"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now am found Was blind, but now I see." When Cissy Houston sings "Amazing Grace" on her 1997 Grammy Award-winning album, Face to Face, her soul-stirring passion leaves no doubt that this is a woman blessed with a beautiful voice and a life story to be shared.  In How Sweet the Sound: My Life with God and Gospel, Cissy tells of the good and the bad of life with as much emotion and depth as she sings her beloved gospel music. Cissy is a Grammy-winning singer, but this isn't about popularity.  She is the proud mother of pop-music sensation Whitney Houston, but this isn't about fame.  She starred in off-Broadway shows such as This Is My Song , and shared the screen with her daughter in The Preacher's Wife.   But Cissy Houston's life is really about finding meaning, direction, and love; it is about being a woman of high moral principles and integrity in a world where both seem to be lacking; it is about being a wife, a mother, and a sister in the tug-of-war between family and a career that took her all around the world.  Hers is the story of gospel music, from slavery to salvation based on God's "amazing grace." Born as Cissy Drinkard in a tough Newark, New Jersey, neighborhood in September of 1933, she was the youngest of eight children.  With her father's talent and love of four-part gospel, she started singing at a young age and never stopped, no matter what happened in her life.  In How Sweet the Sound, Cissy weaves the many threads of tragedy and triumph in her inspiring life together into one great melody of joy that will raise the spirits of fans and readers everywhere. The narrative is hampered by an overly dutiful recitation of facts. But the story comes to life when describing her career.... -- The New York Times Book Review , Eric P. Nash g grace, how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now am found Was blind, but now I see." When Cissy Houston sings "Amazing Grace" on her 1997 Grammy Award-winning album, Face to Face, her soul-stirring passion leaves no doubt that this is a woman blessed with a beautiful voice and a life story to be shared. In How Sweet the Sound: My Life with God and Gospel, Cissy tells of the good and the bad of life with as much emotion and depth as she sings her beloved gospel music. Cissy is a Grammy-winning singer, but this isn't about popularity. She is the proud mother of pop-music sensation Whitney Houston, but this isn't about fame. She starred in off-Broadway shows such as This Is My Song , and shared the screen with her daughter in The Preacher's Wife. But Cissy Houston's life is really about finding meaning, direction, a Gospel music artist Cissy Houston won the 1997 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Soul Gospel album for Face to Face.   She is the minister of music at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, and lives in Fort Lee, New Jersey.   Jonathan Singer is a New York native and an author and editor with extensive experience in the music industry.  He is the author of Where Jesus Walked, and is at work on his next book, the Doubleday Pocket Church Guide.   He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. Music has always been a key feature of revivals. Dating back to the Great Awakening of colonial times, the music of the English hymn writers Isaac Watts and John Wesley was used to stir the spirit and bring heaven to earth. When the newly converted slaves worshipped at these revivals, and at the camp meetings that followed later in the wake of the Second Awakening, they made these hymns their own. They accented and elongated unexpected syllables for rhythmic effect, patting their feet and clapping their hands in tempos remembered from a faraway but still vivid homeland. Under the great tents of the camp meetings, visitors listened to the rich voices of spontaneous black choirs, raising the hymns, calling and responding to each other beneath the vast canvas. As the poetic but deeply felt lyrics and simple melodies of these English hymns met the rhythm and improvisational techniques of Mother Africa, the spiritual was born. The Azusa Street Revival also produced a new and dynamic black worship music. This time it emerged from the individual in the throes of Pentecostal rapture--singing in the Spirit and testifying to the goodness of God. Born in the city, this new music built on the foundation of the hymns and spirituals but charged them with a power and conviction that had never been heard before. This time the music was more personal, emotional and rhythmically irresistible. It drew the young and those who resisted the traditional church experience to the Spirit's new urban outpost--the storefront church--where the young Church of God in Christ denomination and its unique music spread like wildfire. You could hear the sound for blocks--tambourines beating at fever pitch, a cappella harmonies and joyful hallelujahs. As