Grammy award winning singer Natalie Cole dies at 65

[frankberry]

Singer Natalie Cole, the daughter of jazz legend Nat "King" Cole who carried on his musical legacy, has died.
Publicist Maureen O'Connor says Cole died Thursday night. She was 65. O'Connor had no details about how or where Cole died.

http://www.fox13news.com/entertainment/67612055-story

 

[crainbebo]

A terrible loss to the music and entertainment world. Believe she had a few different health issues. She had some amazing songs (e.g. "This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) and her duet of "Unforgettable" with Nat King Cole) and had a great voice. Natalie will be dearly missed, throughout the world. RIP Natalie. We will miss you. Condolences to her family, friends and colleagues.


-crainbebo

 

[landtuna]

According to several obits I read today most of those "few health issues" were self-inflicted. I can't imagine why so many successful, and talented, people are so self-destructive. It is a shame so many have such short lives.

 

[CTListener]

According to several obits I read today most of those "few health issues" were self-inflicted. I can't imagine why so many successful, and talented, people are so self-destructive. It is a shame so many have such short lives.

Yeah, AP led off with "health issues," but way down in the story mentioned that she had a drug problem. Not sure it's a news service's place to be overly sensitive to the family when reporting the facts of a death. Maybe the thinking was, "Well, they didn't find her on the floor with a needle in her arm and spoons and pill bottles around her, so maybe it wasn't drugs that killed her directly."

 

[landtuna]

Yeah, AP led off with "health issues," but way down in the story mentioned that she had a drug problem. Not sure it's a news service's place to be overly sensitive to the family when reporting the facts of a death. Maybe the thinking was, "Well, they didn't find her on the floor with a needle in her arm and spoons and pill bottles around her, so maybe it wasn't drugs that killed her directly."

The articles I read said she had a history of drug abuse and attendant health issues but it didn't say, or give the impression, she died directly from abuse.

 

[TheBigA]

The articles I read said she had a history of drug abuse and attendant health issues but it didn't say, or give the impression, she died directly from abuse.

Cause of death was congestive heart failure.

She had developed hepatitis as a result of a heroin addiction at one time. While she beat heroin, the hepatitis stayed.

She was a young girl when her legendary father died of cancer. She lived in his shadows for her entire life. That can be a hard thing to live with, regardless of who you are. There's an interesting new book by the son of Hunter S. Thompson out now. I'd recommend it.

 

[JeffM]

Cause of death was congestive heart failure.

She had developed hepatitis as a result of a heroin addiction at one time. While she beat heroin, the hepatitis stayed.

She was a young girl when her legendary father died of cancer. She lived in his shadows for her entire life. That can be a hard thing to live with, regardless of who you are. There's an interesting new book by the son of Hunter S. Thompson out now. I'd recommend it.

The obit I read today stated that she never really recovered from a kidney transplant (related to the hepatitis case) that she underwent several years ago, and the Interferon therapy that followed. At any rate, she long outlived her famous dad; who pretty much smoked himself to death by 45, dying of cancer even after having one lung removed. He is still missed, and she will be too.

 

[CTListener]

Cause of death was congestive heart failure.

She was a young girl when her legendary father died of cancer. She lived in his shadows for her entire life. That can be a hard thing to live with, regardless of who you are.

But "This Will Be," her breakout hit, was far from the kind of music her father was best known for (and yes, I realize that he was a talented jazz pianist before being told that his future in the music business was as a singer). And the Top 40 audience in the mid-'70s was a full generation removed from Nat's heyday. I was in college at the time and I can tell you that, to me, Nat King Cole was the "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" guy. I couldn't name another song of his. So, couldn't she have gone on doing uptempo r&b and have her bloodlines remain an interesting footnote rather than something she needed to reference and try to live up to?

Was the "Unforgettable" synthetic duet something she was forced into? If she ever wanted mainstream success on her own terms, that might have been the worst move she could have made, long term, because everyone who loved it wanted her to do more of her dad's material, not r&b.

 

[TheBigA]

Was the "Unforgettable" synthetic duet something she was forced into?

She had hits after This Will Be, but that career was over when Unforgettable came out. Her husband at the time was co-producer of that album, so if anyone "forced" her into doing it, it was him. But she was not the kind of person who could be forced to doing something that wasn't natural. Singing her father's music was right for that time in her life. It came out at a time when there was a huge market for that kind of thing, as evidenced by Linda Ronstadt's trilogy of standards albums.

 

[JeffM]

She had hits after This Will Be, but that career was over when Unforgettable came out. Her husband at the time was co-producer of that album, so if anyone "forced" her into doing it, it was him. But she was not the kind of person who could be forced to doing something that wasn't natural. Singing her father's music was right for that time in her life. It came out at a time when there was a huge market for that kind of thing, as evidenced by Linda Ronstadt's trilogy of standards albums.

I can only agree here. Her dad shifted gradually from jazz to pop in the late 40's-early 50's, just as he moved from being primarily known as a pianist who sang to becoming a solo singer. He was accused by jazz critics of "selling out," and unfairly accused by the black press of the time of being an "Uncle Tom." But I believe he made his music on his own terms, even dabbling in rock 'n' roll with "Send For Me." His later pop hits like "Ramblin' Rose" and "Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days Of Summer" shared a style in common with Dean Martin or Sinatra's records of the time, and he was certainly their equal as a ballad singer. Natalie's "Unforgettable" project may have started from a desire to pay tribute to or emulate her father, but I can't see how it could not have been an emotional experience for her, and it came through in the final product.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I was a bigger fan of her father, and of her hits I mainly liked the ones she did with him.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I can only agree here. Her dad shifted gradually from jazz to pop in the late 40's-early 50's, just as he moved from being primarily known as a pianist who sang to becoming a solo singer. He was accused by jazz critics of "selling out," and unfairly accused by the black press of the time of being an "Uncle Tom." But I believe he made his music on his own terms, even dabbling in rock 'n' roll with "Send For Me." His later pop hits like "Ramblin' Rose" and "Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days Of Summer" shared a style in common with Dean Martin or Sinatra's records of the time, and he was certainly their equal as a ballad singer.

Whatever he did, I liked it.