part of the the well-known vocal group, the Sweet Inspirations, with Doris Troy and her niece Dee Dee Warrick. The group sang backup for a variety of soul singers including Otis Redding, Lou Rawls, The Drifters and Dionne Warwick.

Houston's last performance with the Sweet Inspirations came after the group hit the stage with Presley in a Las Vegas show in 1969. During that time, the group occasionally performed live concert dates with Franklin. After the group's success and four albums together, Houston left The Sweet Inspirations to pursue a solo career where she flourished.

Houston became an in-demand session singer and recorded more than 600 songs in multiple genres throughout her career. Her vocals can heard on tracks alongside a wide range of artists including Chaka Khan, Donny Hathaway, Jimi Hendrix, Luther Vandross, Beyoncé, Paul Simon, Roberta Flack and her daughter.

In 1971, Houston's signature vocals were featured on Burt Bacharach’s solo album, which includes "Mexican Divorce," "All Kinds of People" and "One Less Bell to Answer." She performed various standards including Barbra Streisand’s hit song, "Evergreen."

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Houston won Grammys for her albums "Face to Face" in 1997 and "He Leadeth Me" the following year in the best traditional soul gospel album category.

Houston authored three books: "He Leadeth Me," "How Sweet The Sound: My Life with God and Gospel" and "Remembering Whitney: A Mother’s Story of Life, Loss and The Night The Music Stopped."

In 1938, Cissy Houston started her career when she joined her sister Anne and brothers Larry and Nicky to form the gospel group, The Drinkard Four, who recorded one album. She attended New Hope Baptist Church, where she later become Minister of Sacred Music.

Houston was the youngest of eight children.

"We are touched by your generous support, and your outpouring of love during our profound time of grief," Houston said on behalf of the family. "We respectfully request our privacy during this difficult time."

Cissy and Whitney Houston

Never far from her native New Jersey or musical origins, Houston presided for decades over the 200-member Youth Inspirational Choir at Newark’s New Hope Baptist Church, where Whitney Houston sang as a child.

Cissy Houston would say that she had discouraged her daughter from show business, but they were joined in music for much of Whitney’s life, from church to stage performances to television and film and the recording studio. Whitney’s 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.

Whitney Houston made her debut on national television when she and Cissy Houston sang a medley of Franklin hits on "The Merv Griffin Show." Cissy Houston sang backup on Whitney’s eponymous, multi-platinum first album, and the two shared the lead on "I Know Him So Well," from the 1987 mega-seller "Whitney."

They would sing together often in concert and appeared in the 1996 film "The Preacher’s Wife." Their most indelible moments likely came from the video for one of Whitney’s biggest hits from the mid-1980s, "Greatest Love of All." It was filmed as a mother-daughter homage, ending with a joyous Whitney exiting the stage of Harlem’s Apollo Theater and embracing Cissy Houston, who stood in the wings.

On Feb. 11, 2012, Whitney Houston was found dead — from what was ruled as an accidental drowning — in a Beverly Hills bathtub. Cissy Houston would write about her daughter in the memoir "Remembering Whitney: A Mother’s Story of Life, Loss and The Night The Music Stopped."

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. The family was back in the news in 2018 with the release of the documentary "Whitney." which included allegations that Dee Dee Warwick (who died in 2008) had molested Whitney when she was a girl.

Cissy Houston and family

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’s tours. Cissy Houston was married to Whitney’s father, entertainment executive John Russell Houston, from 1959-1990. In addition to Whitney, the Houstons also had a son, Michael.

Cissy Houston was born Emily Drinkard in Newark, the youngest of eight children of a factory worker and a housewife. 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 "A Joyful Noise."

She later said she would have been happy to remain in gospel, but John Houston encouraged her to take on studio work. 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.