Cissy Houston Houston, her daughter and backup singer, increasingly sang solos with Cissy's band, including the Barbra Streisand hit "Evergreen". They would collaborate on "Ain't No Way" (originally a Cissy Houston and Aretha Franklin vehicle), on which Cissy sang "Cissy" and Whitney "Aretha". In 1996, Houston received the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album for "Face to Face", an album that contained a Gospel version of "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)". The same year, she contributed one song to the gospel soundtrack album for the film "The Preacher's Wife", which starred her daughter Whitney Houston. In
Whitney Houston saw Houston performing with her mother in a New York City nightclub. He convinced Arista's head Clive Davis to make time to see Houston perform. Davis was impressed and immediately offered a worldwide recording contract, which Houston signed. (Houston had been offered deals by recording agencies before--by Michael Zager in 1980, and by Elektra Records in 1981--but her mother declined them on the grounds that Whitney had yet to complete high school.) Later that year, Houston made her national television debut alongside Davis on "The Merv Griffin Show". Houston did not begin work on an album immediately. The label wanted