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.
Killing Me Softly With His Song
Cleo Laine Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
singing my life with his words,
killing me softly with his song,
killing me softly with his song,
telling my whole life with his words,
killing me softly with his song
I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style.
And there he was this young boy, a stranger to my eyes.
I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd,
I felt he found my letters and read each one out loud.
I prayed that he would finish but he just kept right on.
He sang as if he knew me in all my dark despair
and then he looked right through me as if I wasn't there.
But he just came to singing, singing clear and strong.
Cleo Laine's "Killing Me Softly with his Song" is a melancholic ballad that captures the essence of how music has the power to move us emotionally. The opening lines "Strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words" immediately grab the listener's attention and conveys the idea of how music can bring out hidden emotions inside us. The song revolves around the singer's experience of hearing a young boy sing a song, which resonates with her deeply.
As the song progresses, she describes how the boy's singing continues to touch her soul, despite feeling embarrassed by the crowd. The lyrics "I felt he found my letters and read each one out loud. I prayed that he would finish but he just kept right on" suggests that the song triggers an emotional response within her that she is not prepared to face.
The final lines of the song "He sang as if he knew me in all my dark despair and then he looked right through me as if I wasn't there. But he just came to singing, singing clear and strong" further reinforce the idea that music has the power to connect us on a deep emotional level, even with strangers. In this case, the young boy's singing touched the singer's soul, despite not even knowing each other's names.
Line by Line Meaning
Strumming my pain with his fingers,
He is playing his guitar in such a way that it feels like he's playing the pain within me.
singing my life with his words,
By singing his song, he's narrating my life experiences.
killing me softly with his song,
His song is touching me emotionally in such a way that I feel weak and helpless.
telling my whole life with his words,
His lyrics reveal my whole life story and every emotion I've ever felt.
I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style.
Rumors had it that he was a talented singer with a unique style.
And so I came to see him to listen for a while.
Curiosity made me go to hear him perform and listen to his voice.
And there he was this young boy, a stranger to my eyes.
I saw him for the first time, and he was a young boy I didn't know.
I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd,
I was so nervous, and my face turned red due to embarrassment from the crowd.
I felt he found my letters and read each one out loud.
It feels like he's singing based on the personal letters I wrote, and he's revealing its content to everyone.
I prayed that he would finish but he just kept right on.
I begged him in my mind to stop singing, but he continued singing anyway.
He sang as if he knew me in all my dark despair
He sang like he knew me entirely in my deepest, darkest moments of sadness.
and then he looked right through me as if I wasn't there.
He looked at me as though I wasn't visible or I was invisible.
But he just came to singing, singing clear and strong.
Then he began to focus on singing his song with clarity and confidence.
Lyrics © Royalty Network, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Robin Spielberg, Norman Gimbel, Charles Fox
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
shelley wood
Fabulous. I saw them perform this in London in the 70s.