Mariah Carey ‘beyond devasted’ after Natalie Cole’s death

Quoting her most identifiable song, the family said: “Our beloved mother and sister will be greatly missed and remain UNFORGETTABLE in our hearts forever”.

Reports suggest she died in a Los Angeles hospital on New Year’s Eve (31Dec16).

Her hits include This Will Be, Inseparable and Unforgettable.

Cole’s father was one of the most famous jazz singers and pianists in the world when she was born in 1950 in Los Angeles while her mother was also a noted singer, having performed with Duke Ellington.

Another father-daughter duet, “When I Fall in Love”, won a 1996 Grammy for best pop collaboration with vocals, and a follow-up album, Still Unforgettable, won for best traditional pop vocal album of 2008.

“I am deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Natalie Cole, as I have cherished the long friendship I had with her, her father Nat, and the family over the years”, wrote another jazz icon Tony Bennett on one of his Instagram posts.

She enjoyed her first chart success in the mid-1970s with the song This Will Be, for which she picked up the first of nine Grammys – as 1975’s Best New Artist.

When recording the album, which won two Grammys, Cole was found during a routine blood test to have Hepatitis C – a liver virus that she presumably contracted as a result of her past drug use.

The Grammy Award-winning daughter of jazz icon Nat King Cole and singer Maria Cole was 65.

She was known for hits such as “This will be”, “I’ve got love on my mind”, and a virtual duet of her father’s signature song “Unforgettable”.

Cole received chemotherapy to treat the hepatitis and “within four months, I had kidney failure”, she told CNN’s Larry King in 2009.

Cole late in her life pursued a career in acting, appearing in several prime-time U.S. series. “She was one of the greatest singers of our time”. In 2009, she had a kidney transplant due to hepatitis C she contracted while using drugs.

Her recovery began later in the decade with the album “Everlasting” and reached multiplatinum heights with her 1991 album, “Unforgettable…”

But in her 2000 autobiography, “Angel on My Shoulder”, Cole discussed how she had battled heroin, crack cocaine and alcohol addiction for many years.

That year also marked the release of her final album with Yancy, who tragically died at the age of 34 in 1985 after suffering a heart attack. Cole said she learned R&B on her own – her father “didn’t like that kind of stuff”, she once told The Washington Post in an interview.