We remember singer Cissy Houston, who died Oct. 7 at the age of 91. She got her start in gospel and sang backup vocals for Elvis, Dusty Springfield, Wilson Pickett, Van Morrison and Aretha Franklin, most notably on "A Natural Woman." She was also the mother of Whitney Houston. Houston spoke with Terry Gross in 1998. Also, we remember Major League Baseball's Pete Rose, a legend on the field who was banned from baseball because he bet on the game. He died Sept. 30 at the age of 83. Rose spoke with Dave Davies in 2004. TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new film Saturday Night, a dramatization of the first episode of SNL. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
This message comes from Mint Mobile.
From the gas pump to the grocery store, inflation is everywhere.
So Mint Mobile is offering premium wireless starting at just $15 a month.
To get your new phone plan for just $15, go to mintmobile.com.
switch.
This is FRESH AIR.
I'm Dave Davies.
Cissy Houston, the gospel singer and backup vocalist who guided her daughter Whitney Houston to stardom, died Monday at the age of 91.
Cissy Houston began singing on the gospel circuit as a child.
She also sang secular music.
She performed with the Sweet inspirations, the group that backed Aretha Franklin.
And she sang backup vocals for Elvis Presley, Solomon Burke, Dusty Springfield, Wilson Pickett, Van Morrison, the drifters and Dionne Warwick, who was her niece.
In a New York Times obituary, Robert Darden, who wrote several books on gospel music, said of Houston, she was a significant figure not because she sold a lot of records, but because of the people she influenced who did sell the lot, and because of her work as a sustainer and nurturer of the gospel music tradition.
For more than 50 years, Cissy Houston was the choir director for the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where she got her start as a singer.
She endured the double tragedy of the death of her daughter, Whitney, who drowned in a hotel bathtub in 2012 and three years later, the loss of her granddaughter and Whitney's daughter, Bobbi Christina Brown, who was found unresponsive in her home bathtub and died shortly after Terry spoke with Cissy Houston in 1998.
At the time, Houston had written her autobiography, how sweet the sound, my life with God and gospel.
They began with music from Cissy Houston's Grammy award winning gospel album, face to face.
This is God don't ever change God.
And all creation God when Adam fell, Adam fell God way up in heaven, way down in hell he's gone, he's gone, God don't ever change, he's gone, he's not my God always will be gone.
You see he's spoken to the mountain that how great I am I want you to get up in the morning children shift around like lambs he's gone, God don't ever change he's gone.