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.
She then began her career as a singer and actress. She played the lead in a new play at London's famous Royal Court Theatre, home of the new wave of playwrights of the 1950s: Harold Pinter and the like. 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 Showboat 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 colaborated with many great 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 the 2006 New Years Honours list, her husband John Dankworth was made a knight bachelor, becoming Sir John Dankworth. As his wife, she is entitled to be known as "Lady Dankworth," however, she uses her own professional name.
I Didn't Know About You
Cleo Laine Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
The usual laughs, not often, but loud
And in the world that I knew
I didn't know about you
Chasing after the ring, on the merry-go-round
Just taking my fun, where it could be found
And yet what else could I do
Darling, now I know
I had the loneliest yesterday, everyday
In your arms
I know for once in my life, I'm living
Had a good time, every time I went out
Romance was a thing, I kidded about
How could I know about love
I didn't know about you
Darling, now I know
I had the loneliest yesterday, everyday
In your arms
I know for once in my life, I'm living
Had a good time, every time I went out
Romance was a thing, I kidded about
How could I know about love
I didn't know about you
I didn't know about you
The song "I Didn't Know About You" by Cleo Laine is a jazz standard that talks about a woman who used to live in her own world, having fun with her own crowd, oblivious to the idea of love until she meets someone special. She describes her life as being on a merry-go-round, chasing after things that could bring her happiness, but never finding true contentment until she discovers this person. The lyrics suggest that she had no knowledge of love or what it could be until she met him. In the end, the woman acknowledges her newfound happiness, admitting that life now has a new meaning because of her love for this man.
The song is about the transformative power of love and how it can change a person's life; it speaks to the idea that people can go through life without understanding what true happiness is until they find the right person to share it with. The lyrics are filled with vivid imagery of a woman running around with her own crowd, living her life without the love of someone special. It portrays a lost woman, who was always chasing material things, and who did not value the importance of love. But, when love comes knocking on her door, she finally realizes that this is what she needed all along, as she discovers a whole new aspect of life.
Overall, the song is a beautiful tribute to the transformative nature of love and how it can give meaning to life, regardless of how lost and purposeless we are.
Line by Line Meaning
I ran around, with my own little crowd
I used to hang out with my group of friends
The usual laughs, not often, but loud
We used to laugh a lot
And in the world that I knew
In the small world I lived in
I didn't know about you
I didn't know you existed
Chasing after the ring, on the merry-go-round
I was focused on chasing after trivial things
Just taking my fun, where it could be found
I would just have fun wherever I could
And yet what else could I do
I didn't know any better
I didn't know about you
I didn't know there was something better out there
Darling, now I know
But now that I know you
I had the loneliest yesterday, everyday
I used to feel lonely all the time before meeting you
In your arms
Being with you
I know for once in my life, I'm living
Now, for the first time in my life, I feel truly alive
Had a good time, every time I went out
Before, I used to have fun going out
Romance was a thing, I kidded about
I was not serious about romance
How could I know about love
I didn't have a clue about love
I didn't know about you
Until I met you
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: BOB RUSSELL, DUKE ELLINGTON
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
John Jagger
on Sunday
Those lyrics above bear no relation to the song ‘Sunday’ on the album ‘Born on a Friday’
John
on Born on a Friday
No lyrics for the song Born on a Friday? These lyrics are very hard to find. It would be nice to see because of a British expression that's used in the song that I'm not sure what the meaning is.