The Sweet Inspirations are an American R&B girl group from Newark, New Jersey, founded by Cissy Houston,and Sylvia Shemwell originally to sing background for Judy Clay.

The group's origins went back to the late 1950s when the Gospelaires, a group which included siblings and future soul stars Dionne Warwick and sister Dee Dee Warwick as well as Sylvia Shemwell and another future soul star Doris Troy and was an offshoot of the Drinkard Singers, began a professional career as session vocalists.

In February 1967, they formally renamed themselves the Sweet Inspirations and signed with Atlantic Records, achieving minor and major success on the pop and R&B charts.

The history of the Sweet Inspirations started at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey during the 1950s where Emily "Cissy" Drinkard was the Minister of Music leading several youth choirs.

By 1958, Dionne, Dee Dee, Sylvia Shemwell and Doris Troy agreed to form the group the Gospelaires and eventually opened for the Drinkard Singers, finding success at the Apollo Theater in 1959 and were at this point being managed by Cissy's then-boyfriend John Russell Houston Jr. That year, while at the Apollo, a record label scout approached them backstage looking for background singers for a session for a musician named Sam "The Man" Taylor to which the Gospelaires agreed to sing on.

Houston eventually replaced them with Myrna Smith, a New Hope choir member, and 17-year-old Estelle Brown, which formed the nucleus of the Sweet Inspirations.

[2] The group was in high demand among producers, publishers, artists, and songwriters in the early 1960s and backed recordings made by the Warwick sisters and Troy, backing Dionne on her debut hit, "Don't Make Me Over" and on Troy's only hit, "Just One Look" as well as Solomon Burke's "Cry to Me", and Garnet Mimms' "Cry Baby" and eventually began a long tenure backing Aretha Franklin, later singing background on Franklin's hits such as "Chain of Fools", "(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman", "(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You've Been Gone", "Ain't No Way", "Think" and "I Say a Little Prayer".

In a recording session on March 28, 1967, the group provided the backup vocals for Van Morrison on his classic hit "Brown Eyed Girl".

Within a month of their chart climb, the group began work on their second album – a gospel record entitled Songs Of Faith & Inspiration.

On March 30, 1968, the group scored their first and only top forty hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with the song "Sweet Inspiration" on Atlantic Records.

The b-side of "Sweet Inspiration", a funky cover of The Ikettes' "I'm Blue", gained notoriety more than a quarter century later when it was sampled by hip-hop group Salt-N-Pepa's 1993 smash hit, "Shoop".

The Sweet Inspirations also began recording and touring with Elvis Presley as both background singers and his warm-up act,[2] as well as doing occasional live dates with Aretha Franklin.

[3] The association with Presley became well-publicized as he routinely introduced the Sweet Inspirations (along with the TCB Band members, the J. D. Sumner & Stamps Quartet, and Kathy Westmoreland) on his telecast concerts and live recordings.

A final Atlantic session in June 1970 brought the group (now a trio with Brown, Smith, and Shemwell) its last two singles for the label; "This World" (from the musical The Me Nobody Knows), and "Evidence".