Singer Natalie Cole Dies at 65

Timolin Cole, singer Natalie Cole and Casey Cole attend Natalie Cole’s 60th Birthday Celebration at TAO on February 4, 2010 in New York City. “I was a heroin addict, sharing needles with the crowd I was with”, she herself admitted to People magazine in 2008. But you know the saying: These are the best of times and the worst of times.

Grammy award-winning singer Natalie Cole, the daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, is dead at the age of 65. But she made a successful comeback with the hits Miss You like insane, I Live For Your Love, and Pink Cadillac then, of course, came the release of the epic Unforgettable… with Love – an album of the music of her father. In a tweet, actress Marlee Matlin called Cole a lovely songbird and a great actress, writing “she is now singing in heaven”. Cole had a kidney transplant in 2009 after contracting hepatitis C, which she blamed on her past intravenous drug abuse. “With Love.” The album contained songs associated with her father, the silky-voiced baritone who was one of the most popular performers of the 1940s and ’50s but died before his daughter began her solo career.

She was also nominated for an Emmy award in 1992 for a televised performance of her father’s songs. Their house, in Los Angeles’ upscale Hancock Park neighborhood, was a regular spot for her parents’ colleagues.

Cole had a light, supple, perpetually optimistic voice, full of syncopated turns and airborne swoops, drawing on both the nuances of jazz singing and the dynamics of gospel.

But her own talent also was quickly recognized, and she gradually progressed to more prestigious engagements. Some of her top hits were “This Will Be”, as well as “Our Love”. Her debut album, 1975’s “Inseparable” – which included hits “This Will Be” – earned her Grammys for best female R&B vocal performance and best new artist.

“I don’t remember what I sounded like, I was too much in awe of her”, she said in her lengthy Instagram tribute. In her 2000 autobiography, Angel on my Shoulder, she wrote that her addiction incapacitated her so severely that she was barely able to escape a fire in her Las Vegas hotel in 1981. There were reports that she’d been hospitalized last month, but somehow we’d thought she’d find a way to pull through again.

Natalie Cole with her dad Nat King Cole in 1960. With Love, featured a technology-assisted duet for the songUnforgettable with her father’s original recording. She repeatedly sought rehab but later was diagnosed with Hepatitis C and liver disease.

Her habits 25 years later resulted in several health issues and she was constantly undergoing blood tests but continued her career. She conveyed how precious and fragile time is in the lives of humankind.

In 2008, Cole opened up to World Health Organization about her journey. She needed dialysis three times a week until she received a donor kidney on May 18, 2009.

While fighting her own battles, Cole was helping her sister, Cookie, battle cancer.