Dame Cleo Laine, DBE, is arguably Britain's most all-time versatile singer, although acknowledged as the U.K.'s finest Jazz export, Cleo is comfortable in almost any musical genre and is the only female vocalist to have received Grammy nominations in the Jazz, Popular and Classical music categories.
Famous for her scat singing and extraordinary vocal range, although she is a natural contralto, Cleo can produce a G above high C, giving her an overall compass of four octaves.
This compilation traces the first twelve years of her career, beginning with her earliest sides as an uncredited ensemble vocalist in The Johnny Dankworth Seven, in 1951, through to her emergence as a major solo star at the turn of the 60s, when she registered an unlikely mainstream Pop hit, 'You'll Answer To Me'.
Laine has been hugely prolific and this compilation is drawn from fourteen singles, five EPs and six LPs. The first comprehensive compilation of this body of her work, a number of these sides are notoriously hard to find elsewhere on CD.
