LOS ANGELES — Cissy Houston, a two-time Grammy-winning soul and gospel artist who sang with Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley and other stars and knew triumph and heartbreak as the mother of singer Whitney Houston, died Monday. She was 91.

Cissy Houston died in her New Jersey home while under hospice care for Alzheimer’s disease, her daughter-in-law Pat Houston said. The acclaimed gospel singer was surrounded by her family.

A church performer from an early age, Houston was part of a family gospel act before breaking through in popular music in the 1960s as a member of the prominent backing group The Sweet Inspirations with Doris Troy and her niece Dee Dee Warwick. The group sang backup for a variety of soul singers, including Otis Redding, Lou Rawls and The Drifters. They also sang backup for Dionne Warwick.

Houston’s credits included Franklin’s “Think” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl,” The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” and Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man.”

The Sweet Inspirations also sang on stage with Presley, whom Houston would remember fondly for singing gospel during rehearsal breaks and telling her that she was “squirrelly.”

“At the end of our engagement with him, he gave me a bracelet inscribed with my name on the outside,” she wrote in her memoir “How Sweet the Sound,” published in 1998. “On the inside of the bracelet he had inscribed his nickname for me: Squirrelly.”

The Sweet Inspirations had their own top 20 single with the soul-rock “Sweet Inspiration.”

Houston’s last performance with The Sweet Inspirations came after the group hit the stage with Presley in a Las Vegas show in 1969. Her final recording session with the group turned into their biggest R&B hit “(Gotta Find) A Brand New Lover,” a composition by the production team of Gamble & Huff, who appeared on the group’s fifth album, “Sweet Sweet Soul.”

During that time, the group occasionally performed live concert dates with Franklin. After the group’s success and four albums together, Houston left The Sweet Inspirations to pursue a solo career, where she flourished.

Houston became an in-demand session singer and recorded more than 600 songs in multiple genres throughout her career.

Her vocals can be heard on tracks alongside a range of artists, including Chaka Khan, Donny Hathaway, Hendrix, Luther Vandross, Beyoncé, Paul Simon, Roberta Flack and her daughter.

Cissy Houston went on to complete several records, including “Presenting Cissy Houston,” the disco-era “Think It Over” and the Grammy-winning gospel albums “Face to Face” and “He Leadeth Me.”

In 1971, Houston’s vocals were featured on Burt Bacharach’s solo album, which includes “Mexican Divorce,” “All Kinds of People” and “One Less Bell to Answer.” She performed various standards, including Barbra Streisand’s hit song “Evergreen.”

Cissy Houston was born Emily Drinkard on Sept. 30, 1933, in Newark, New Jersey, the youngest of eight children of a factory worker and a housewife.

Houston was briefly married to Freddie Garland in the 1950s; their son, Gary Garland, was a guard for the Denver Nuggets and later sang on many of Whitney Houston’s tours. Houston was married to Whitney’s father, entertainment executive John Russell Houston, from 1959-1990. In addition to Whitney, the Houstons also had a son, Michael.

Cissy Houston presided for decades over the 200-member Youth Inspirational Choir at Newark’s New Hope Baptist Church, where Whitney Houston sang as a child.