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John Russell Houston Jr. Funeral Arrangements
submitted by: Sharon, Rachel, Lisa D.
source: Newark Star-Ledger, Associated Press
Date: February 4, 2003
John Russell Houston Jr.
HOUSTON - On Feb. 2, 2003, John Russell Jr., of Fort Lee, N.J., made his transition. Born in Trenton, N.J., migrated to Newark at an early age. Beloved son of the late John Russell Houston Sr. and the late Sarah Elizabeth Collins Houston. John was predeceased by his brother, Henry A. Houston. He is survived by his wife, Barbara Peggy Houston, and their daughter, Alana, and from his former union with Cissy Houston, his sons, Gary (Pat), Michael (Donna) and daughter, Whitney (Bobby), and from the former union with Elsie Hamilton his eldest son, John Russell Houston III (Barbara), his eight grandchildren and four greatgrandchildren, also survived by many nieces, nephews, cousins, other relatives and many many friends. A celebration of his life will be held Friday 11 a.m. at St. James A.M.E. Church, 588 Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd., Newark. Interment to follow at the Fairview Cemetery, Westfield, N.J. Visitation will be held Thursday 4-8 p.m. at the church. Arrangements by WHIGHAM FUNERAL HOME.
Funeral for John Houston scheduled for Friday
TRENTON, N.J. - The funeral for John Houston, father of singer Whitney Houston, will be held Friday, a family spokeswoman said.
Houston, a theatrical manager since the early days of rhythm and blues, died Sunday in Manhattan after a lengthy battle with diabetes and heart disease. He was 82.
A viewing will be held on Thursday, said spokeswoman Nancy Seltzer.
The funeral and viewing will both be held in New Jersey, but other details were not released.
"John Houston was a kind, thoughtful, funny, warm and generous human being," the Houston family said in a statement. "He was our family's patriarch. The entire Houston family is deeply mourning his loss.
Well before his daughter's rise to fame, Houston managed the career of her mother and his ex-wife, Cissy Houston. She sang with The Sweet Inspirations, a backing vocal group to artists including Aretha Franklin.
Houston was born in Trenton on Sept. 13, 1920, and was living in Fort Lee when he died, Seltzer said. His theatrical management agency was based in Newark, the city where his daughter, who now lives in Mendham, was born.
In addition to Whitney, Houston is also survived by three sons, Gary, Michael and John.
John Houston, dad of singer Whitney
By JAY LUSTIG
He never sang or played a note onstage. But John Houston helped his family make music history.
Houston, Whitney Houston's father as well as her former business manager, died Sunday at the age of 82. The cause of death was heart failure brought on by heart disease and diabetes, said his daughter's spokeswoman, Nancy Seltzer.
In the course of his lengthy career in the music business, Houston also worked for his ex-wife Cissy Houston and her cousins Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick, who all had success on the pop and R&B charts.
"He's the one who started it all," Dee Dee Warwick said yesterday.
The Fort Lee resident, who has been divorced from Cissy since the early 1990s, died at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. His health had been deteriorating for several years, and he had been in and out of the hospital a number of times recently.
"The entire family is greatly saddened by the loss of someone they all loved so much," said Seltzer.
John Houston, who was born in Trenton, met Cissy Drinkard in the late 1950s and married her in 1960. They had a son Michael in 1962 and Whitney in 1963. (Cissy also had a son Gary from a previous marriage.) They lived in Newark and East Orange.
Cissy and her cousins, Dionne and Dee Dee, began working in the music industry as gospel singers and backing vocalists on R&B records.
"He would make sure we got to the sessions," said Dee Dee Warwick. "And when Dionne started working with Burt (Bacharach) ... he negotiated that. As a matter of fact, he used to get us out of high school, to go and do sessions in New York."
Cissy's career peaked in the late '60s when her group, the Sweet Inspirations, had a hit called "Sweet Inspiration," and she sang backing vocals for everyone from Elvis Presley to Aretha Franklin. In addition to overseeing his wife's business affairs, John Houston took care of the children when she couldn't.
"I have a great dad," Whitney Houston told Good Housekeeping magazine in 1997. "My father stuck by my mother and was a good friend to her. If my mother had a recording session, he would stay home, dress me, and do my hair. ... He was a very affectionate and loving dad."
Seltzer said Houston was also an uncompromising manager who insisted, while the South was still segregated, that his wife and other black clients stay in first-class, white hotels.
Whitney made her singing debut in the mid-'70s, as a member of the choir of New Hope Baptist Church in Newark. In 1985, Houston told People magazine, "What I heard that day was the voice of a young woman coming from the throat of a 12-year-old child. It blew my mind!"
That same year, when Whitney's career started taking off, she asked her father to become her business manager. "I remember my father showing me pictures of this real estate," Whitney told Life magazine in 1990. "I said, 'Oh, Daddy, these are so nice, but I already have a home.' And he said, 'These are your investments.'"
In recent years, Whitney's fairytale story has taken some dark twists. Her behavior has become erratic and, recently, she has acknowledged her struggle with substance abuse.
Houston became involved in one of the most bizarre music-related scandals of 2002 when his company, John Houston Entertainment, sued Whitney for $100 million, for breach of contract. The company claimed it hadn't been paid properly for helping to get marijuana possession charges against her dropped, and hiring lawyers to negotiate a record contract.
In a December interview on television's "Primetime," Whitney told Diane Sawyer, "All I can tell you, Diane, is that it hurts right now. And I've been dealing with it ... and we'll work it out ... 'cause no matter what ... he's my dad. And I'm his daughter. And I love him ... and I know he loves me."
The next day, Houston appeared on the syndicated television show "Celebrity Justice." Filmed from a hospital bed, he urged his daughter, "You get your act together, honey, and you pay me the money that you owe me."
Whitney and Cissy Houston were not available for comment yesterday. "The whole family is just getting together," Seltzer said. "Everybody's flown in from wherever they were. At the moment, they have all gathered together, and they're not speaking (to reporters) at all yet."
In addition to his children, Houston is survived by his wife Peggy. Arrangements by the Whigham Funeral Home in Newark were not completed at press time.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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