The Drinkard Singers 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. 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.
The Sweet Inspirations By the early 1960s, Houston's nieces Dionne and Dee Dee, 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 Warwick 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 Warwick left the group to begin 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 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
Billboard Best-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. 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 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!" 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.
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. 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. Following the release of her debut album, Houston's contract was sold to
Janus Records. She continued to record with Janus Records until 1975. Houston performed as backing vocalist on jazz flautist
Herbie Mann's
funky
disco single "Hijack" (1975), album
Discotheque (1975), and album
Surprise (1976). 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 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 label head
Clive Davis was the right man to guide her daughter's career. 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-Broadway musical Taking My Turn, which received a
Drama Desk Award nomination for
Outstanding Musical, often singing the song "I Am Not Old". 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 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'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.
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. She was also a driving force behind
McDonald's Gospelfest, at which she regularly performed. ==Personal life and death==