The award-winning singer gospel e soul Cissy Houston, mother of the singer Whitney Houston (1963-2012), died this past Monday, in her home, aged 91, her daughter-in-law, Pat Houston, revealed in a news release. Instagram post.
“It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of my beloved queen Cissy Houston today [7 de Outubro]! Please keep the Houston family in your prayers.” In a statement sent to the newsrooms, quoted by Lusa, Pat Houston also emphasizes how “Mommy Cissy was a strong and wonderful figure in our lives”.
Cissy Houston had Alzheimer’s disease and was in palliative care. She died surrounded by “the people she loved the most”, her family said, expressing their “pain and grief” at this time.
With a career that lasted more than seven years, which began in 1938 as a member of the group gospel Drinkard Four, including also her sister Anne, Cissy Houston stood out as the voice of soul and the gospelhas won two Grammy awards in the Traditional Gospel Album category, for Face to Face (1996) e It leads to me (1997).
Before that, in 1963, he formed the group The Sweet Inspirations, with his niece Dee Dee Warwick and Doris Troy, who came to stand out in the choirs of Otis Redding, Lou Rawls, The Drifters and Dionne Warwick (Dee Dee and Dionne were both daughters by Sister Lee Drinkard Warrick). The group split in 1969, after performing with Elvis Presley in Las Vegas.
As a woman “of faith and determination, who cared deeply for her family, her community, and her community,” Cissy Houston dedicated herself to the group as her children grew. But, when the offspring was old enough, he began to focus on his solo career. In 1970, he released the album Introducing Cissy Houston.
In addition to several works under his own name, his voice can be heard on albums by Chaka Khan, Diana Ross, David Bowie, Jimmy Hendrix, Paul Simon, Roberta Flack, Beyoncé, Donny Hathaway, Wilson Pickett, among many others. “His career in music and entertainment will live on in our hearts. His contribution to music and popular culture cannot be compared”, the family emphasized in the statement announcing his death.
Born in 1933 in Newark, New Jersey, as Emily Drinkard, Cissy was the youngest of eight siblings, all of whom were encouraged to study and participate in church, where they were encouraged to sing. After the death of her parents (her mother when she was 5 years old; her father, after reaching the age of 18), Cissy went to live with her sister Lee and her husband, Mancel Warrick, who d ‘open the door to musical adventures.
In 1955, she married Freddie Garland, with whom she had her first son, Gary Garland, who also went into music after a stint in the NBA. But the relationship did not last long and, two years later, she met John Houston Jr., Michael’s father, composer and assistant, and Whitney Houston’s music star. The two would marry in 1964; the divorce would take place in 1991.
In addition to the separation, the 1990s led to some challenges for Cissy, who watched Whitney rise and fall, as her daughter’s drug use increased, especially after her marriage to Bobby Brown in 1992, which would as a result of later being marked by violence.
Cissy would eventually lose her daughter: Whitney Houston died in 2012, from “the effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use”. Three years later, Bobbi Kristina Brown, Whitney’s daughter and Cissy’s granddaughter, died, aged 22, under similar circumstances.