Nancy LaMott (December 30, 1951–December 13, 1995) was an American singer, popular on the New York City cabaret circuit in the 1980s and breaking out into radio and the national and international scene in the 1990s. Along with Karen Mason, she was the first singer to do a continuous long run at Don't Tell Mama in New York City. She went on to play all of the smaller clubs in New York, and began to record in the early 1990s.
As a young girl, LaMott would sing along with Barbra Streisand records, according to her father, a supervisor with the Dow Chemical Company in Midland, Michigan. At 15, she performed with her father's dance band, and also worked at a local Sears store. At 17, she was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, an incurable medical affliction that involves difficult intestinal problems and chronic pain and arthritis.
LaMott moved to San Francisco. Her early years in San Francisco became a pattern of singing gigs at the Plush Room and other local clubs and also hospital visits, running up medical debts and taking any jobs to pay the rent. She suffered through with the help of painkillers, stomach remedies and steroids, and sometimes had to perform sitting to work against spasms caused by the disease. She struggled for twenty-five years to achieve recognition and success in the music business.
She moved to New York City in 1979 where she worked as a cocktail waitress and a singer at the Duplex and Don't Tell Mama. She also did demonstration records of theater songs by composers like Alan Menken, Marvin Hamlisch and Cy Coleman. In 1983, she was featured in the cabaret revue "It's Better With a Band," a show at Don't Tell Mama that featured the lyrics of David Zippel. The next year, she teamed up with Christopher Marlowe, who became her longtime accompanist and musical director.
She was described as having an "all-American prettiness" which gave her a "vulnerable, doll-like demeanor" as she developed her singing style. She was named the "best cabaret singer" by New York Magazine. She performed at the White House for Bill and Hillary Clinton. In 1990, she met the composer David Friedman and his companion, Mr. Barnes, who became her manager. Together with Mr. Zippel they produced her first album, "Beautiful Baby," in 1991.
Here’s “Cheek To Cheek” from above album.
Four more recordings followed. For her second album, "Come Rain or Come Shine: The Songs of Johnny Mercer" (1993), she was named best female vocalist by the Manhattan Association of Cabarets. The following year, her third album, "My Foolish Heart," was chosen record of the year by the same organization. Her fourth album, a holiday collection, "Just in Time for Christmas," was released in 1994.
In 1993, she underwent an ileostomy operation to remove a large portion of the third part of her small intestine; this operation dramatically improved her health. In the same year, she won the MAC Award for Outstanding Female Vocalist. In addition to her recordings, she made television appearances on "Good Morning America,""Live With Regis and Kathie Lee,""Today" and "The Charles Grodin Show."
In March 1995, LaMott was diagnosed with uterine cancer, yet she postponed a hysterectomy in order to record Listen To My Heart, an album that took only a remarkable two days to complete. The operation revealed that the cancer had metastasized. In the spring of 1995, after singing at an AIDS benefit concert in San Francisco, Nancy attends a performance of Angels in America and meets actor Peter Zapp.whom she will later marry.
"Listen to My Heart" (Midder Music), recorded with the arranger Peter Matz, received critical acclaim. In a cabaret field typified by showy histrionics, Ms. LaMott was a singularly unaffected voice. She brought to everything she sang a clean, clear sense of line, impeccable enunciation and a deep understanding of how a good song could convey a lifetime's experience.
Her last public performance was on December 4, 1995, at one of WQEW's live performances. On that same day, she made her last TV appearance on CNBC's The Charles Grodin Show, singing Moon River. A few days after her last concert performances and an appearance on the night-time television talk show hosted by Charles Grodin, LaMott was rushed to the hospital and her shocked friends and family were told that she had just a couple of days to live.
On December 13, 1995, whilst at St. Lukes Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan, Nancy married Peter Zapp on her deathbed. The wedding guests went to a local pub to hoist a few drinks, and when they got back to Nancy’s hospital room she was gone. Father Steven Harris blessed the union of Nancy to Pete a little more than an hour before she died.
(Edited from Wikipedia & New York Times)