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Biography:
The Sweet Inspirations' career reached back into the Drinkard Singers, a formative gospel group whose fluid line-up included Dionne Warwick and Cissy Houston. The group dropped this name on pursuing a secular path as session singers.
Houston remained at the helm during several subsequent changes, (Doris Troy and Judy Clay were among the former members), and the group emerged from its backroom role with a recording deal of its own. Now dubbed the Sweet Inspirations by Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler, the line-up of Houston, Sylvia Shemwell (Clay's sister), Myrna Smith and Estelle Brown secured a minor hit with "Why (Am I Treated So Bad)" (1967), but it was a self-titled composition, "Sweet Inspiration" which gave the group its best-remembered single, reaching the US Top 20 in 1968.
When Houston left for a belated solo career in 1970, the remaining trio, Smith, Brown and Shemwell, joined Elvis Presley's concert retinue, and recorded a further album on their own, a good 1973 outing for Stax. After a hiatus from the recording scene, Smith and Shemwell were joined by Gloria Brown in place of Estelle Brown who had quit earlier, and a final album appeared on RSO in 1979, although Brown herself was replaced on the actual recording by Pat Terry.
In 1994 Estelle, Sylvia and Myrna reunited for a special series of shows, including a tribute to Presley.
