Cleo Laine

Here's a great L/P from one of my favourite singers from 1968 !

Dame Cleo Laine DBE (born 28 October 1927) is an English jazz and pop singer and an actress, known for her scat singing and for her vocal range. Though her natural range is that of a contralto, she is able to produce a G above high C, giving her an overall compass of well over three octaves. Laine is the only female performer to have received Grammy nominations in the jazz, popular and classical music categories. She is the widow of jazz composer Sir John Dankworth.

Laine did not take up singing professionally until her mid-twenties. Her early influences as a singer were Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Judy Garland and Lena Horne. She auditioned successfully, at the age of 24, for John Dankworth's small group, the Dankworth Seven, and later his orchestra, with which she performed until 1958. Dankworth and Laine married that year....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, directed and choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan. In 1964 her Shakespeare and All that Jazz album with Dankworth was well received. 

She played Julie La Verne in Wendy Toye's production of Show Boat at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1971. Show Boat had its longest run to date in that London season with 910 performances staged. 

Laine's international activities began in 1972, with a successful first tour of Australia. Shortly afterwards, her career in the United States was launched with a concert at New York's Lincoln Center, followed in 1973 by the first of many Carnegie Hall appearances.

In May 1992, Laine appeared with Frank Sinatra for a week of concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

In the 1997 New Year's Honours list, Laine became a Dame Commander, and she was appointed Dame Cleo Laine DBE. In the 2006 New Year's Honours list, her husband was made a knight bachelor, becoming Sir John Dankworth. They were one of the few couples where both partners held their titles in their own right and the only couple in jazz to be thus recognised.

( Info Edited From Wikipedia )

And I believe that she is still with us at the great cool age of 96 years young !!!

1. Chattanooga Choo Choo

2. Oh lady be Good

3. Perdido

4. Come Rain Or Come Shine

5. Tea For Two

6. On a Slow Boat To China

7. If We Lived On Top Of A Mountain

1. Remind Me

2. Song Without Words

3. They Say Its Wonderful

4. Easy Street

5. Who Walks In When I Walk Out 

6. Sure As You Were Born

           6. On A Slow Boat To China