Cleo Laine

biog

Dame Cleo Laine is a jazz singer and an actor, noted for her scat singing. She is the only person to have received Grammy nominations in the jazz, popular, and classical music awards.

Laine was born in a London suburb 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.