Natalie Cole, who has died of heart failure aged 65, shot to stardom with her debut album, Inseparable, in 1975. Subsequently she experienced the extremes of huge commercial success and debilitating periods of illness and drug addiction, but found the resilience to bounce back. In 2009 she enjoyed one of the biggest hit albums of her career with Still Unforgettable, which won her the last of her nine Grammy Awards.
Living in the shadow of a famous parent is never easy, and Natalie initially resisted being labelled “the daughter of Nat King Cole”. “I had to be myself, singing my songs in my own way,” she explained. Yet the summit of her career arrived with her 1991 album Unforgettable... With Love, on which she sang her own arrangements of songs made famous by her father such as Smile, Mona Lisa and Nature Boy.
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