Whitney Houston’s mother dies after a serious illness

sissy houston, Whitney Houston’s mom, He died aged 91 on the morning of Monday 7 October. The soul and gospel artist’s death was confirmed by her daughter-in-law Pat Houston to the Associated Press.

According to the family of the two-time Grammy winner, who sang with Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley and other stars, Sissy died at her home in New Jersey. while She received palliative care for Alzheimer’s. The acclaimed gospel singer was accompanied by her family.

“Our hearts are full of pain and sorrow. We are losing the matriarch of our family,” Pat Houston said in a statement. He noted that his mother-in-law’s contribution to music and popular culture is “incomparable”.

“Mother Sissy has been a strong and imposing figure in our lives. A woman of deep faith and conviction, who cared deeply about family, ministry and community. “His more than seven-decade career in music and entertainment will always remain in our hearts.”

Who was Sissy Houston?

A church performer from a young age, Houston was part of a family gospel group before breaking into popular music in the 1960s as a member of the prominent backing group The Sweet Inspirations with Doris Troy and her niece Dee Dee Warwick. The group sang for various soul artists including Otis Redding, Lou Rawls and The Drifters. They also sang as backup singers for Dionne Warwick.

Houston’s countless songs include Franklin’s “Think” and “You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man.” The Sweet Inspirations also sang on stage with Presley, whom Houston fondly remembered for singing gospel during rehearsals and telling her she was “like a squirrel.”

“At the end of our engagement to him, he gave me a bracelet with my name written on the outside,” she wrote in her memoir, “How Sweet the Sound,” published in 1998. “On the inside of the bracelet he had written his nickname for me : Squirrel’.

Sweet Inspiration had their own top 20 single with the soul-rock “Sweet Inspiration,” made in the Memphis studio where Franklin and Springfield, among others, recorded hits and released four albums in the late ’60s “Brown Eyed Girl” and sang backing vocals for The Jimi Hendrix Experience on the song “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” in 1967.

Houston’s final performance with The Sweet Inspirations came after the group shared the stage with Presley at a Las Vegas show in 1969. Her final recording with the group became her biggest R&B hit.” (Gotta Find ) A Brand New Lover’, a composition by production team Gamble & Huff, which appeared on the group’s fifth album, ‘Sweet Sweet Soul’.

During this time, the band occasionally performed live concerts with Franklin. After the group’s success and four albums together, Houston left The Sweet Inspirations to pursue a solo career in which she flourished.

Houston became an in-demand singer and recorded over 600 songs in many genres throughout her career. Her voice can be heard on tracks alongside a wide range of artists including Chaka Khan, Donny Hathaway, Jimi Hendrix, Luther Vandross, Beyoncé, Paul Simon, Roberta Flack and Whitney Houston.

Cissy Houston has completed several albums, including “Presenting Cissy Houston,” the disco-era “Think It Over,” and the Grammy-winning gospel albums “Face to Face” and “He Leadeth Me.”

In 1971, Houston’s signature voice appeared on Burt Bacharach’s solo album, which included “Mexican Divorce,” “All Kinds of People,” and “One Less Bell to Answer.” He performed many standards, including Barbra Streisand’s hit song, “Evergreen.”

Never far from his native New Jersey or his musical roots, Houston presided over decades of the 200-member Youth Inspirational Choir at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where Whitney Houston sang when she was a child.

Sissy Houston would say she discouraged her daughter from entering show business, but they were united in music for much of Whitney’s life, from church to stage shows, television, film and the recording studio. Whitney’s rise seemed inevitable, not only because of her obvious talents, but also because of her background: Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick were her cousins, Leontyne Price another cousin, Franklin a close family friend.

Whitney Houston made her national television debut when she and Cissy Houston sang a medley of Franklin hits on “The Merv Griffin Show.” Cissy Houston sang backing vocals on Whitney’s self-titled debut album, and the two shared the spotlight on “I Know Him So Well,” from the best-selling 1987 album “Whitney.”

They often sang together in concert and appeared in the 1996 film “The Preacher’s Wife”. Her most indelible moments probably came from the video for one of Whitney’s biggest mid-1980s hits, “Greatest Love of All.” It was filmed as a mother-daughter tribute, ending with a jubilant Whitney walking off the stage of Harlem’s Apollo Theater and hugging Sissy Houston, who was backstage.

Sissy faced the death of her daughter and granddaughter

On February 11, 2012, Whitney Houston was found dead about 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 a mother.”

In 2015, Sissy Houston was once again plunged into mourning when The granddaughter of Bobbi Kristina Brown, the only child of Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston, was found unconscious in a bathtub, He spent months in a coma and died at the age of 22. The family made headlines again in 2018 with the release of the documentary “Whitney,” which included allegations that Dee Dee Warwick (who died in 2008) had sexually abused Whitney as a child.

Cissy Houston was briefly married to Freddie Garland in the 1950s. His son, Gary Garland, was a guard for the Denver Nuggets and later sang on many of Whitney Houston’s tours. Sissy Houston was married to Whitney’s father, entertainment executive John Russell Houston, from 1959 to 1990. In addition to Whitney, the Houstons also had a son, Michael.

Her real name was Emily Drinkard. Born in Newark, she was the youngest of eight children of a factory worker and a housewife. He was just 5 when he and three brothers formed the Drinkard Singers, a gospel group that lasted 30 years, playing 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 stay in gospel, but John Huston encouraged her to enter the studio. When rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins (along with drummer Levon Helm and other future members of The Band) needed an extra vocal, Cissy Houston stepped in.

“I wanted to do my job and do it quickly. I was there, but I wasn’t supposed to be a part of them. “I was in the world, but I wasn’t of the world, as St. Paul said,” Houston wrote on “How Sweet the Sound,” recalling how she soon began collaborating with the Drifters and other singers.

“At least in the recording studio we were living together as God wanted us to live. Some days, we spent 12 or 15 hours together there,” he wrote. “Superficial barriers of race seemed to melt away as we worked side by side, creating our little pop masterpieces.”

Pat Houston said she is grateful for the valuable lessons she learned from her mother-in-law. He noted that the family feels “blessed and grateful” that God allowed Sissy to live so many years.

“We are touched by your generous support and outpouring of love during our time of deep grief,” Houston said on behalf of the family. “We ask that you respect our privacy at this difficult time.”