Cole broke out in 1975 with the hit This Will Be, which won the Grammy for best R&B female performance. PHOTO: FILE
NEW YORK/ WASHINGTON: Grammy-winning singer Natalie Cole, whose biggest hit came in a virtual duet with her late father, pop legend Nat King Cole, of his decades-old hit Unforgettable, has died at the age of 65, her family said on Friday.
The family’s statement said Cole died on Thursday night at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, US, from “ongoing health issues”.
Cole’s career spanned five decades in the R&B, soul, jazz and pop genres. In 2015, she had cancelled appearances citing medical reasons.
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“It is with heavy hearts that we bring to you all the news of our mother and sister’s passing,” the Cole family statement said. “Natalie fought a fierce, courageous battle, dying how she lived — with dignity, strength and honour. Our beloved mother and sister will be greatly missed and remain ‘Unforgettable’ in our hearts forever.”
The statement was signed by Cole’s twin sisters Timolin and Casey Cole and only child Robert Yancey.
Cole broke out in 1975 with the hit This Will Be, which won the Grammy for best R&B female performance and also earned her the Grammy for best new artist. Critics compared her to Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin but her career floundered in the 1980s when she ran into problems with heroin.
She bounced back, and her career reached the superstar level in 1991 when she recorded Unforgettable ... With Love. The album contained songs associated with her father, the silky-voiced baritone who was one of the most popular performers of the 1940s and 50s but died before his daughter began her solo career.
Cole’s other hits include Everlasting, Sophisticated Lady, I’ve Got love on My Mind, and Good to Be Back. In all, she won nine Grammys.
The success of Unforgettable capped her comeback after a dark period of heroin, crack and alcohol abuse. In Angel on My Shoulder, her 2000 memoir, Cole said she turned to drugs because of unresolved issues in her life, including being molested as a child and her father’s death when she was 15.
She spent six months in a rehabilitation programme at the Hazelden Clinic in Minnesota and told CBS in 2006 that “those people gave me my life back one day at a time”.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 3rd, 2016.
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