Grammy victor Natalie Cole dies at 65

Natalie Cole has died aged 65.

Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich remembered Cole as having “one of those magical voices that grabbed you from the first note”. Cole conjured her father Nat’s spirit for “Unforgettable… with Love”, a 1991 album of beyond-the-grave collaborations between father and son.

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. “I’m a fighter, not a chump”, she said. “She fought for so long”.

We are very saddened to learn of the passing of one of music’s most celebrated and iconic women, Natalie Cole. Lovely song bird (and great actress too) – she is now singing in heaven.’ – Marlee Matlin. She will be truly missed but her light will shine forever!’ – Patti LaBelle.

The daughter of Nat King Cole was a legend in her own right for the scope of her talent, the breadth of her artistry, the fortitude of her spirit.

Even in the album-oriented ’70s, Natalie Cole was never really an album artist; she also more or less sidestepped disco in its late-’70s heyday. Her father was legendary crooner Nat King Cole, and her mother, Maria Cole, sang with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. The album, itself, was the breakout hit, going seven times platinum and winning Album of the Year at the Grammys while the single won Record of the Year and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance.

“I thank my dad for leaving me such a wonderful, wonderful heritage”, Cole said in accepting her awards. (Cole’s then-husband, musician/producer/arranger André Fischer, was a key collaborator on both recordings.) A third collection showcasing standards, Stardust, arrived in 1996, featuring another posthumous duet with the elder Cole, When I Fall In Love. When we started the project it was a way of reconnecting with my dad. 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 was an exceptional jazz singer and it was an honor to have recorded and performed with her on several occasions”.

While fighting her own battles, Cole was helping her sister, Cookie, battle cancer. The song won her the Best New Artist Grammy in 1975, the first of nine she would win throughout her career. “There was always music playing at our house in one room or another”, Cole wrote in her 2000 memoir, Angel on My Shoulder. She graciously performed at my 50th Anniversary tribute in Lincoln Center back in 2007.

Cole was born on Feb 6, 1950, in Los Angeles, and grew up in the city’s old-money neighbourhood of Hancock Park.

The family eventually included five children.

Van Morrison and Natalie Cole, “These Are the Days”.

At the time, she had been on the tail end of treatment for hepatitis C. It was a effect of her much-publicized drug use – for years she was addicted to heroin before she successfully completed rehab in 1983. As a young stand up comic I opened for Natalie Cole.

“I’m an ex-drug addict and I don’t take that kind of stuff lightly”, Cole explained at the 2009 Grammy Awards.

The next year, she underwent a kidney transplant.

However, her personal life at that time began to unravel.