Nancy Sue Wilson
(February 20, 1937 – December 13, 2018)
She was an American singer whose career spanned over five decades, from the mid-1950s until her retirement in the early 2010s. She was especially notable for her single “(You Don’t Know) How Glad I Am” and her version of the standard “Guess Who I Saw Today”. Wilson recorded more than 70 albums and won three Grammy Awards for her work. During her performing career, Wilson was labeled a singer of blues, jazz, R&B, pop, and soul; a “consummate actress”; and “the complete entertainer”. The title she preferred, however, was “song stylist”. She received many nicknames including “Sweet Nancy”, “The Baby”, “Fancy Miss Nancy” and “The Girl With the Honey-Coated Voice”.
Wilson and her first husband, drummer Kenny Dennis, were married in 1960. They had a son Kenneth (“Kacy”) Dennis Jr., but by 1970, they had divorced. On May 22, 1973, Wilson married Reverend Wiley Burton, a Presbyterian minister. They married within a month of their first meeting. She gave birth to Samantha Burton in 1975, and the couple adopted Sheryl Burton in 1976. As a result of her marriage, she abstained from performing in various venues, such as supper clubs. For the following two decades, she successfully juggled her personal life and her career. In November 1998, both of her parents died; she called this year the most difficult of her life.
In August 2006, Wilson was hospitalized with anemia and potassium deficiency, and was on I.V. sustenance while undergoing a complete battery of tests. She was unable to attend the UNCF Evening of Stars Tribute to Aretha Franklin and had to cancel the engagement. All of her other engagements were on hold pending doctors’ reports.
In March 2008, she was hospitalized for lung complications, recovered, and reported to be doing well. In the same year, her husband, Wiley Burton, died after suffering from renal cancer. On December 13, 2018, Wilson died after a long illness at her home in Pioneertown, California. She was 81 years old