Whitney Houston's mother, the renowned singer Cissy Houston, passes away at age 91

Whitney Houston's mother, Cissy Houston, was a well-known gospel singer who passed away early on Monday at the age of 91, according to a statement from her family.

According to her daughter-in-law Pat Houston, Houston, a two-time Grammy Award winner, passed away in her New Jersey home while receiving hospice care for Alzheimer's disease.

"We feel anguish and pain in our hearts. We lost our family's matriarch," she remarked, mentioning her mother-in-law as a "powerful and towering presence" in the family's history.

Houston had a prosperous singing career spanning several decades, performing with such icons as Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley.


Houston was the youngest of eight children when she was born in New Jersey in 1933. She and her siblings started a gospel ensemble when she was young, and that's when she started singing.

She founded the R&B group Sweet Inspirations in the 1960s, providing backing vocals for well-known artists including Otis Redding, Dusty Springfield, and Dionne Warwick. They also sang a rendition of Brown Eyed Girl, a hit song by Van Morrison.

Following her success with the Sweet Inspirations, Houston started a solo career, performing with such musicians as Paul Simon, Beyoncé, Jimi Hendrix, Chaka Khan, and her late daughter Whitney Houston, who passed away in 2012 at the age of 48.

For her classic soul gospel album Face to Face, Houston won a Grammy Award in 1997 and again in 1998 He Leadeth Me, her album.

She also published three novels, one of which was titled Remembering Whitney: A Mother's Story of Life, Loss, and The Night the Music Stopped and was written in honour of her daughter.

When Houston appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman, she sang alongside Aretha Franklin one again at the age of 80. During their performance, they covered Adele's Rolling in the Deep.

Houston's "more than seven-decade career in music and entertainment will remain at the forefront of our hearts," according to her daughter-in-law Pat.

She went on to say that the family is "grateful and blessed that God allowed her to spend so much time with us."

"May she rest in peace with Whitney, her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, her granddaughter, and other loved ones."