Dame Cleo Laine, a jazz musician, passed away at the age of 97.
The legendary singer won the first Grammy Award for her incredible vocal range after appearing on stage alongside Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra.
In the 1950s, she and her late husband and composer John Dankworth first began to work together. Over time, they have since collaborated frequently.
The couple later founded the Buckinghamshire Stables Arts Center, and its chairman, David Meadowcroft, shared a statement today regarding her passing’s sad news. Through the work of The Stables, he said, “Dame Cleo was a remarkable performer who was loved by audiences all over the world. She will continue to make sure young people have access to great music and music education.”
Laine was the child of farmer’s daughter Minnie Bullock and labourer and busker Alexander Sylvan Campbell on October 28, 1927, in Southall, Middlesex. Although her family moved frequently, the majority of her childhood was spent in Southall.
She soon began taking singing and dancing lessons, but she later moved on to work as an apprentice for a variety of positions, including as a hat-trimmer and librarian.
However, Laine successfully auditioned with husband-to-be Dankworth’s small group when she was 24. She continued to play with his big bands until 1958, the year their union.
In addition to playing the lead in Barry Reckord’s Flesh to a Tiger at London’s Royal Court Theatre and in the title role in The Barren One, Laine also appeared in a number of theater productions throughout the 1950s and 1960s. She was cast in the 1971-era Julie of Wendy Toye’s Show Boat production at the London Adelphi Theatre.
With You’ll Answer to Me, which made it to the top 10, she also bagged two major recording victories. The Stables theater, which Laine and Dankworth founded in 1970, eventually hosted about 350 concerts annually.
After conducting a successful tour of Australia in 1972, Laine began aggressive touring and went on to release six top-100 albums domestically throughout the 1970s. Soon after Laine performed at New York’s renowned Carnegie Hall, her career in the US began to flourish.
The singer continued to tour the US and Canada while appearing on a number of television programs, including The Muppet Show in 1977. Cleo won her first Grammy Award for her 1983 Carnegie Hall live recording, which came after her numerous successes in the US. She would become the first British person to receive the acolade in a jazz category, making history.
Up until 2018, Laine continued to tour in the UK alongside Julian Lloyd Webber, John Wiliams, and Nigel Kennedy, some of the well-known names she co-founded. She performed for a week at London’s Royal Albert Hall with Frank Sinatra in 1992 and received praise for her duo album, Ray Charles, and she also won praise for it.
From her first marriage to roof tiling partner, George Langridge, she married Stuart, and they had one son. Her son, who the couple divorced in 1957, tragically passed away before Laine, 72, in 2019.
Laine revealed at a concert at The Stables during the venue’s 40th anniversary that she had been married to second husband Dankworth from 1958 until his death in 2010. The couple divorced their composer son Alec, 65, and daughter Jacqueline, 62, who followed her mother and is regarded as one of the UK’s most impressive jazz vocalists.
This story, do you like? Follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTubeandThreads for more latest news and gossip.
Source: Mirror
Leave a Reply