39 Facts About Cissy Houston

Emily Drinkard, known professionally as Cissy Houston, was an American soul and gospel singer.

Cissy Houston eventually founded the girl group The Sweet Inspirations with Shemwell, Smith and Brown in 1967 and that year signed a contract with Atlantic Records where, with Houston as lead singer, they would record four albums before Houston departed for a solo career in 1970.

Cissy Houston was a first cousin of opera singer Leontyne Price.

Five years later, in 1995, Cissy Houston earned the Rhythm and Blues Foundation Pioneer Award for her contributions to rhythm and blues and soul music.

Cissy Houston was the granddaughter of a black landowner in Blakely, Georgia, who later shared the land he owned with Cissy Houston's father Nitch during a time when it was unusual for black people to have large landholdings.

Cissy Houston has claimed to be part Dutch and part Native American descent due to her grandparents Susan Bell and John Drinkard Jr.

Cissy Houston's parents emphasized the children getting educated and being involved in the church.

Three years later, in 1941, Cissy Houston lost her mother to cerebral hemorrhage.

Cissy Houston claimed that she "found Christ" after listening to a sermon at the age of fourteen.

Cissy Houston's father died of stomach cancer in March 1952 when Cissy Houston was 18.

Cissy Houston attended South Side High School where she eventually graduated in 1952.

Cissy Houston first began singing in the sibling jubilee quartet, the Drinkard Four, at the age of five.

Cissy Houston contended in her 2013 book, Remembering Whitney: A Mother's Story of Love, Loss and the Night the Music Died, that the group didn't sing professionally until radio announcer Joe Bostic hired them to open for Clara Ward and Mahalia Jackson at the first ever gospel showcase, named the "Negro Gospel and Religious Music Festival" at Carnegie Hall in October 1951.

In two October dates in 1954 and 1957, the group, which now included Cissy Houston's adopted niece Judy, joined Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Mahalia Jackson as one of several gospel acts to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival, leading to appearances on two live albums recorded at the festival in those years.

In 1969, Houston signed a recording contract with Commonwealth United Records and recorded her solo debut LP Presenting Cissy Houston which was released in 1970.

Cissy Houston continued to record with Janus Records until 1975.

Cissy Houston performed as backing vocalist on jazz flautist Herbie Mann's funky disco single "Hijack", album Discotheque, and album Surprise.

That same year, Cissy Houston represented the United States at the World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo, Japan with the song, "You're the Fire", landing second place during its Grand Prix contest and winning the "Most Outstanding Performance Award".

When Whitney Cissy Houston began attracting attention from record label scouts offering contracts, Cissy Houston would decline such offers, telling them to wait until Whitney finished high school.

Shortly after Whitney signed with Arista, Cissy was featured on TV with her daughter following Whitney's national television debut on The Merv Griffin Show, where mother and daughter performed a medley of Aretha Franklin duets with Whitney singing "Aretha" and Houston singing "Cissy".

That same year, Cissy Houston took part in the Off-Broadway musical Taking My Turn, which received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Musical, often singing the song "I Am Not Old".

Cissy Houston performed the gospel hymn, "Mary Don't You Weep" at the first annual Soul Train Music Awards and, with Whitney and son Gary, the gospel song, "Wonderful Counselor" at the 15th annual American Music Awards in 1988.

In 1996, after signing with the independent House of Blues label, Cissy Houston released the gospel album, Face to Face, which featured a gospel rendition of Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is ".

In between these recordings, she contributed vocals on "The Lord is My Shepherd" on daughter Whitney's soundtrack to The Preacher's Wife, which her daughter produced; Cissy Houston played a minor role in the film as choir singer Mrs Havergal, in the film.

In June 2012, Cissy Houston sang "Bridge over Troubled Water" as a tribute to her daughter Whitney, who had passed away that February.

Two years later, Cissy Houston was seen backing up longtime friend Aretha Franklin while Franklin performed her hit, "Rolling in the Deep" on The Late Show with David Letterman.

Cissy Houston was one of the backup singers on the Paul Simon song "Mother and Child Reunion".

Cissy Houston sang back-up on Bette Midler's 1972 debut hit album, The Divine Miss M, as well as Aretha Franklin's 1972 album, Young, Gifted and Black, the latter with the Sweet Inspirations.

Two years later, Cissy Houston contributed background vocals on Linda Ronstadt's Heart Like a Wheel.

Two years later, with daughter Whitney, Cissy Houston sang on Khan's sophomore effort, Naughty.

In 1986, Cissy Houston joined Vandross, Chaka Khan and David Bowie on the song "Underground", which was Bowie's theme song from his film, Labyrinth.

Cissy Houston was one of several famed notable women that appeared in the music video of her daughter's rendition of "I'm Every Woman", which later won Whitney an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Music Video in 1994.

Church, she and the rest of her family joined the New Hope Baptist Church, where shortly after being baptized, Cissy Houston, 19, began serving as the Minister of Music there, a position she would hold for more than half a century.

Cissy Houston was a driving force behind McDonald's Gospelfest, at which she regularly performed.

Cissy and John Houston married in 1964 and divorced in 1991.

On February 11,2012, Whitney Cissy Houston died at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.

Cissy Houston died at her home in Newark on October 7,2024, at the age of 91.

Cissy Houston had been in hospice care for Alzheimer's disease.

Cissy Houston was survived by her two sons as well as six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.