She performed with the biggest stars Whitney Houston's mother dead at 91

Emily "Cissy" Houston, the mother of pop icon Whitney Houston who died in 2012, is dead. The two-time Grammy winner died at the age of 91 surrounded by her family.

Emily "Cissy" Houston, the mother of pop icon Whitney Houston who died in 2012, is dead.

According to her family, the gospel and soul singer, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, died at her home in the US state of New Jersey. She was 91 years old.

"Our hearts are full of pain and sadness. We have lost the matriarch of our family," said daughter-in-law Pat Houston. Cissy Houston was a strong, faithful woman who cared deeply for her family and her community. She also had a career in the music industry spanning seven decades.

The famous daughter follows her mother

Cissy Houston had introduced her daughter Whitney to music. She herself was a versatile singer. Even as a child, she performed with some of her siblings in a gospel group.

In the 1960s, she was a member of the R&B group The Sweet Inspirations. As backup singers, they played with greats such as Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin.

As a solo artist, Cissy Houston released a number of albums, most recently "Walk on By Faith" in 2012. In the course of her gospel career, she won two Grammy trophies in the 1990s for the albums "Face to Face" and "He Leadeth Me".

Strokes of fate in the life of Cissy Houston

Cissy Houston had two sons and daughter Whitney, who became one of the most celebrated US singers with hits such as "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)" and "One Moment In Time".

However, she also made headlines with drug problems and her turbulent marriage to R&B singer Bobby Brown. The news of her death in February 2012 came as a shock.

The six-time Grammy award winner drowned in a hotel bathtub in Beverly Hills after consuming cocaine and tranquillizers - at the age of just 48.

"She was different from how the headlines often portrayed her"

To mark the first anniversary of her death, Houston's mother Cissy published a book about her daughter ("Remembering Whitney"). "She was different from how the headlines often portrayed her," she wrote in the book. Her story was that of an insecure girl "who wanted to be loved by everyone".

There was another stroke of fate. Whitney Houston's only daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, died just three years later. Like her mother, the 22-year-old was found lifeless in a bathtub with drugs in her blood. She was buried next to Houston in a cemetery in Westfield, New Jersey.

Following Cissy Houston's death, the family said: "May she rest in peace alongside her daughter Whitney, granddaughter Bobbi Kristina and other beloved family members."

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