Cissy Houston, Jimi Hendrix and Elvis Presley Backup Singer, Dies

Cissy Houston, mom of singer Whitney and a backup singer with Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix and others, has died. She was 91.

According to the Associated Press, Houston died Monday in her New Jersey dwelling underneath hospice look after Alzheimer’s illness. She was surrounded by her household.

Houston was born Emily Drinkard on Sept. 30, 1933, in Newark. In 1963, the identical yr she gave beginning to daughter Whitney, Houston shaped the Sweet Inspirations, an R&B vocal group that spent greater than a half-dozen years as a studio group acting on dozens of basic data.

READ MORE: 25 Great Elvis Presley Songs From the ’70s

The Sweet Inspirations turned busy performers within the mid-’60s, working as backing singers on songs by Presley, Aretha Franklin and many others earlier than Houston – who was additionally an aunt to Dionne Warwick and cousin to Grammy-winning opera singer Leontyne Price – went solo in 1970.

Houston’s singing profession began in 1938 when she joined her siblings within the gospel group the Drinkard Four, nevertheless it was 1 / 4 century later when she began hitting the charts because the lead singer within the Sweet Inspirations.

What Songs Did Cissy Houston Sing On?

Their voices appeared on recordings by Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, the Drifters, Dusty Springfield and Warwick throughout this era. In addition to showing on Van Morrison’s breakthrough solo single “Brown Eyed Girl,” Houston and the Sweet Inspirations had a giant function in Franklin’s hit “Ain’t No Way.” They additionally sang background vocals for the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” in 1967.

Two years later, the Sweet Inspirations have been tapped as Presley’s backing group when he returned to reside performances in Las Vegas. The quartet backed a lot of Presley’s comeback performances by 1970. Houston then stepped away from the group to concentrate on her household and a solo profession after a profitable run with Presley.

Houston had one chart hit throughout her solo profession, a canopy of the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” that reached No. 92. She continued to function a backing singer, showing on Paul Simon’s “Mother and Child Reunion,” Linda Ronstadt’s Heart Like a Wheel, David Bowie’s Young Americans and different recordings.

By the mid-’90s she was performing gospel songs and had collected a Grammy Award for one in every of her spiritual albums and had penned books concerning religion.

“Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness,” daughter-in-law Pat Houston mentioned in an announcement. “We lost the matriarch of our family. 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.”