Cissy Houston Saw Music’s Peaks and Life’s Valleys
The singer, who died this week, was the mother of Whitney Houston and a contender for the greatest voice of the country, our critic says.
If you’re the sort of person who remains locked in a private, perpetual tug of war over whether the greatest singer this country’s ever known is Aretha Franklin or Whitney Houston, perhaps you’re also the sort of person who then spares a thought for Whitney’s mother, Cissy. Cissy Houston died at 91 on Monday, and she could sing, too. Let me try that again: Cissy Houston sang, first with the clarity of something just Windexed then, later, with a tone that acquired some protective, matured texture, some bark.
This thought we “who’s the greatest” vacillators spare for Miss Cissy stems from outrageous misfortune: yes, the unimaginable tragedy of losing a daughter the way she lost Whitney and then losing her daughter’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, almost exactly the same way; but also being Whitney’s mother, plus Dionne Warwick’s aunt and a cousin of the opera legend Leontyne Price, in addition to one of Aretha’s homies. How could a member of that bloodline not be in pursuit of music that could garner the sort of acclaim and career they experienced? But Cissy never found it.
Warwick cast her spells with a chardonnay glimmer, singing with low-pulse seduction that had some tooth. Whitney was a fighter jet who could dance Balanchine and Ailey. Miss Cissy had power and range and a knack for put-you-in-your-place phrasing, whether the subject was the Man Upstairs or the man in her bed. But what Cissy lacked was good luck — never had original songs as top-shelf as her niece’s or as humongous as her daughter’s.
