Cissy Houston, an iconic gospel singer and mother of the late Whitney Houston has died. She died at her home in New Jersey on Monday, October 7 at the age of 91 while in hospice care for Alzheimer’s disease.
Houston was also an aunt of singers Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick and a cousin of opera singer Leontyne Price.
Houston’s daughter-in-law Pat Houston confirmed her passing saying, “Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness. We lost the matriarch of our family,” Pat said in a statement, “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, whose birth name was Emily Drinkard, was the last of eight children born to Delia Mae Drinkard and Nitcholas “Nitch” Drinkard.
Houston’s singing career began in 1938 when she joined her sister Anne and brothers Larry and Nicky in the gospel singing group the Drinkard Four. Lee, who would later become the mother of singers Marie Dionne Warwick and Delia Juanita (Dee Dee) Warwick, later joined the group along with Anne Drinkard Moss and Marie Drinkard Epps, and the group was renamed The Drinkard Singers.
It was while performing with the Drinkard Singers that Cissy Houston made her television debut on TV Gospel Time. Houston and the Drinkard Singers later recorded a live album for RCA called “A Joyful Noise,” becoming one of the first gospel acts to release a gospel album on a major label.
It was 1963, when Cissy Houston formed a group called the Sweet Inspirations with her niece Dee Dee Warwick. Within a few years, the band was providing back-up vocals for artists like Otis Redding, Dusty Springfield and Wilson Pickett. They later worked with The Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1967 and Elvis Presley in 1969. She released her solo debut LP “Presenting Cissy Houston” in 1970 which included hits such as “Be My Baby” and “I’ll Be There.” In 1972, she sang back-up on Bette Midler’s debut album. Houston won two Grammy awards in her lifetime, in 1996 for best traditional soul gospel album for “Face to Face” and in 1998 for album “He Leadeth Me.”
Despite her own iconic career, Cissy Houston was most famously known for being the mother of Whitney Houston.
In 2013, Houston wrote a revealing memoir titled, “Remembering Whitney,” where she wrote candidly about Whitney’s severe drug problems that led to her death by drowning in a hotel bathtub with traces of cocaine still in her system in February 2012.
“She started partying and she didn’t really know how to stop,” she wrote. “I used to wonder what she was doing at night, where she was.” But when she tried to contact her, Whitney often didn’t return her call.
“Whitney hid from me,” Houston said. And when she did see her, she was often afraid to confront her daughter. She also admitted she was still tormented by her daughter’s sudden death. “I’m angry she died alone, in those conditions,” she says. “I’m still mad about that.”
Beyond that fateful night, Cissy recalls a lifetime’s worth of details about her famous daughter’s life in “Remembering Whitney,” from the day Whitney was delivered and immediately went missing. “It turned out the hospital staff were taking her around to show her off. … It was as if she belonged to the public the very second, she was born.”
The night before Cissy Houston passed, the American Music Awards celebrated their 50th Anniversary in a TV special that included several clips of Whitney Houston winning over the years and thanking her parents John and Cissy Houston who were most often in the audience and looking very happy.
Despite the many trials of a long and well lived life, Cissy Houston will be remembered for the many accomplishments of her remarkable family.
