Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally by his stage name Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's career as a jazz and pop vocalist started in the late 1930s and spanned almost three decades where he found success and recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts.
Nat King Cole
February 15, 1965 (aged 45)
- Singer
- pianist
- actor
1934–1965
-
Nadine Robinson(m. 1937; div. 1948)
- Singer
- pianist
- actor
- Vocals
- piano
Cole started his career as a jazz pianist in the late 1930s, when he formed The King Cole Trio, which became the top-selling group (and the only black act) on Capitol Records in the 1940s. Cole's trio was the model for small jazz ensembles that followed. Starting in 1950, he transitioned to become a solo singer billed as Nat King Cole. Despite achieving mainstream success, Cole faced intense racial discrimination during his career. While not a major vocal public figure in the civil rights movement, Cole was a member of his local NAACP branch and participated in the 1963 March on Washington. He regularly performed for civil rights organizations. From 1956 to 1957, Cole hosted the NBC variety series The Nat King Cole Show, which became the first nationally broadcast television show hosted by an African American.
Some of Cole's most notable singles include "Unforgettable", "Smile", "L-O-V-E", "When I Fall in Love", "Let There Be Love", "Mona Lisa", "Autumn Leaves", "Stardust", "Straighten Up and Fly Right", "The Very Thought of You", "For Sentimental Reasons", "Embraceable You" and "Almost Like Being in Love". His 1960 Christmas album The Magic of Christmas (also known as The Christmas Song), is the best-selling Christmas album released in the 1960s; and was ranked as one of the 40 essential Christmas albums (2019) by Rolling Stone.[1] In 2022, Cole's recording of "The Christmas Song", broke the record for the longest journey to the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100, when it peaked at number nine, 62 years after it debuted on the chart; and was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry.[2][3] NPR named him one of the 50 Great Voices. Cole received numerous accolades including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (1960) and a Special Achievement Golden Globe Award.[4] Posthumously, Cole has received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1990), along with the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award (1992) and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2000), and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame (2020).
Cole was the father of singer Natalie Cole (1950–2015), who covered her father's songs in the 1991 album Unforgettable... with Love.
Early life[edit]
Nathaniel Adams Coles was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 17, 1919.[5] He had three brothers: Eddie (1910–1970), Ike (1927–2001), and Freddy (1931–2020),[6] and a half-sister, Joyce Coles.[7] Each of the Coles brothers pursued careers in music.[7] When Cole was four years old, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where his father, Edward, became a Baptist minister.[8]
Cole learned to play the organ from his mother, Perlina Coles, the church organist.[9] His first performance was "Yes! We Have No Bananas" at the age of four.[10] Cole began formal piano lessons at 12,[11] learning jazz, gospel, and classical music "from Johann Sebastian Bach to Sergei Rachmaninoff".[12] As a youth, Cole joined the news delivery boys' "Bud Billiken Club" band for The Chicago Defender.[13]
Cole and his family moved to the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago,[14] where Cole attended Wendell Phillips Academy High School,[15] the school Sam Cooke attended a few years later.[16] Cole participated in Walter Dyett's music program at DuSable High School.[17] He would sneak out of the house to visit clubs, sitting outside to hear Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, and Jimmie Noone.[18]
Posthumous releases[edit]
Cole's last album, L-O-V-E, was recorded in early December 1964—just a few days before he entered the hospital for cancer treatment—and was released just before his death. It peaked at number 4 on the Billboard Albums chart in the spring of 1965. A Best Of album was certified a gold record in 1968. His 1957 recording of "When I Fall in Love" reached number 4 in the UK charts in 1987, released in reaction to a version by Rick Astley challenging for the coveted Christmas number 1 spot.
In 1983, an archivist for EMI Electrola Records, a subsidiary of EMI (Capitol's parent company until 2013) in Germany, discovered some unreleased recordings by Cole, including one in Japanese and another in Spanish ("Tu Eres Tan Amable"). Capitol released them later that year as the LP Unreleased.
In 1991, Mosaic Records released The Complete Capitol Records Recordings of the Nat King Cole Trio, a compilation of 349 songs available as an 18-CD or a 27-LP set. In 2008, it was re-released in digital-download format through services like iTunes and Amazon Music.
Also in 1991, Natalie Cole recorded a new vocal track that was mixed with her father's 1961 stereo re-recording of his 1951 hit "Unforgettable" for a tribute album of the same title on Elektra Records. The song and album won seven Grammy awards in 1992 for Best Album and Best Song.
There have been many tribute albums, including one by his brother, Freddy. [74] Randy Napoleon, Freddy Cole's guitarist and arranger for 13 years, has performed and recorded tributes to the Cole family. [75]