The Grammy-award winning singer Natalie Cole, daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, has died, according to US media reports. She was 65.

Cole died in a Los Angeles hospital from congestive heart failure, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday, citing Cole's publicist.

Cole achieved her greatest success with the 1991 album 'Unforgettable... With Love', which includes a duet mixed in the studio with the voice of her father, who died in 1965. The album sold seven million copies in the US alone.

The virtual duet with her late father on his earlier hit 'Unforgettable' garnered three Grammy Awards, part of the nine total Grammys Cole had won over the course of her career.

"Natalie fought a fierce, courageous battle, dying how she lived... with dignity, strength and honour," Cole's family said in a statement.

The celebrated jazz, soul and R&B singer, who had her first hit in the mid-1970s with the song 'This Will Be', struggled with drug addiction throughout much of her life.

In a 2000 autobiography, Cole wrote about using cocaine, heroin and LSD, and revealed that she had once worked as a prostitute in New York's Harlem neighbourhood.

In 2008 she was diagnosed with the hepatitis C virus, which Cole said was a legacy of her time abusing drugs. A year later, she received a new kidney from a deceased fan.

"I didn't realise how close I was to checking out," Cole told the Los Angeles Times in 2008.

"Natalie Cole, sister beloved & of substance and sound. May her soul rest in peace. #Inseperable," civil rights activist Jesse Jackson wrote on Twitter.

"I am deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Natalie Cole, as I have cherished the long friendship I had with her, her father Nat, and the family over the years... She was a lovely and generous person who will be greatly missed," fellow jazz singer Tony Bennett wrote on Instagram.

Cole announced in October that she was cancelling concerts scheduled for November and December - including a New Year's Eve performance in Los Angeles - due to illness.

Cole was married three times. She is survived by her son, musician Robert Adam 'Robbie' Yancy.

- dpa