Cissy Houston, Mother of Whitney & Grammy-Winning Gospel Star, Dies at 91

Cissy Houston, a Grammy-winning singer and the mother of deceased superstar Whitney Houston, has died at 91, the Estate of Whitney E. Houston reports. The singer died at her home in New Jersey on Monday, after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Born Emily Drinkard in Newark, New Jersey in 1933, Houston began singing at age five with her siblings in a band called the Drinkard Four (alongside her older sister Lee, who would later give birth to singer Dionne Warwick). Later renamed the Drinkard Singers, they released an album on RCA in 1958, making them one of the first gospel acts to have a major label recording deal.

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In 1963, shortly before she gave birth to daughter Whitney, Cissy formed R&B group the Sweet Inspirations, who sang backup for everyone from Otis Redding to Aretha Franklin. They also provided backing vocals on pop and rock tracks, including Van Morrison‘s “Brown Eyed Girl” and the Jimi Hendrix Experience‘s “Burning of the Midnight Lamp.” In 1969, they sang live backup for Elvis at his Las Vegas comeback performances.

In that same year, Houston released her debut solo album, Presenting Cissy Houston. She continued to record albums and singles throughout the ’70s, including the original version of “Midnight Train to Georgia,” later made famous by Gladys Knight & the Pips. In 1979, she had a disco song, “Think It Over,” hit number 32 on the R&B charts.

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Cissy worked as an in-demand session musician throughout the ’70s and ’80s, for artists like Paul Simon, Bette Midler, Linda Ronstadt, and Burt Bacharach. In this time period, she also began to collaborate with Whitney, who started out by singing backing vocals at Cissy’s live shows. As Whitney’s star grew, Cissy began to her appear on her tracks; they performed in a duet in a 1987 cover of “I Know Him So Well,” from the Broadway musical Chess. In 2006, Cissy, Whitney, and Dionne Warwick collaborated on the song “Family First.”

Cissy also continued releasing solo gospel albums, and in 1996, won the Grammy for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album for Face to Face. She won a second Grammy in 1998, for her album He Leadeth Me.

After Whitney’s 2012 death, Cissy published Remembering Whitney: My Story of Love, Loss, and the Night the Music Stopped.