Face To Face
Cissy Houston was born Emily Drinkard and grew up the youngest of eight in Newark, New Jersey. Cissy has a beautiful gospel voice and is a terrific soul singer who is known as Whitney Houston's mother. At the age of five, Houston began her career singing gospel at church as a member of her family's gospel group, the Drinkards. The successful group consisted of an array of talented artists including Cissy, Judy Clay, Lee Warwicke, Marie Epps, Annie Moss, Larry and Nicholas Drinkard who have not only changed the face of popular music today, but also emerged music giants in the next two generations.
By the mid-60s, Soul music gained its glory in the rhythm and blues world. Cissy became part of the Soul revolution, when she joined the company of three other young women with Gospel backgrounds, forming the Sweet Inspirations. They recorded some excellent gospel-flavored soul in the late '60s, and stepped to the foreground on some fine recordings of their own, scoring on Billboard's Top Ten R&B Chart, and Top Twenty Pop Chart, with 1968's single, "Sweet Inspiration." The Sweet Inspirations also sang background vocals for Elvis Presley who asked the group to sing with him during his legendary 1969 comeback concerts in Las Vegas. They also sang backup for Aretha Franklin and Solomon Burke, before Cissy left to go solo at the end of 1969. "We did everything, from blues to country," Cissy remembers. "But our church background is what made us unique."
In the early 70s, Cissy pursued a solo career, and recorded an impressive album for Commonwealth United which achieved a 1971 hit with "Be My Baby." She toured from the Apollo Theatre in New York to the Yamaha Festival in Tokyo. Cissy continued to record more solo albums, toured nationally and internationally. She has acted in Broadway plays and worked as a much-in-demand voice for commercials. As her daughter's star rose, Cissy had the pleasure of singing background on such Whitney Houston hits as "How Will I Know" and "I Wanna Dance with Somebody and Whitney dueted on "I Know Him So Well." They also work together on several charitable projects, including the Whitney Houston Foundation for Children, Inc., of which Cissy Houston is President & CEO. For the past 20 years, Cissy Houston has been Minister of Music at Newark's New Hope Baptist Church.
Cissy Houston had made well known contributions to American popular music and was recognized in 1995, when she was honored with the Rhythm & Blues Foundation Pioneer Award. Also, she garnered two Grammy Awards for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album in 1997 for "Face To Face", and in 1998 for "He Leadeth Me" at the 41st annual Grammy Awards, held Wednesday in Los Angeles. She along with Fifteen gospel greats, including Willie Neal Johnson, the Mississippi Mass Choir, Thomas Whitfield & the Whitfield Company, and Cissy Houston, were inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame & Museum Saturday (Oct. 23) in Detroit.
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