music.wikisort.org - Singer

Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth DBE (born Clementine Dinah Bullock; 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.[1] 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 and musician Sir John Dankworth.

Dame Cleo Laine DBE
Laine in 1997
Background information
Birth name	Clementine Dinah Bullock
Born	(1927-10-28) 28 October 1927 (age 95) Uxbridge, Middlesex, England
Genres	Jazz, pop
Occupation(s)	Singer, actress
Years active	1950–present

Early life

Laine was born at Clementine Laine in Southall, London[2] to Alexander Sylvan Campbell, a black Jamaican who worked as a building labourer[3] and regularly busked,[4] and Minnie Bullock, a white English farmer's daughter from Swindon, Wiltshire.

The family moved round constantly, but most of Laine's childhood was spent in Southall. She attended the Board School there on Featherstone Road (later known as Featherstone Primary School) and was sent by her mother for singing and dancing lessons at an early age. She went on to attend Mellow Lane Senior School in Hayes[3] before going to work as an apprentice hairdresser, a hat-trimmer, a librarian, and in a pawnbroker's shop.[5]

In 1946, under the name Clementina Dinah Campbell,[6] Laine married George Langridge, a roof tiler, with whom she had a son, Stuart. The couple divorced in 1957.[7][8] It was not until 1953, when she was 26 and applying for a passport for a forthcoming tour of Germany, that Laine found out her real birth name, owing to her parents not being married at the time and her mother registering her under her own name.[5]

Career

Laine 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.[3]

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, Boots With Strawberry Jam (with John Neville) in 1968, and eventually to her role as Julie La Verne in Wendy Toye's production of Show Boat at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1971.[9] Show Boat had its longest run to date in that London season with 910 performances staged.[10]

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, directed and choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan. In 1964 her Shakespeare and All that Jazz album with Dankworth was well received. Dankworth and Laine founded the Stables theatre in 1970 in what was the old stables block in the grounds of their home.[11] It eventually hosted over 350 concerts per year.[12]

Laine's international activities began in 1972, with a successful first tour of Australia, where she released six top-100 albums throughout the 1970s.[13] 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 US and Canada soon followed, and with them a succession of record albums and television appearances, including The Muppet Show in 1977.[14] This led, after several nominations, to her first Grammy award, in recognition of the live recording of her 1983 Carnegie concert. She has continued to tour periodically, including in Australia in 2005.[15]

She has collaborated with 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) as well as Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, for which she received a Grammy Award nomination.[16]

Laine's relationship with the musical theatre started in Britain and continued in the United States with starring performances in Sondheim's A Little Night Music and Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow (Michigan Opera). In 1980 she starred in Colette, a musical by Dankworth. The show began at the Stables theatre, Wavendon, in 1979 and transferred to the Comedy Theatre, London, in September 1980. In 1985 she originated the role of Princess Puffer in the Broadway musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood, for which she received a Tony nomination. In 1989 she received the Los Angeles critics' acclaim for her portrayal of the Witch in Sondheim's Into the Woods.[17]

In May 1992, Laine appeared with Frank Sinatra for a week of concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London.[18]

Laine is famed for not only her interpretative style, but also her almost-four-octave range and vocal adaptability. As well as hitting deep soulful notes, Laine's scatting and top notes have become her signature. Though her natural range is that of a contralto, she is able to produce a G above high C. Derek Jewel of the Sunday Times dubbed her "quite simply the best singer in the world."[19]

Awards and honours

• Officer of the Order of the British Empire, 1979
• Grammy Award nomination, Best Female Jazz Vocalist, Smilin' Through with Dudley Moore, 1983
• Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female, 1986
• Lifetime Achievement Award, U.S. recording industry, 1991[9]
• Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 1997
• Lifetime Achievement Award, Worshipful Company of Musicians, 2002
• Gold Award, BBC Jazz Awards, 2008
• BASCA Gold Badge Award, 2016[20]
• Honorary Fellow, Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge
• A street in Adelaide, South Australia, was named after her.[21]
• Honorary doctorates: Berklee College of Music, University of Cambridge, University of York, Open University, University of Luton

Discography

References

External links

• Official website
• Cleo Laine at IMDb
• Cleo Laine at the Internet Broadway Database
• Cleo Laine at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Clip of TV performance on YouTube
• Radio interview with Nathan Morley from April 2010. Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation
• Daily Telegraph profile, 2 August 2007
• John Fordham, Beethoven with a Bass Guitar? Fine! (interview with Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth), The Guardian, 15 November 2007

На других языках

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[de] Cleo Laine

Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth, DBE, geboren als Clementina Dinah Campbell (* 28. Oktober 1927 in Middlesex, Großbritannien) ist eine englische Jazz-Sängerin, klassische Sängerin und Schauspielerin.

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- [en] Cleo Laine

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[es] Cleo Laine

Cleo Laine, conocida también como Lady Dankworth, (Uxbridge, 28 de octubre de 1927) es una actriz y cantante inglesa de jazz y pop; Laine es la única artista femenina que ha recibido nominaciones al Premio Grammy en jazz, música popular y música clásica. Es la viuda del compositor de jazz Sir John Dankworth.

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[ru] Клео Лэйн

Клео Лэйн (настоящее имя Клементина Дина Кэмпболл, в замужестве Дэнкуорт; р. 28 октября 1927, Миддлсекс) — британская джазовая певица и актриса, известная своими навыками в области скэтовой вокальной импровизации; вдова композитора Джона Дэнкуорта.

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