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

Cissy Houston, mother 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 home under hospice care for Alzheimer’s disease. She was surrounded by her family.

Houston was born Emily Drinkard on Sept. 30, 1933, in Newark. In 1963, the same year she gave birth to daughter Whitney, Houston formed the Sweet Inspirations, an R&B vocal group that spent more than a half-dozen years as a studio group performing on dozens of classic records.

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

Houston’s singing career started in 1938 when she joined her siblings in the gospel group the Drinkard Four, but it was a quarter century later when she started hitting the charts as the lead singer in the Sweet Inspirations.

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

Two years later, the Sweet Inspirations were tapped as Presley’s backing group when he returned to live performances in Las Vegas. The quartet backed many of Presley’s comeback performances through 1970. Houston then stepped away from the group to focus on her family and a solo career after a successful run with Presley.

Houston had one chart hit during her solo career, a cover of the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” that reached No. 92. She continued to serve as a backing singer, appearing on Paul Simon’s “Mother and Child Reunion,” Linda Ronstadt’s Heart Like a Wheel, David Bowie’s Young Americans and other recordings.

By the mid-’90s she was performing gospel songs and had collected a Grammy Award for one of her religious albums and had penned books regarding faith.

“Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness,” daughter-in-law Pat Houston said in a statement. “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.”