Death of Cissy Houston: Grammy winner and mother of Whitney Houston dies at the age of 91

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Grammy-winning singer Cissy Houston, mother of late icon Whitney Houston, has died at the age of 91.

Houston's death on Monday morning (October 7) comes 12 years after the tragic death of Whitney, who died from accidental drowning in 2012 at the age of 48.

Houston died at her home in New Jersey while receiving hospice care for Alzheimer's disease, her daughter-in-law Pat Houston said The Associated Press.

“Our hearts are full of pain and sadness. We are losing the matriarch of our family,” Pat said in a statement.

“Mother Cissy was a strong and prominent figure in our lives. A woman of deep faith and conviction who cared deeply about family, service and community. Her career spanning more than seven decades in the music and entertainment industry will continue to be close to our hearts.”

Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1933, Emily Drinkard began her singing career in 1938 at the age of five when she and her siblings Anne, Larry and Nicky formed the gospel singing group The Drinkard Four.

Anne Drinkard Moss, Marie Drinkard Epps and Lee Warwick, the mother of singers Dionne Warwick and Delia Juanita “Dee Dee” Warwick, later joined and the group was renamed The Drinkard Singers.

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In 1958 the group recorded a live album, A joyful noiseThis made them one of the first gospel groups to release music on a major record label.

It wasn't until 1963, shortly before she gave birth to Whitney, that Houston formed the Sweet Inspirations with R&B singer Doris Troy and her niece Dee Dee.

Together, the group performed backup vocals for several major artists, including Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Dusty Springfield, Otis Redding and Houston's other niece Dionne.

After years as a singer, Houston launched a solo career in 1970 and released several studio albums, including her Grammy-winning soul-gospel albums Face to face (1996) and He guides me (1997).

She is also the author of three books: He guides me (1997), How Sweet the Sound: My Life with God and the Gospel (1998) and Remembering Whitney: A Mother's Story of Life, Loss, and the Night the Music Stopped (2013).

In a previous interview about the latter, Houston recalled that she was “a wreck” when she received the news of Whitney's death – whom the family called Nippy.

“My son called me and screamed, 'Mom, Mom,'” Houston told Oprah in 2013. “Then, oh God. I said, 'What's wrong, what's wrong?' He just said, 'Nippy.' Nippy.' I said, 'What's wrong with Nippy?'”

“'You found Nippy.' I said, 'They found her, what, what?'” Houston said. “And I got annoyed because he didn’t tell me.

“He said, 'Mommy -' I said, 'Is she dead?' And he said, 'Yes, Mom, she's dead.' And after that I don't remember too much.”