“Unforgettable” Singer Natalie Cole Has Died at 65

The daughter of jazz legend and road hound Nat King Cole, she described her childhood as bereft of “family moments such as barbecues, going to the beach… they were only on holidays”.

Known for her songs “Inseparable”, “Pink Cadillac” and “Unforgettable”, Cole, the daughter of the singers Nat King Cole and Maria Hawkins Cole, had faced several heart problems cancelling her tours and succumbed to heart attack on Friday, when the world welcome New Year 2016. Her top-selling album was the 1991 record Unforgettable… with Love, in which Cole paid tribute to her father’s biggest hits.

Herself a singer, Natalie carried on her father’s musical legacy through technology, sharing a virtual duet with him singing “Unforgettable” in 1991.

“It is with heavy hearts that we bring to you all the news of our mother and sister’s passing”.

The This Will Be hitmaker also suffered from hepatitis C and had kidney failure and ultimately ended up receiving a kidney transplant from a deceased fan.

“Her life was not an easy one, but she managed to face the challenges that plagued her earlier success and emerged out of these difficulties as a greater musician and more enduring star”. “She fought for so long”.

The news, she explained, triggered a bout of soul searching.

But it was in honoring her father, and the American songbook, that Cole reached her pop peak.

It was no wonder she initially refused to follow her father’s footsteps after his death in 1965, when she was 15. She was one of the greatest singers of our time.

Her album, “Unforgettable… With Love”, won the Grammy for Album of the Year and has sold more than seven million copies in the United States.

She criticized the Recording Academy for giving five Grammys to drug user Amy Winehouse in 2008. She needed dialysis three times a week until she received a donor kidney on May 18, 2009.

“I think that I am a walking testimony to you can have scars”, she told People magazine.