Cissy Houston, a Grammy-winning gospel singer and Whitney Houston's mother, dies at 91

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Cissy Houston, a Grammy-winning gospel singer and Whitney Houston's mother, dies at 91

2024-10-08 07:56 Last Updated At：08:00

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cissy Houston, a two-time Grammy-winning soul and gospel artist who sang with Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley and other stars and knew triumph and heartbreak as the mother of Whitney Houston, has died. She was 91.

Cissy Houston died Monday morning in her New Jersey home while under hospice care for Alzheimer's disease, her daughter-in-law Pat Houston told The Associated Press. The acclaimed gospel singer was surrounded by her family.

“Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness. We loss the matriarch of our family,” Pat Houston said in a statement. She said her mother-in-law's contributions to popular music and culture are "unparalleled."

“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.”

A church performer from an early age, Houston was part of a family gospel act before breaking through in popular music in the 1960s as a member of the prominent backing group The Sweet Inspirations with Doris Troy and her niece Dee Dee Warwick. The group sang backup for a variety of soul singers including Otis Redding, Lou Rawls and The Drifters. They also sang backup for Dionne Warwick.

Houston's many credits included Franklin’s “Think” and ”(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man.” The Sweet Inspirations also sang on stage with Presley, whom Houston would remember fondly for singing gospel during rehearsal breaks and telling her that she was “squirrelly.”

“At the end of our engagement with him, he gave me a bracelet inscribed with my name on the outside,” she wrote in her memoir “How Sweet the Sound,” published in 1998. “On the inside of the bracelet he had inscribed his nickname for me: Squirrelly.”

The Sweet Inspirations had their own top 20 single with the soul-rock “Sweet Inspiration,” made in the Memphis studio where Franklin and Springfield among others recorded hits and released four albums just in the late ’60s. The group appeared on Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and sang background vocals for The Jimi Hendrix Experience on the song “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” in 1967.

Houston’s last performance with The Sweet Inspirations came after the group hit the stage with Presley in a Las Vegas show in 1969. Her final recording session with the group turned into their biggest R&B hit “(Gotta Find) A Brand New Lover” a composition by the production team of Gamble & Huff, who appeared on the group’s fifth album, “Sweet Sweet Soul.”

During that time, the group occasionally performed live concert dates with Franklin. After the group’s success and four albums together, Houston left The Sweet Inspirations to pursue a solo career where she flourished.

Houston became an in-demand session singer and recorded more than 600 songs in multiple genres throughout her career. Her vocals can be heard on tracks alongside a wide range of artists including Chaka Khan, Donny Hathaway, Jimi Hendrix, Luther Vandross, Beyoncé, Paul Simon, Roberta Flack and Whitney Houston.

Cissy Houston went on to complete several records, including “Presenting Cissy Houston,” the disco-era “Think It Over” and the Grammy-winning gospel albums “Face to Face” and “He Leadeth Me.”

In 1971, Houston’s signature vocals were featured on Burt Bacharach’s solo album, which includes “Mexican Divorce,” “All Kinds of People” and “One Less Bell to Answer.” She performed various standards including Barbra Streisand’s hit song, “Evergreen.”

Never far from her native New Jersey or musical origins, Houston presided for decades over the 200-member Youth Inspirational Choir at Newark’s New Hope Baptist Church, where Whitney Houston sang as a child.

Cissy Houston would say that she had discouraged her daughter from show business, but they were joined in music for much of Whitney’s life, from church to stage performances to television and film and the recording studio. Whitney’s rise seemed inevitable, not only because of her obvious talents, but because of her background: Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick were cousins, Leontyne Price a cousin once removed, Franklin a close family friend.

Whitney Houston made her debut on national television when she and Cissy Houston sang a medley of Franklin hits on “The Merv Griffin Show.” Cissy Houston sang backup on Whitney’s eponymous, multi-platinum first album, and the two shared the lead on “I Know Him So Well,” from the 1987 mega-seller “Whitney.”

They would sing together often in concert and appeared in the 1996 film “The Preacher’s Wife.” Their most indelible moments likely came from the video for one of Whitney’s biggest hits from the mid-1980s, “Greatest Love of All." It was filmed as a mother-daughter homage, ending with a joyous Whitney exiting the stage of Harlem’s Apollo Theater and embracing Cissy Houston, who stood in the wings.

But drug problems damaged Whitney’s voice and reputation and eventually ended her life: she was found dead in a Beverly Hills bathtub on Feb. 11, 2012. Cissy Houston would blame husband Bobby Brown for Whitney’s getting so “deep” into drugs, writing in the 2013 memoir “Remembering Whitney.” Brown acknowledged his drug problems but was dismissive of his in-laws in a 2016 interview with Larry King.

Cissy and Whitney Houston had a complicated dynamic at times — Whitney nicknamed her mother “Big Cuda,” as in barracuda. Cissy described in the memoir that her daughter as “mean” and “difficult” at times but wrote “almost always,” her daughter was “the sweetest, most loving person in the room.”

In 2015, Cissy Houston was grieving again when granddaughter Bobbi Kristina Brown, the only child of Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston, was found unconscious in a bathtub, spent months in a coma and died at age 22.

Cissy Houston was briefly married to Freddie Garland in the 1950s; their son, Gary Garland, was a guard for the Denver Nuggets and later sang on many of Whitney Houston’s tours. Cissy Houston was married to Whitney’s father, entertainment executive John Russell Houston, from 1959-1990. In addition to Whitney, the Houstons also had a son, Michael.

Cissy Houston was born Emily Drinkard in Newark, the youngest of eight children of a factory worker and a housewife. She was just 5 when she and three siblings founded the Drinkard Singers, a gospel group that lasted 30 years, performing on the same bill as Mahalia Jackson among others and releasing the 1959 album “A Joyful Noise.”

She later said she would have been happy to remain in gospel, but John Houston encouraged her to take on studio work. When rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins (along with drummer Levon Helm and other future members of The Band) needed an extra voice, Cissy Houston stepped in.

“I wanted to get my work done, and get it done quickly. I was there, but I didn’t have to be part of them. I was in the world, but I wasn’t of the world, as St. Paul put it,” Houston wrote in “How Sweet the Sound,” remembering how she soon began working with the Drifters and other singers.

“At least in the recording studio we were living together as God intended us to. Some days, we spent 12 or 15 hours together there," she wrote. "The skin-deep barriers of race seemed to fall away as we toiled side by side creating our little pop masterpieces.”

Pat Houston said she is thankful for the many valuable lessons learned from her mother-in-law. She said the family feels “blessed and grateful" that God allowed Cissy to spend so many years.

“We are touched by your generous support, and your outpouring of love during our profound time of grief,” Houston said on behalf of the family. “We respectfully request our privacy during this difficult time.”

Hillel Italie reported from New York.

Vigils, protests around the world commemorate the anniversary of Hamas attack on Israel

2024-10-08 07:47 Last Updated At：07:50

NEW YORK (AP) — Commemorations and protests unfolded across the world on Monday to mark the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, an assault that sparked a war that has devastated the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip, fueled bloodshed in other Mideast lands and stirred protests and divisions far away.

Those divisions were visible in New York, where a crowd gathered for an evening remembrance ceremony in Central Park even as pro-Palestinian protesters converged on a corner of the park less than a mile away.

Hamas militants' surprise cross-border attack last year killed about 1,200 people. Another 250 were taken hostage; around 100 remain in captivity, with many of them feared dead. The attack, on a major Jewish holiday, shattered Israelis’ sense of security and left the world facing the prospect of a major conflict in the Middle East.

“The unfathomable horrors I experienced that morning have transformed me, along with every single Israeli and every single Jew,” Natalie Sanandaji, one of the survivors from a music festival where the attackers killed hundreds, told the audience in Central Park.

Israel responded to the Oct. 7 attack by waging a war against Hamas in Gaza, where the fighting has killed over 41,000 people and displaced around 1.9 million. The conflict has spread in the region, where Israel also is fighting Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, facing escalating threats from Yemen's Houthi rebels and contending with a mounting conflict with Iran, which backs Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

The Hamas-Israel war also has spurred demonstrations and stirred tensions in many U.S. locales, including college campuses and major cities.

In New York, protesters spread a large Palestinian flag on a street near the New York Stock Exchange early Monday afternoon, while a smaller group of counterprotesters held an Israeli flag. The pro-Palestinian group grew to a blocks-long column as it marched through Manhattan streets, avenues and landmarks, at one point holding a banner that read “war begets war” on the steps of the New York Public Library.

Associated Press journalists saw several people being taken into police custody at various points in the march. Police said multiple arrests were made; no further information was immediately available.

While the protesters paused to conduct a Muslim evening prayer at the southwestern corner of Central Park, the parents of American-Israeli hostage Omer Neutra shared their anguish from the park's SummerStage venue.

“We would never have imagined we would still be standing here a whole year later, with no news of him," his mother, Orna Neutra, told hundreds of people at an event that drew New York’s governor, mayor, U.S. senators and other elected officials. Her son, a New York-born Israeli soldier, turns 23 next week.

At Philadelphia's Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, Ellie Solomon was among a group of high school students who viewed an exhibition about the Tribe of Nova music festival in Re’im, Israel, where over 360 were killed.

“I feel like that really could have been me there,” said Solomon, who attends The Pingry School in New Jersey. Many festival attendees were close to her age, she noted.

“It’s important for us to remember them and honor them because they didn’t deserve anything that happened to them," she added.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro also toured the exhibition. The Democratic governor said he hoped it gave visitors “an understanding of what really happened" and made people “more tolerant, a bit more understanding and more committed to finding peace in our society and peace across the globe.”

In Europe, where countries have sought to tamp down antisemitic and anti-Muslim sentiment, the German chancellery in Berlin was adorned Monday with a yellow ribbon commemorating the Israeli hostages. The names of the people killed and kidnapped were read out in front of the Brandenburg Gate.

In Hamburg, Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Israelis that “we feel with you … we stand beside you" and pointed, as well, to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

In Italy, Premier Giorgia Meloni visited the main synagogue in Rome and reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself, while lamenting the devastation unleashed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

French President Emmanuel Macron met in Paris with relatives of hostages and of the dead. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot attended a memorial service at the site of the Nova music festival.

The Vatican took up a collection for the people of Gaza and published a letter expressing Pope Francis' solidarity.

In Poland's capital of Warsaw, the Jewish community paid tribute to Alex Dancyg, a Polish-born Holocaust educator and historian who was abducted from the Nir Oz kibbutz on Oct. 7. Israel believes he died in captivity.

In Australia, thousands of people attended vigils in Sydney and Melbourne, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joining the latter event. A day after thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied across Australia's cities, hundreds gathered amid a heavy police presence at Sydney town hall to remember Palestinians killed in the conflict.

In Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, schoolchildren took part in a pro-Palestinian rally organized by the Pakistan Markazi Muslim League party.

Japanese officials demanded the immediate release of all hostages and expressed condolences to Israelis who lost relatives in the attack.

Vejpongsa reported from Philadelphia and Spike from Budapest, Hungary. Associated Press journalists Jennifer Peltz, John Minchillo and Ted Shaffrey in New York, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Diane Jeantet in Paris, Nicole Winfield in Rome, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Vanessa Gera in Warsaw and Charlotte Graham-McLay in Wellington, New Zealand, contributed to this report.