Emily ‘Cissy’ Houston, iconic soul singer and the mother of late music icon Whitney Houston, has passed away aged 91.
Houston died Monday at her home in New Jersey while receiving hospice care for Alzheimer’s disease, her family said.
A Grammy Award-winning singer known for collaborations with megastars including Elvis Presley, her death comes 12 years after Whitney drowned in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub aged just 48.
Cissy Houston, left, has died aged 91. She’s pictured with daughter Whitney in 2010, two years before Whitney drowned in a bathtub aged just 48
Cissy was a Grammy Award-winning singer known for collaborations with megastars including Elvis Presley
Cissy’s daughter-in-law Pat Houston told the Associated Press that the songstress died surrounded by her family.
‘Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness. We loss the matriarch of our family,’ she said in a statement announcing the 91-year-old’s death.
‘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.’
Seen as the matriarch of the Houston singing dynasty, Cissy struggled to come to terms with her daughter Whitney’s death – which was followed three years later by her granddaughter Bobbi Kristina in an eerily similar passing when she was also found dead in her bathtub.
Following Cissy’s passing, her family said in their statement that she may now ‘rest in peace alongside her daughter, Whitney and granddaughter Bobbi Kristina and other cherished family members.’
Before her daughter shot to stardom, Cissy was best known for her work with the backup group Sweet Inspirations, and her powerful vocals can be heard supporting soul legends including Otis Redding and Lou Rawls.
After going solo, she won her first Grammy in 1997 for her album ‘Face to Face’, before winning her second for best traditional soul gospel album the following year with ‘He Leadeth Me.’
Cissy (pictured 1997) was known for her work with the vocal group Sweet Inspirations, which sung backup tracks for soul legends including Otis Redding and Lou Rawls
Over her decades-long career Cissy Houston collaborated with a host of megastars, including Elvis Presley (pictured performing together in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1969)
Houston (bottom right, with bandmates L-R Myrna Smith, Sylvia Shemwell, Estelle Brown) seen with her vocal group Sweet Inspirations in 1967
Houston’s last performance with Sweet Inspirations came in 1969, when her vocal band collaborated with Elvis Presley in Las Vegas.
Following further success as a group, including performing with Aretha Franklin, Houston left the band to go solo after a total of four albums together.
Springboarding off the back of her group success, Houston became an in-demand session singer and went on to record more than 600 songs across multiple genres.
Across the next decades of her career, Houston’s worked with some of the biggest names in the music industry, including Jimi Hendrix, Beyonce, Luther Vandross – and later, her own daughter.
Speaking in 1998 of finding her most lucrative success in her twilight years, she told Jet Magazine: ‘A lot of the things I’ve done have come late in life, and it’s like a whole new career starting up. I don’t have regrets about the way I planned and lived my life, and I am very proud of what I’ve become.’
Houston also 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.’
Houston pictured performing in 1969 with Sweet Inspirations alongside iconic soul singer Aretha Franklin at Madison Square Garden in New York City
Cissy’s start in music came at a young age, when she joined a church choir as a child in New Jersey.
She continued to be involved in her local church, the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, for more than half a century as her stock in the music world grew.
With her vocals now immortalized in hits including Van Morrison’s ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’ and Aretha Franklin’s ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman’, experts quickly paid tribute to Houston as news of her death was announced Monday.
‘(She was) a significant figure not because she sold a lot of records, but because of the people she influenced who did sell a lot and because of her work as a sustainer and nurturer of the gospel music tradition,’ said Robert Darden, a professor of journalism at Baylor University and the author of several books on gospel music, to the New York Times.
‘Whitney Houston was trained by the best,’ he continued.
‘And though she had a once-in-a-lifetime voice, without the training and influence and experience of someone like Cissy, who knew everybody and who could sing in any style, she would not have achieved what she did.’