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Cissy Houston—a Grammy award-winning vocalist and the parent of the precocious Whitney Houston—died successful her New Jersey location connected Oct. 7. She was 91.
By Leah Degrazia Oct 07, 2024 8:15 PMTags
In Memoriam: Fallen Stars of 2024
The euphony satellite is mourning a tragic loss.
Cissy Houston—the parent of the precocious Whitney Houston and a Grammy-award winning singer—has died, her household confirmed to the Associated Press Oct. 7. She was 91.
Cissy passed distant successful her New Jersey location connected Oct. 7 portion nether hospice attraction for Alzheimer's disease—a benignant of dementia that affects memory, reasoning and behavior—the outlet reported.
“Our hearts are filled with symptom and sadness,” her daughter-in-law Pat Houston shared successful an Oct. 7 connection to the Associated Press. "We mislaid the matriarch of our family."
Noting that her mother-in-law's contributions to euphony were "unparalleled," Pat went connected to picture Cissy arsenic a "strong and towering fig successful our lives."
"A pistillate of heavy religion and conviction, who cared greatly astir family, ministry, and community," she continued. "Her much than seven-decade vocation successful euphony and amusement volition stay astatine the forefront of our hearts.”
Cissy roseate to fame successful the 1960s arsenic one-third of the R&B miss radical The Sweet Inspirations, which besides comprised Doris Troy and her niece Dee Dee Warwick. The trio earned acclaim for their enactment arsenic backup singers for artists specified arsenic Otis Redding, Dee Dee's sister Dionne Warwick, Van Morrison and Elvis Presley.
Photo by Eugene Gologursky/WireImage
Over the people of her decades-long career, Cissy besides made an interaction arsenic a solo artist. As a league singer, the New Jersey autochthonal has recorded implicit 600 songs crossed aggregate genres. Plus, she won 2 Grammy awards successful the Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album class for her solo records Face to Face (1997) and He Leadeth Me (1998).
And Cissy—who authored the books He Leadeth Me, How Sweet The Sound: My Life with God and Gospel and Remembering Whitney: A Mother’s Story of Life, Loss and The Night The Music Stopped—has been candid astir however her spirituality has kept her going implicit the years. In fact, she shared that her religion was however she coped with the 2012 decease of her girl Whitney.
"I judge wholly successful God," she said during a 2013 publication signing, per USA Today. "I cognize with each ounce successful maine helium loved her and she loved him, and I emotion him."
Cissy is survived by her lad Michael Houston, who she shares with ex-husband John Russell Houston, and lad Gary Garland, who she shares with ex-husband Freddie Garland, arsenic good arsenic granddaughter Rayah Houston and niece Dionne.
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