Cleo Laine born 28 October 1927

 

Dame Cleo Laine DBE, (born Clementina Dinah Campbell on 28 October 1927 in Southall, Middlesex, England) is a jazz vocalist and stage actress. She was known as the "Queen of Jazz" in her singing prime.

 

Famed singer and stage actress Cleo Laine was born Clementina Dinah Campbell on October 28, 1927, in Southall, Middlesex, England. Born to a Jamaican father and an English mother, Laine began taking vocal and dance lessons as a teenager, and dropped out of school at the age of 14 to begin her quest to find a singing career. In 1951, she joined the Johnny Dankworth Seven, a well-known jazz band, as their singer, and changed her name to the more stage-ready "Cleo Laine."

 

Cleo Laine sang with the Johnny Dankworth Seven for seven years, building quite a following along the way. Her most dedicated follower might have been Dankwork himself, as the two married in 1958—the same year that Laine took her first stage role, in Flesh to a Tiger. That year also marked the beginning of a friendship with Ella Fitzgerald, which would last a lifetime. Tiger led to other stage performances, including Valmouth (1959), A Time to Laugh (1962) and Showboat (1971).

 

 

 

 

During this period she had two major recording successes. You'll Answer to Me reached the British Top 10 while Laine was 'prima donna' in the 1961 Edinburgh Festival production of Kurt Weill's opera/ballet The Seven Deadly Sins. By 1964, Laine had become a full-time solo performer, and her albums Shakespeare and All That Jazz and Live at the London Palladium made her a critical darling (the London Times even went so far as to dub her "the best singer in the world").

 

Other important recordings during that time were duet albums with Ray Charles (Porgy and Bess) and Mel Tormé (see Nothing Without You), as well as Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire which won Laine a classical Grammy nomination.

 

The 1970s, however, would really find Laine's star rising, as her 1972 New York concert—her first—brought the critics out in droves, and she debuted at Carnegie Hall in 1973. Her show at the famed New York venue was recorded and released as Live at Carnegie Hall, which earned Laine her first Grammy Award nomination.

 

Two Carnegie follow-up albums soon appeared, Return to Carnegie and Cleo at Carnegie: The 10th Anniversary Concert, with the latter earning Laine the 1983 Grammy for best female jazz vocalist.

 

Laine rounded out the 1970s with a wholly different kind of honour: In 1979, she received an Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II for her services to music, and in 1997, her status was elevated to dame commander of the British Empire. 

Laine also garnered more acting accolades during this time, including a Theatre World Award and a Tony Award nomination for her work in the Broadway musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1985). In 1989, she was back in the spotlight with her critically acclaimed role as the witch in Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, staged in Los Angeles, California, where, two years later, she would receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the U.S. recording industry.

 

 

 

In May 1992 Laine appeared with Frank Sinatra for a week of concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, London. She told a reporter in 2007: "I was very impressed with his singing; to me he sounded even better in those concerts than he did on the records. It was a real thrill to be part of his show."

 

 

 

Laine published her autobiography, Cleo, in 1994, and followed it three years later with You Can Sing If You Want To. She continued to perform with her husband of 52 years, Sir John Dankworth, until his death in 2010. (Info mainly biography.com)