A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Cissy Houston has died at the age of 91. She was a celebrated soul and gospel singer and part of an extraordinary family of musicians. Brandon Gates has our remembrance.
BRANDON GATES, BYLINE: I love the song "Ain't No Way" by Aretha Franklin.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AIN'T NO WAY")
CISSY HOUSTON: (Vocalizing).
ARETHA FRANKLIN: (Singing) I know that a woman's duty is to help and love the man.
GATES: That's Cissy Houston singing the operatic note in the background.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AIN'T NO WAY")
FRANKLIN: (Singing) It was for me.
C HOUSTON: (Vocalizing).
FRANKLIN: (Singing) Oh, but how can I, how can I, how can I give you all the things I can...
GATES: Houston was born in 1933 as Emily Drinkard in Newark, New Jersey, to a musically gifted family. In an interview with WHYY's Fresh Air in 1998, Houston said it was expected of her to perform alongside her brothers and sisters.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
C HOUSTON: I was 5 years old, and they had to put me on a stool in order to see me. And of course, I wanted to be out playing with everyone else, but there was no question. I didn't have a choice.
GATES: Not having a choice paid off.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MY ROCK")
THE DRINKARD SINGERS: Oh, Jesus. My rock. Come on, Jesus. My rock. Need you, Jesus. My rock. Right now, Jesus. Oh, I know you won't deny me...
GATES: The Drinkard Singers became one of the first acts to release a gospel album on a major record label, but Houston decided to dabble in secular music in the late 1960s and formed her own group that had a crossover hit.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SWEET INSPIRATION")
THE SWEET INSPIRATIONS: (Singing) When you call me baby, baby, it's such a sweet inspiration.
GATES: Sweet Inspirations earned a reputation as one of the best background groups in the business. They helped shape rock classics ranging from "Brown Eyed Girl" to "Son Of A Preacher Man." They sang backup for Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix and Houston's niece, Dionne Warwick. Cissy Houston was an innovator. She used four background voices rather than the standard three, doubling her top part to enrich the sound like in this song for Aretha Franklin.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "(YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE) A NATURAL WOMAN")
FRANKLIN: (Singing) 'Cause you make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like a natural woman.
GATES: But after a lot of time in the background, Houston was ready for the spotlight.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
C HOUSTON: I was becoming an artist in my own right and became a single artist.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HE LEADETH ME")
C HOUSTON: (Singing) He has been my strength indeed, and he supplies my every need. And I know I will succeed.
GATES: But Cissy Houston was torn between professional demands and being a mom. She had two sons and a daughter you may have heard of named Whitney. The two were famously close, and Whitney Houston owed much of her success to her mother's guidance. In a 1987 "Entertainment Tonight" interview, Whitney Houston called her mother a teacher and a friend.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT")
WHITNEY HOUSTON: She's like a little gas station, you know? When you need some strength, you just go to mom, and she, you know, fills you up.
GATES: But Whitney Houston died when she was only 48, after years of battling addiction and a notoriously troubled marriage. In one of several books about her life, Cissy Houston talked about her daughter, and that led to a question from Oprah Winfrey about rumors that Whitney had been a closeted lesbian.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "OPRAH PRIME")
OPRAH WINFREY: Would it have bothered you if your daughter, Whitney, was gay?
C HOUSTON: Absolutely.
WINFREY: You would not have liked that.
C HOUSTON: Not at all.
GATES: But Cissy Houston told the world how she felt about her daughter in other ways. She paid a heartfelt tribute to Whitney at the BET Awards five months after her death.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
C HOUSTON: (Singing) Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay - I will lay me down.
GATES: Over her long, accomplished and complicated life, the genre-bending powerhouse lost a daughter and a granddaughter. She won two Grammys for her gospel solo albums. For more than 50 years, through triumphs and tragedies, Cissy Houston led the Youth Inspiration Choir at her hometown Baptist church in Newark, New Jersey.
For NPR News, I'm Brandon Gates.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
C HOUSTON: (Singing) So sail on, silver girl. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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