Larry copeland usa today biography of nancy wilson

Nancy Wilson, one of the most active and distinctive American jazz and pop singers during the late 20th century and the first few years of the 21st, passed away after a long bout with kidney cancer on December She was Wilson was a familiar and popular figure. Raised by jazz-loving, working-class parents her father an iron foundry worker, her mother a maid in Chillicothe, Ohio, Ms.

By the age of 15 she was performing locally, including on television station WTVN, before completing high school and one year of college.

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Wilson then committed to a career in music and toured the Midwest and Canada with a minor dance band. From the beginning, Ms. Wilson inhabited the nether world between jazz, pop and rhythm-and-blues, with one foot firmly planted in the commercial world, but without ever compromising her gifts. Referring to the records she heard at home, Ms. Wilson was able to concentrate on sophisticated ballads and standards, releasing masterpiece albums backed by the George Shearing Quintet in , and by Cannonball and his cornet-playing brother Nat Adderley in During and , Ms.

Despite shifting public tastes, Ms. Over her career, she received three Grammy awards. With her natural beauty and grace, Ms. Wilson appeared in four films.