Natalie cole's sister slams tribute: 'it was not reflective of her stature'

The late Natalie Cole's sister believes she was not given a suitable tribute at the Grammy Awards.

The sister of Natalie Cole says she was disappointed by the Recording Academy's tribute to the late singer at this week's 58th annual Grammy Awards.

Monday's telecast featured a clip from the 1992 Grammys performance of Natalie Cole singing in sync with her father, Nat King Cole, who appeared in video, at the conclusion of the In Memoriam tribute to musicians and artists who died in the previous year.

Timolin Cole said on Wednesday that the producer of the award show, Ken Ehrlich, told the family of their plans to memorialise the singer who died on New Year's Eve at the age of 65.

"We envisioned some kind of a tribute that isolated her that had some sort of significant time allotted for it," Timolin Cole told The Associated Press.

"It was just not reflective of her stature."

Representatives for the Recording Academy didn't immediately respond to email and phone messages requesting comment.

Ehrlich told Billboard that he was taken aback by the family's complaints and said he believed the tribute was appropriate.

Cole said she doesn't want to take away from the other musicians who were given tributes that night, including BB King, Glenn Frey and David Bowie.

But she said there was no dialogue mentioning her sister's four-decade career that earned her nine Grammy Awards, and the tribute felt like "an afterthought."

"There were major tributes and major acknowledgements that were done and our sister was basically shoved into a cluster of artists at the end on a small screen," Cole said.

Cole said she had hoped that the Recording Academy would find an artist to perform her songs in her honour.

- AAP