Dame Cleo Laine DBE, (born Clementina Dinah Campbell on
October 28 1927 in Southall,
Middlesex, England) is a jazz
singer and an actor, noted for her scat singing.
She is the only female performer to have received Grammy nominations in the
jazz, popular and classical music awards.
Biography
Laine was born in the London suburb of Southall[1] to a Jamaican father and English mother who sent her to singing and dancing lessons
at an early age. She did not take up singing seriously until her mid-twenties, however. She auditioned successfully for a band
led by musician John Dankworth, with which she performed until 1958, when she and Dankworth married.
She then began her career as a singer and actress. She played the lead in a new play at London's Royal Court Theatre, home of the new wave of playwrights of the 1950s
such as John Osborne and Harold Pinter. This led to
other stage performances such as the musical Valmouth in 1959, the play A Time to Laugh (with Robert Morley and
Ruth Gordon) in 1962, and eventually to her show-stopping
Julie in the Wendy Toye production of Show Boat at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 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. In 1964 her Shakespeare and All that Jazz album with Dankworth received widespread critical acclaim, and to
this day remains an important milestone in her identification with the more unusual aspects of a singer's repertoire.
1972 marked the start of Laine's international activities, 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. Coast-to-coast tours of the U.S. and Canada soon followed, and with them a succession of record albums and television appearances. This led, after
several nominations, to Cleo's first Grammy award, in recognition of the live recording of her 1983
Carnegie concert.
Laine collaborated with many well-known classical musicians including James Galway,
Nigel Kennedy, Julian Lloyd Webber and
John Williams.
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.
Laine's relationship with the musical theatre, started in Britain, continued in the
United States with starring performances in Sondheim's A Little Night Music and The Merry Widow
(Michigan Opera). In 1985 she originated the role of Princess
Puffer in the Broadway hit musical The Mystery of Edwin
Drood, for which she received a Tony nomination, and in 1989 she received the Los Angeles critics' acclaim for her portrayal of the Witch in Sondheim's Into the Woods.
In 1979 Laine was made an Officer (OBE) of the Order of the British Empire for services to music. In the 1997
New Year's Honours list, Laine's membership of the order was upgraded to Dame Commander, and she became Dame Cleo Laine DBE (the
female equivalent of a knighthood).
In the 2006 New Years Honours list, her husband John Dankworth was made a knight
bachelor, becoming Sir John Dankworth.
Awards and recognition
References
- ^ She attended the Board School in Featherstone Road, until recently
Featherstone primary School
External links
Daily Telegraph profile, 2nd August 2007
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