QUICK TAKES - May 21, 2009

Singer Natalie Cole got a new kidney this week, her representatives said Wednesday. The nine-time Grammy winner underwent surgery Tuesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

The 59-year-old daughter of singer Nat King Cole is putting a scheduled summer tour on hold -- including a July 15 concert at the Hollywood Bowl -- while she recuperates for the next three or four months.

Cole revealed last year that she had been diagnosed with hepatitis C, the result of her drug use in the 1970s and ‘80s, and her kidneys had failed after she went through treatment.

O’Connor said the transplant was coincidental to the death Monday of Cole’s sister, Carol, whom her parents had adopted. “The donor was no one she knew,” O’Connor said. She received the transplant through One Legacy, a regional organ procurement agency.

Carol Cole, 65, had been in charge of their father’s estate and recordings and had recently overseen production of “Re: Generations,” a collection released in February of Cole’s recordings remixed in a variety of new R&B;, hip-hop, Latin and rock treatments. She also had been a stage, TV and screen actress in the 1960s and ‘70s before retiring from performing.

-- Randy Lewis