Natalie Cole: Dead at age 65

The singer-songwriter died on Thursday, December 31 in a Los Angeles hospital due to “complications from ongoing health issues”, her publicist Maureen O’Connor confirmed, said The Hollywood Reporter.

“Natalie fought a fierce, courageous battle, dying how she lived – with dignity, strength and honor”, her family said in a statement.

Natalie famously battled with drug addiction after the tragic loss of several family members – including her father, mother and sister, Cookie.

Cole’s top-selling album was 1991’s Unforgettable…With Love, on which she sang songs her father had recorded. It was an instant success, and Cole went on to release more than 20 albums, including her best-selling “Unforgettable … Yet her music also expressed a desire to transcend the mere workings of history and rather to seek to commune with eternity”, he said. Two years later she would find herself on the charts again – this time with “I’ve Got Love on My Mind”, which topped the R&B charts.

She struggled with substance abuse over the years and was plagued with health problems, suffering from liver disease in 2008.

“I will miss her”, she added. Cole performed a seamless duet with her late father’s voice on the title tune, one of his signature songs.

We sat next to each other in one of the many hidden majlises at Emirates Palace reserved for VIP guests – it was in early April, a few days before her Abu Dhabi Festival closing performance at the venue’s main auditorium.

In 2013, Cole’s debut Spanish-language album, “En Español”, was nominated for in the Latin Grammy awards for album of the year. She was a lovely and generous person who will be greatly missed’.

Cole is survived by her son, Robert Adam Yancy. She had some rough times in the years that followed, sometimes making her own name in all the wrong ways, with drugs and drink.

At the time, she had been on the tail end of treatment for hepatitis C. It was a outcome of her much-publicized drug use – for years she was addicted to heroin before she successfully completed rehab in 1983. My heart aches. My honest condolences to her family and may she now rest in peace.’ – Dionne Warwick.

“Tony Bennett, himself a great singer, who was influenced by Nat King Cole was also quick to tweet”. “Her sumptuous, buttery, vocals are the kind of rare treasure that needs only the twinkling of a piano, the snapping of fingers, and the thump-thump-thump of a stand-up bass”, wrote Jamila Robinson for the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Longtime Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich remembered Cole as having “one of those magical voices that grabbed you from the first note”.

The last of Cole’s nine Grammys came with her 2008 standards collection Still Unforgettable.

Natalie rose to musical success in the mid-1970s as an R&N singer, before re-emerging in 1987 with her album Everlasting. She conveyed how precious and fragile time is in the lives of humankind.