Natalie Cole performs on stage at SeriousFun Children's Network's New York City Gala at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center on March 2, 2015 in New York City. (Getty Images)
Grammy Award-winning singer Natalie Cole, 65, passed away Thursday evening due to congestive heart failure, according to her publicist Maureen O'Connor.
The daughter of Nat King Cole, the famous baritone and jazz pianist, rose to fame with hit songs "This Will Be," "Our Love," and "Unforgettable," a duet with her late father made possible with the magic of modern technology.
Cole was born in 1950 into immediate musical royalty. Her father was one of the most famous jazz singers of the post-war era and her mother, Maria Hawkins Cole, was a singer for Duke Ellington. The young jazz princess often spoke of her parents' famous friends hanging around their Hancock Park house in Los Angeles.
"I remember meeting Peggy Lee, Danny Thomas, Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and so many others at parties." She told The Wall Street Journal in 2014.
Cole made a name for herself in the late '80s that was capped by "Unforgettable ... With Love" in 1991, the album that featured that famous duet with her father. She had always refused to perform her father's songs in concert, but she changed her mind to record "Unforgettable ... With Love" and the decision led to six Grammys, including Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Album of the Year.
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