Emily Drinkard (September 30, 1933 – October 7, 2024), known professionally as Cissy Houston, was an American soul and gospel singer. Born in Newark, New Jersey, Houston began singing with three of her siblings in the family gospel group, The Drinkard Singers. By the early 1960s, Houston began a career as a session vocalist for several secular musicians in the rhythm and blues, soul, rock and roll, pop and rock genres. After initially joining her nieces' group the Gospelaires for a session with Ronnie Hawkins in 1961, Houston gradually took control of the group, which revamped into "The Group" with Houston, niece Sylvia Shemwell, Myrna Smith and teenager Estelle Brown. She 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. Her best known solo singles include the top 20 R&B chart single, "I'll Be There" and the top 5 dance single, "Think It Over". Her solo career culminated with two Grammy Award wins, both in the Traditional Gospel Album category.
Besides her session work and work with the Sweet Inspirations, Houston was also best known as the mother of renowned singer and actress Whitney Houston, the aunt of singers Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick, and the grandmother of Whitney Houston's only child, Bobbi Kristina Brown. She was also a first cousin of opera singer Leontyne Price. Houston was honored by several institutions over her career. In 1990, she received the Stellar Award of Excellence for her contributions to gospel. Five years later, in 1995, Houston earned the Rhythm and Blues Foundation Pioneer Award for her contributions to rhythm and blues and soul music. With the Sweet Inspirations, Houston was inducted into the National Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame in 2014 (same year as daughter Whitney) and, in 2019, was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame joining Whitney and niece Dionne.
Early life
Emily Drinkard was born on September 30, 1933 in Newark, New Jersey to Delia Mae "Dee Dee" (née McCaskill) and Nicholas "Nitch" Drinkard, the youngest of eight children.[1][2][3] Houston was the granddaughter of a black landowner in Blakely, Georgia, who later shared the land he owned with Houston's father Nitch during a time when it was unusual for black people to have large landholdings. The asset was gradually depleted as they sold small portions of land over time, to resolve the continued legal troubles of a close relative, which later led to the entire family relocating to Newark during the Great Migration a decade before Houston's birth.[4] Houston has claimed to be part Dutch and part Native American descent due to her grandparents Susan Bell (née Fuller) and John Drinkard Jr. respectively.[4]
Houston's parents emphasized the children getting educated and being involved in the church.[4] Around the time of Houston's fifth birthday, her mother Delia suffered a stroke. To help her recovery, along with raising the family's spirits, Houston's father encouraged Houston and her elder siblings Anne, Nicholas Jr. ("Nicky") and Larry to sing sacred hymns, to which afterwards, they formed The Drinkard Four, singing jubilees in various churches, including their own St. Luke's A.M.E. Church. Three years later, in 1941, Houston lost her mother to cerebral hemorrhage.[5] Houston claimed that she "found Christ" after listening to a sermon at the age of fourteen.[6] Houston's father died of stomach cancer in March 1952 when Houston was 18.[4][7] For a time, Houston went to live with her older sister Lee and her husband Mancel Warrick and helped to raise her four nieces Dionne, Dee Dee, Judy Guions and Sylvia Shemwell and nephew Mancel Jr.[8][9] Soprano Leontyne Price is a Drinkard cousin.[10][11]
Houston first began singing in the sibling jubilee quartet, the Drinkard Four, at the age of five. A little while later, they changed the name to the Drinkard Jubilairs and then, after the inclusions of sisters Lee and Marie ("Reebie"), the Drinkard Singers. 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. Not long after that, the group sang on Bostic's Gospel Train New York radio show, becoming regulars on the program.
In two October dates in 1954 and 1957, the group, which now included 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. Shortly after their second Newport performance, they landed a recording deal with RCA Victor Records where they recorded and released the album, A Joyful Noise, in 1958, which made history as one of the first gospel albums to be released on a major label.[14]
By the early 1960s, the group landed on the Sunday morning television gospel show, TV Gospel Time. By the end of 1962, however, the group had permanently separated due to Houston's growing career as a session vocalist for secular recording artists.
By the early 1960s, Houston's nieces Dionne and Dee Dee Warrick and Sylvia Shemwell and their close friend Doris Troy had found success under the group the Gospelaires, singing background for various artists including The Drifters. One night, around late 1961, when Dionne Warrick began working with producer Burt Bacharach, Houston's then-boyfriend, John Houston Jr., who managed the Gospelaires, convinced Houston to replace Dionne for a session for Canadian-American rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins. After John Houston showed her the money she had made from the session, Houston was convinced to begin a professional singing career as a session vocalist, the group soon found themselves singing for artists such as Solomon Burke, Ben E. King and The Drifters.
In 1962, Dionne Warrick permanently separated from the group for good to begin singing professionally, working exclusively with Bacharach and his songwriting partner Hal David on Scepter Records, leading to the Gospelaires now being Houston, Dee Dee Warwick, Doris Troy and Shemwell before Troy herself left at the end of 1962, leading to her being replaced by Myrna Smith. The group continued to back the newly rechristened Dionne Warwick and Troy on their solo hits, such as "Don't Make Me Over" and "Just One Look". Then, in 1963, Dee Dee Warrick left the group to began her own solo career. Her place was taken by 17-year-old Estelle Brown. The lineup of Houston, Shemwell, Smith and Brown was the nucleus to what became The Sweet Inspirations.
After singing background for the two Warwicks, Garnet Mimms, Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin among others for a number of years, the group was hired to back Irish soul singer Van Morrison on his composition, "Brown Eyed Girl", in 1967. After the song hit the top ten that year, Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records offered the group, then going by the nickname "The Group", a recording contract of their own and advised them to change their name to "The Inspirations". Only after learning that another group had that name, Wexler added "Sweet" in front of their name. Their first album, The Sweet Inspirations, charted, reaching number 90 on the Billboard 200 and number 12 on the BillboardBest-Selling R&B Albums chart, producing three Billboard Hot 100 singles, including their sole top twenty Hot 100 hit, "Sweet Inspiration", which later earned the group a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rhythm & Blues Performance by a Duo or Group. The group would record three more albums during Houston's tenure and would continue to back up Aretha Franklin, who began to have a successful recording career after signing with Atlantic the same year as the Sweet Inspirations. The group backed Franklin on hits such as "Think", "(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman", "(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You've Been Gone" and "Ain't No Way", the latter of which would feature Houston's descant in the background.[15] The group would also back Franklin during her concerts of this period and also occasionally appeared on TV with Franklin as they did on The Jonathan Winters Show.
In addition, the group backed psychedelic rocker Jimi Hendrix on his song, "Burning of the Midnight Lamp", which was later featured on Hendrix's final studio album during his lifetime, Electric Ladyland[16] and would also back up more artists such as Otis Redding, Lou Rawls and Dusty Springfield. In July 1969, the group was hired to back up Elvis Presley on the rocker's first live performances in almost a decade at the International Hotel. Presley often introduced them at the shows by saying, "They really live up to their name, ladies & gentlemen: The Sweet Inspirations!" [17] The original Sweet Inspirations with Houston could be heard on the Presley live albums, All Shook Up and Live in Las Vegas. By September 1969, Houston had grown tired of performing on the road as her three children were growing up. That month, she decided to quit the Sweet Inspirations and stop touring to stay at home while also settling on a solo career.[17] Houston would still mentor the remaining members at her home in East Orange, New Jersey and occasionally reunite with them during recording sessions, usually backing Franklin, who was by now a family friend and considered an honorary aunt to Houston's three children, all of whom affectionately nicknamed her "Aunt Ree".[18]
Solo career
As Cecily Blair, Houston cut her first secular solo record "This Is My Vow" on M'n'M Records in 1963 following this up in 1966 with "Bring Him Back" b/w "World Of Broken Hearts" on Congress Records. Her final solo single before recording with The Sweet Inspirations was "Don't Come Running To Me" b/w "One Broken Heart For Sale" released on Kapp Records in 1967.[19] On these early singles, her name is spelled as Sissie Houston.
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.[17] It contained several well received singles, including covers of "I'll Be There" and "Be My Baby", both of which made the R&B charts as well as the pop charts.[20] Following the release of her debut album, Houston's contract was sold to Janus Records.[20] She recorded another album and several more singles in the early 1970s, which included the original recording of Jim Weatherly's "Midnight Train to Georgia" in 1972, which was a minor R&B and UK hit for Houston and later became a number one hit for Gladys Knight & the Pips.[20][21] She continued to record with Janus Records until 1975.[22] Houston performed as backing vocalist on jazz flautist Herbie Mann's funkydisco single "Hijack" (1975), album Discotheque (1975), and album Surprise (1976).[23]
In 1977, Houston was signed by Private Stock Records, working with arranger/producer Michael Zager on three albums. The first, a self-titled effort produced two modest R&B hits, including a soulful, gospel-influenced rendition of "Tomorrow". The second included her big disco hit "Think It Over", which climbed to number 32 on the Billboard Hot Selling Soul Singles chart in 1979 and number 5 on the same magazine's Disco Action Top 80 chart. That same year, 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". The song later appeared on her 1980 disco-flavored album, Step Aside for a Lady, again produced by Zager, but released on Columbia Records after Private Stock had folded (the same album was released on EMI in the United Kingdom).
During the mid- to late 1970s through the mid-1980s, Houston began regularly performing all over Manhattan's jazz clubs, headlining at venues such as Sweetwaters, Fat Tuesday, Reno Sweeney, Seventh Avenue South and Mikell's. During this time, Houston brought along her teenage daughter Whitney and would have her sing solos to help her get started in the record business. When Whitney Houston began attracting attention from record label scouts offering contracts, Houston would decline such offers, telling them to wait until Whitney finished high school. It was Houston who eventually convinced her daughter to sign with Arista Records in the spring of 1983, figuring that Davis was the right man to guide her daughter's career. [24] 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, Houston took part in the Off-BroadwaymusicalTaking My Turn, which received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Musical, often singing the song "I Am Not Old".[25]
After her daughter found musical stardom in the mid-1980s, Houston's solo output slowed, though she contributed duet vocals to her and Whitney's rendition of "I Know Him So Well" on the latter's eponymous 1987 album. The song charted in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, becoming Houston's biggest international hit, reaching the top twenty in the latter two countries; Houston later sang the song with her daughter on Whitney's HBO concert special, Classic Whitney: Live from Washington, D.C. a decade later. In 1992, she recorded the duet album, I'll Take Care of You, with fellow soul singer and longtime friend Chuck Jackson, on Shanachie Records. It would be Houston's final secular album as she put her focus primarily on gospel music afterwards. Two years later, Houston joined Whitney onstage for her historic South African concert performances, where she directed a South African choir of young girls while Whitney sang the Earth, Wind & Fire song "Touch the World". Houston also 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. That same year, she joined her daughter onstage at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute at London's Wembley Stadium, where she performed the gospel-R&B song, "He/I Believe", a song that Whitney had incorporated during the early years of her solo career and which Houston first recorded for her debut album in 1970.
In 1996, after signing with the independent House of Blues label, Houston released the gospel album, Face to Face, which featured a gospel rendition of Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)". Houston would win her first Grammy Award at the 1997 Grammys showcase under the Best Traditional Gospel Album category. In 1997, she released a second album of gospel work, He Leadeth Me, for a one-off A&M Records deal, and won a second Grammy in the Best Traditional Gospel Album category for that album at the 1999 Grammys showcase. In between these recordings, she also contributed vocals on "The Lord is My Shepherd" on daughter Whitney's soundtrack to The Preacher's Wife, which her daughter produced; Houston played a minor role in the film as choir singer Mrs. Havergal, in the film. In 2006, she contributed vocals on the song "Family First" alongside her daughter Whitney, granddaughter Bobbi Kristina Brown and nieces Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick for the soundtrack to Daddy's Little Girls. In June 2012, Houston sang "Bridge over Troubled Water" as a tribute to her daughter Whitney, who had passed away that February. Two years later, 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.
Session musician
Houston in 1996
Houston's versatile cross-genre singing style kept her highly in demand as a session musician with some of the world's most successful recording artists. Houston, along with Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick, sang the background vocals on the original recording of Time Is On My Side by Kai Winding, released by Verve Records in October 1963. She was one of the backup singers on the Paul Simon song "Mother and Child Reunion" (1972). In 1971, Houston contributed lead vocals on several songs featured on Burt Bacharach's self-titled 1971 gold album including "One Less Bell to Answer", "All Kinds of People" and "Mexican Divorce". 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, Houston contributed background vocals on Linda Ronstadt's Heart Like a Wheel. During 1975-76, she worked with jazz flutist Herbie Mann on three Atlantic albums, Discothèque, Waterbed, and Surprises, featuring on three tracks, "Violet Don't Be Blue", JJ Cale's "Cajun Moon", and "Easter Rising". In 1978, she contributed background vocals on Chaka Khan's self-titled solo debut, including Khan's breakthrough hit, "I'm Every Woman". Two years later, with daughter Whitney, Houston also sang on Khan's sophomore effort, Naughty. Starting in 1981, Houston would sing background on many of Luther Vandross' recordings that would last throughout Vandross' lifetime. In 1986, Houston joined Vandross, Chaka Khan and David Bowie on the song "Underground", which was Bowie's theme song from his film, Labyrinth. Houston would also occasionally back her daughter Whitney, singing background on the number one hit, "How Will I Know", as well as the track, "Who Do You Love", from Whitney's acclaimed third album, I'm Your Baby Tonight. 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. Houston would continue her session work through the early half of the 21st century.
New Hope Baptist Church Youth Inspirational Choir
In 1953, after leaving her former church at St. Luke's A.M.E. Church, she and the rest of her family joined the New Hope Baptist Church, where shortly after being baptized, Houston, 19, began serving as the Minister of Music there, a position she would hold for more than half a century.[26] She was also a driving force behind McDonald's Gospelfest, at which she regularly performed.
Personal life and death
According to Houston, during her career with the Drinkard Singers, she enjoyed a brief courtship with Soul Stirrers front man Sam Cooke in the early 1950s.
Houston married twice. In 1955, Houston married construction worker Freddie Garland, with whom she gave birth to her first child, Gary Garland (b. 1957), an NBA basketball player and DePaul University Athletic Hall of Famer.[27][26][28] Prior to Gary's birth, Houston divorced Freddie.
In the spring of 1958, Houston met John Russell Houston Jr. and engaged in a romantic affair that led to the births of son Michael (b. 1961), a songwriter and road manager, and daughter Whitney (1963–2012), who went on to be a world-renowned singer, actress, and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer.[29][30][31]
During the early years of the relationship, John was still married to his first wife, Elsie Hamilton, up until April 1964. Following that divorce, Houston and John officially married in May of that year.[26][32]
John Houston Jr. was a former Army veteran who served his country during World War II and was working as a taxi and truck driver when he met Cissy. He first entered the entertainment business managing his nieces-in-law's vocal group, the Gospelaires, in 1959.
After his wife formed The Sweet Inspirations, he served as their manager until Cissy left the group in 1969 to start her solo career, which he also managed. He also worked as an administrator at Newark's City Hall, under the city's first black mayor Kenneth A. Gibson.
After an initially happy marriage, following John's near fatal heart attack in September 1976, the Houstons' marriage turned volatile. Despite attempts at marriage counseling, by January 1981, following a tense argument reportedly witnessed by their then 17-year-old daughter Whitney, John filed for legal separation, though they decided to stay married just as Whitney's career was taking shape with John later taking on the role as Whitney's manager and head of her Nippy Inc. production company. [33]
After attempts of reconciliation, John filed for divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences in February 1991. Three months later, on the 27th anniversary of their wedding, the divorce was finalized.
In the late 1990s, when her daughter Whitney began to struggle with drug addiction, Cissy staged several interventions to get her into rehabilitation programs. On one occasion she obtained a court order and the assistance of two sheriffs to intervene, persuading Whitney to undertake treatment at Hope For Women Residential & Therapeutic Services in Atlanta, Georgia.[34] In her 2013 book, Remembering Whitney: My Story of Love, Loss, and the Night the Music Stopped, Cissy described a scene she encountered during a visit to Whitney and then-husband Bobby Brown's home in 2005 where she saw the walls and door painted with big glaring eyes and strange faces. After having seen what she thought was several disturbing scenes, this led Cissy to return with law enforcement and perform an intervention.[35] Whitney would attend recovery and rehabilitation programs.[36]
On February 11, 2012, Whitney Houston died at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.[37] After her daughter's death, Cissy expressed her distaste for the media's coverage of related events: "The media are awful. People have come from here and there, [and they] don't know what they're talking about," she said. "People I haven't seen in 20 years ... Here they come, [they] think they know everything, but that's not true. But God has His way of taking care of all of it, and I'm glad I know that."[38]
^"Artistopia.com". Dionne Warwick. iCubator Labs LLC. Archived from the original on May 6, 2012. Retrieved April 13, 2012.
^Cissy Houston, National Visionary Leadership Project. Accessed December 19, 2019. "After graduating from Newark's South Side High School, she and her group, now The Drinkard Singers, continued performing and were featured on a 1951 program at Carnegie Hall starring Mahalia Jackson."
^Winfrey, Oprah (September 2009). "Remembering Whitney: The Oprah Winfrey Interview"(video). Oprah Winfrey Network. p. 40:02 minutes. Retrieved April 21, 2010. I see the love and the passion that my mother had for me and she walks in with these sheriffs and she says 'I have a court junction here. Either you do it my way or we're just not going to do this at all. We're going to go on TV and you're going to retire and say you're going to give this up. Because this is not worth it. It's not worth it. And if you move Bobby (Brown), they're going to take you down. Don't you make one move. Let's go. Let's do this. I'm not losing you to the world. I'm not losing you to Satan. I want my daughter back. I'm not doing this. I want my daughter back. I want you back. I want to see that glow in your eyes, that light in your eyes. I want to see the child I raised. You weren't raised like this. And I'm not having it.'
