Singer and mother of the artist Whitney Houston , Cissy Houston He died this Monday (7), aged 91. The information was obtained by Gwendolyn Quinn, representative of The Estate of Whitney E. Houston.
According to a statement, the singer was surrounded by family at the time of her death. She was undergoing treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
“Our hearts are full of pain and sadness. We lost the matriarch of our family,” said her daughter-in-law Pat Houston. “Mother Cissy has been a strong and imposing figure in our lives. A woman of deep faith and conviction, who cared deeply about her family, ministry and community. His more than seven-decade career in music and entertainment will remain at the forefront of our hearts.”
“His contributions to popular music and culture are unparalleled,” added Pat.
Who was Cissy Houston
Born Emily Drinkard, Cissy Houston was the youngest of eight children born to the late Nitcholas and Delia Mae Drinkard, according to a biography provided by the family. Houston was educated in the public school system of Newark, United States, and attended New Hope Baptist Church, where she later became Minister of Sacred Music.
In 1938, when she was five years old, Houston began her singing career when she joined her sister Anne and brothers Larry and Nicky in the gospel group The Drinkard Four.
Later, his sisters Lee and Marie joined the group, which was renamed The Drinkard Singers. Anne Drinkard left the group and was replaced by Lee’s adopted daughter, Judy Clay.
Throughout the group’s life, members included future stars Dee Dee Warwick and Dionne Warwick, Houston’s nieces.
They performed at Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island in 1957 and recorded their first live gospel album, “A Joyful Noise,” at Webster Hall in New York. It was released in 1959 by RCA Records, marking one of the first times that a gospel group released an album on a major label.
In 1963, with the remaining members of The Drinkard Sisters, Cissy Houston formed the original lineup of The Sweet Inspirations, which provided backing vocals for numerous artists throughout the 1960s, including Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Esther Phillips, Lou Rawls, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, The Drifters and Wilson Pickett.
She released her first solo LP, “Presenting Cissy Houston” in 1969.
A two-time Grammy Award-winning recording artist, Houston has enjoyed a successful career as a solo and performing artist, recording ten solo albums, four compilation albums, and five collaborative recordings.
As a top-tier backing vocalist, she has recorded and performed with a wide variety of artists across multiple genres, including Franklin, Bette Midler, Beyoncé, Burt Bacharach, Carly Simon, Chaka Khan, David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix and his late daughter Whitney Houston among many others.
Whitney Houston died in 2012 at age 48.
Cissy Houston wrote a memoir in 2013 called “Remember Whitney: My Story of Love, Loss, and the Night the Music Stopped.” During an appearance on “The View” that same year, Houston said she wrote the book “to let everyone know that she was nothing like they thought she was.”
She went on to say that her daughter “was a wonderful, generous and loving child.”
Cissy Houston was also mother to sons Gary and Michael and grandmother to several grandchildren, according to her biography. Her granddaughter Bobbie Kristina Brown died three years after her mother, Whitney, at age 22.
“We are blessed and grateful that God allowed her to spend so many years with us and we are grateful for all of the many valuable life lessons she taught us,” added Pat Houston’s statement about Cissy Houston. “May she rest in peace, alongside her daughter, Whitney, and granddaughter, Bobbi Kristina, and other beloved family members.”
This content was originally published in Whitney Houston’s mother dies at 91 on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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