Singer Natalie Cole is dead at the age of 65

She was looking radiant in a white-lacy ensemble emphasising her lithe figure. “I’m not like that”, she told The Los Angeles Times in 1985.

Her career, which comprised nearly two dozen albums, a pair of memoirs, and a TV movie, was notable for its seamless bridging of soul, jazz, rock, and R&B. May her soul rest in peace.

Ms. Cole’s first husband was Grammy-winning gospel artist/producer and Chicago minister Marvin Yancy, who headed the congregation at Fountain of Life Baptist Church on the city’s South Side from the late 1970s until his death in 1985.

The fact she mentioned Houston was telling.

The singer Natalie Cole died on New Year’s Eve in the United States, at the relatively young age of 65.

At six, Cole recorded a duet with her father, I’m Good Will, You’re Christmas Spirit. But she went to the University of MA in Amherst with no plans of an entertainment career.

Her final Grammy came in 2009 for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for Still Unforgettable.

Despite the acclaim, it wasn’t an easy entry into the business.

Cole was greatly inspired by her father before his passing from lung cancer when she was only 15. Natalie Cole took no prisoners in the studio or on stage. “It should look like it was made exactly for me, and that’s kind of what I try to do with my music”.

Cole spent the Christmas holidays with her sisters, however, they were not by her side at the time of her death.

The statement was signed by Cole’s only child, Robert Yancey, and her twin sisters, Timolin and Casey Cole. “And I remember when I first sang with my dad really professionally I had to audition”. And hers was not an easy life: There was the loss of a parent during adolescence, the drug dependency and then a series of illnesses serious enough to have put one of the most lucrative and widely beloved music careers in jeopardy. The cold war between Cole and Franklin eventually thawed. Exhausted, she continued performing until her rapidly declining health was tied to kidney disease, likely a result of the medication she was using to treat her hepatitis C. She fought for so long.

In a technical feat considered novel in the day, Cole sang the title track – with its elegant, string-backed opening line “Unforgettable, that’s what you are” – in a duet with her father who had died in 1965. She has become an extraordinary singer in her own right. “Now we in turn pay tribute to her”, Mthethwa said on Saturday. “I do believe that people can feel your persona when you perform live, but it is one of the nicest things if you can translate that on your records”.

“My deepest condolences to her family and all who were blessed to know her”, Carey wrote.