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Nathaniel Adams Coles, known professionally as Nat King Cole (March 17, 1919 –
February 15, 1965) was a popular American singer, songwriter, and jazz pianist.
He first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist, then switched his emphasis
to singing, becoming one of the most popular and best-known singers of the
1950s.
 Childhood and
Chicago
Nathaniel Adam Coles was born in Montgomery, Alabama His birth date, according to
the World Almanac, was on Saint Patrick's Day in 1919. Other sources have his
birthdate in 1917. His father was a butcher and a deacon in the Baptist church. His
family moved to Chicago, Illinois while he was still a child. There, his father
became a minister; Nat's mother Perlina was the church organist. Nat learned to
play the organ from his mother until the age of 12, when he began formal lessons.
His first performance, at age four, was of Yes, We Have No Bananas. He learned not
only jazz and gospel music, but European classical music as well, performing, as he
said, "from Johann Sebastian Bach to Sergei Rachmaninoff."
The family lived in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. Nat would sneak out of
the house and hang outside the clubs, listening to artists such as Louis Armstrong,
Earl "Fatha" Hines, and Jimmie Noone. He participated in Walter Dyett's renowned
music program at DuSable High School.
Inspired by the playing of Earl Hines, Cole began his performing career in the mid
1930s while he was still a teenager, and adopted the name "Nat Cole". His older
brother, Eddie Coles, a bassist, soon joined Nat's band and they first recorded in
1936 under Eddie's name. They were also regular performers at clubs. In fact, Nat
got his nickname "King" performing at one jazz club, a nickname presumably
reinforced by the otherwise-unrelated nursery rhyme about Old King Cole. He was
also a pianist in a national touring revival of ragtime and Broadway theatre
legend, Eubie Blake's revue, "Shuffle Along". When it suddenly failed in Long
Beach, California, Cole decided to remain there.
Los Angeles
and the King Cole Trio
Nat Cole and three other musicians formed the "King Cole Swingers" in Long Beach
and played in a number of local bars before getting a gig on the Long Beach Pike
for $90 per week.
Nat married a dancer Nadine Robinson, who was also with Shuffle Along, and moved to
Los Angeles where he formed the Nat King Cole Trio. The trio consisted of Nat on
piano, Oscar Moore on guitar, and Wesley Prince on double bass. The trio played in
Los Angeles throughout the late 1930s and recorded many radio transcriptions.
Cole did not achieve widespread popularity until "Sweet Lorraine" in 1940. Although
he sang ballads with the trio, he was shy about his voice. While Cole prided
himself on his diction, he never considered himself a strong singer. His subdued
style, however, contrasted well with the belting approach of most jazz singers.
During World War II, Wesley Prince left the group and Cole replaced him with Johnny
Miller. The King Cole Trio signed with the fledgling Capitol Records in 1943 and
stayed with the recording company for the rest of Cole's career. Revenues from
Cole's record sales fueled much of Capitol Records' success during this period, and
are believed to have played a significant role in financing the distinctive Capitol
Records building on Hollywood and Vine, in Los Angeles. Completed in 1956, it was
the world's first circular office building and became known as "the house that Nat
built."
Cole was considered a leading jazz pianist, appearing, for example, in the first
Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts (credited on the Mercury Record labels as "Shorty
Nadine," apparently derived from the name of his wife at the time). His
revolutionary lineup of piano, guitar and bass in the time of the big bands became
a popular set up for a jazz trio. It was emulated by many musicians, among them Art
Tatum, Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, Tommy Flanagan and blues
pianists Charles Brown and Ray Charles. He also performed as a pianist on sessions
with Lester Young, Red Callender, and Lionel Hampton.
Politics
On August 23, 1956, Cole spoke at the Republican National Convention in the Cow
Palace, San Francisco, California. He was also present at the Democratic National
Convention in 1960, to throw his support behind President John F. Kennedy. Cole was
also among the dozens of entertainers recruited by Frank Sinatra to perform at the
Kennedy Inaugural gala in 1961. Nat King Cole frequently consulted with President
Kennedy (and later President Johnson) on the issue of civil rights. Yet he was
dogged by critics, who felt he shied away from controversy when it came to the
civil rights issue. Among the most notable was Supreme Court Justice Thurgood
Marshall, who was upset that Cole did not take stronger action after being attacked
on stage by white supremacists in 1956 (see below).
Singing
career
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Cole's first mainstream vocal hit was his 1943 recording of one of his
compositions, "Straighten Up and Fly Right", based on a black folk tale that his
father had used as a theme for a sermon. Johnny Mercer invited him to record it for
the fledgling Capitol Records label. It sold over 500,000 copies, and proved that
folk-based material could appeal to a wide audience. Although Nat would never be
considered a rocker, the song can be seen as anticipating the first rock and roll
records. Indeed, Bo Diddley, who performed similar transformations of folk
material, counted Cole as an influence.
Beginning in the late 1940s, Cole began recording and performing more pop-oriented
material for mainstream audiences, often accompanied by a string orchestra. His
stature as a popular icon was cemented during this period by hits such as "The
Christmas Song (Cole recorded the tune three times: in 1946, his first recording to
include strings and the only one where he sings "reindeers," 1953, and 1961 - the
last version is the one most often played today), "Nature Boy" (1948), "Mona Lisa"
(1950), "Too Young" (the #1 song in 1951), and his signature tune "Unforgettable"
(1951). While this shift to pop music led some jazz critics and fans to accuse Cole
of selling out, he never totally abandoned his jazz roots; as late as 1956, for
instance, he recorded an all-jazz album, After Midnight. In 1991, Mosaic Records
released The Complete Capitol Recordings of the Nat King Cole Trio, an 18 compact
disc set, consisting of 349 songs. (This special compilation also was available as
a 27 high-quality LP record set.)
Throughout the 1950s Cole continued to rack up hit after hit, including "Smile",
"Pretend", "A Blossom Fell", "If I May". His pop hits were collaborations with
well-known arrangers and conductors of the day, including Nelson Riddle, Gordon
Jenkins, and Ralph Carmichael. Riddle arranged several of Cole's 1950s albums,
including his first 10-inch long-play album, his 1953 Nat King Cole Sings For Two
In Love. Jenkins arranged "Love Is the Thing", #1 on the album charts in April
1957.
In 1958, Cole went to Havana, Cuba to record Cole Español, an album sung entirely
in Spanish. The album was so popular in Latin America as well as in the USA, that
two others in the same vein followed: A Mis Amigos (sung in Spanish and Portuguese)
in 1959, and More Cole Español in 1962. A Mis Amigos contains the Venezuelan hit
"Ansiedad", whose lyrics Cole had learned while performing in Caracas in 1958. Cole
learned songs in languages other than English by rote.
The change in musical tastes during the late 1950s meant that Cole's ballad singing
did not sell well with younger listeners, despite a successful stab at rock n' roll
with "Send For Me" (peaked at #6 pop). Along with his contemporaries Dean Martin,
Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, Cole found that the pop singles chart had been
almost entirely taken over by youth-oriented acts. In 1960, Nat's long-time
collaborator Nelson Riddle left Capitol Records for Frank Sinatra's newly formed
Reprise Records label. Riddle and Cole recorded one final hit album Wild Is Love,
based on lyrics by Ray Rasch and Dotty Wayne. Cole later retooled the concept album
into an off-Broadway show, I'm With You.
This image has an uncertain copyright status and is pending deletion. You can
comment on the removal.Cole did manage to record some hit singles during the 1960s,
including the country-flavored hit "Ramblin' Rose" in August of 1962, "Dear Lonely
Hearts", "Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days Of Summer", and "That Sunday, That
Summer".
His last album, L-O-V-E, was recorded in early December 1964 — just a few days
before entering the hospital for lung cancer treatment — and released just prior to
his death; it peaked at #4 on the Billboard Albums chart in the spring of 1965. A
Best Of album went gold in 1968. His 1957 recording of "When I Fall In Love" topped
the UK charts in 1987.
Cole was the first African American to have his own radio program and television
show (see below). In both cases, the programs were ultimately cancelled because
potential sponsors shied away from showcasing a black artist. Cole fought racism
all his life and refused to perform in segregated venues. In 1956, he was assaulted
on stage while singing the song "Little Girl" in Birmingham, Alabama by members of
the White Citizens' Council who apparently were attempting to kidnap him. Cole
completed the performance despite injuries, but never again performed in the
South.
Cole performed in many short films, and played W. C. Handy in the film Saint Louis
Blues (1958). He also appeared in The Nat King Cole Story, China Gate, and The Blue
Gardenia (1953) (see photo above). Cat Ballou (1965), his final film, was released
several months after his death.
Cole, a heavy smoker, died of lung cancer on February 15, 1965 while still at the
height of his singing career. His premature death robbed fans and music critics
alike of a singular voice, a voice immediately identifiable even now, and one that
will continue to outlive his few short years.
In 1983, an archivist for Electrola Records, Capitol Records' subsidiary in the
Netherlands, discovered some songs Cole had recorded but that had never been
released, including one in Japanese and another in Spanish ("Tu Eres Tan Amable").
Capitol released them later that year as the LP Unreleased.
He was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990.
Nat's youngest brother Freddy Cole, and Nat's daughter, Natalie Cole are also
singers. In the summer of 1991, Natalie and her father had an unexpected hit when
Natalie mixed her own voice with her father's 1961 rendition of "Unforgettable", as
part of her album paying tribute her father's music. The song and the album of the
same name won seven Grammy awards in 1992.
Ray Evans, the lyrics writer of "Mona Lisa", died on February 15, 2007, the 42nd
anniversary of Cole's death.
Making
television history
On 5 November 1956, The Nat King Cole Show debuted on NBC-TV. While commentators
have often erroneously hailed Cole as the first African-American to host a network
television show — an honor belonging to jazz pianist and singer Hazel Scott in 1950
— the Cole program was the first of its kind hosted by a star of Nat Cole's
magnitude.
Initially begun as a 15-minute show on Monday night, the show was expanded to a
half hour in July 1957. Despite the efforts of NBC, as well as many of Cole's
industry colleagues (beginning with Frankie Laine, who was the first white singer
to break the "color barrier" by appearing as a guest on a black entertainer's show)
-- most of whom, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, Mel Tormé, Peggy Lee,
and Eartha Kitt — worked for industry scale in order to help the show save money,
The Nat King Cole Show was ultimately done in by a lack of national sponsorship.
Companies such as Rheingold Beer assumed regional sponsorship of the show, but a
national sponsor never appeared.
The last episode of The Nat King Cole Show aired 17 December 1957. Cole had
survived for over a year, and it was he, not NBC, who ultimately decided to pull
the plug on the show. NBC, as well as Cole himself, had been operating at an
extreme financial loss. Commenting on the lack of sponsorship his show received,
Cole quipped shortly after its demise, "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark." This
statement, plus the passing of time, has fueled the urban legend that Cole's show
had to close down despite enormous popularity. In fact, the Cole program was
routinely beaten by the competition at ABC, then riding high with its travel and
western shows. In addition, musical variety series have always been risky
enterprises with a fickle public; among the one-season casualties are Frank Sinatra
in 1957, Judy Garland in 1963 and Julie Andrews in 1972.
Marriage,
children and other personal details
It is not certain that Nat King Cole was born in 1919 as Nat used four different
dates himself on official documents: 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1919. However, Nathaniel
is listed with his parents and older siblings in the 1920 U.S. Federal census for
Montgomery Ward 7 and his age is given as nine months old. Since this is a
contemporary record, it is very likely he was born in 1919. This is also consistent
with the 1930 census which finds him at age 11 with his family in Chicago's Ward 3.
In the 1920 census, the race of all members of the family (Ed., Pelina, Eddie M.,
Edward D., Evelina and Nathaniel) is recorded as mulatto.
Cole's first marriage, to Nadine Robinson, ended in 1948. On March 28, 1948 (Easter
Sunday), just six days after his divorce became final, Nat King Cole married singer
Maria Hawkins Ellington — no relation to Duke Ellington although she had sung with
Ellington's band. They were married in Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church by Adam
Clayton Powell, Jr. They had five children: daughter Natalie was born in 1950,
followed by adoption of Carol (the daughter of Maria's sister, born in 1944) and a
son Nat Kelly Cole, who died in 1995 at 36. Twin girls Casey and Timolin were born
in 1961.
In 1948, Cole purchased a house in the all-white Hancock Park neighborhood of Los
Angeles. The property owners association told Cole they did not want any
undesirables moving in. Cole retorted "Neither do I. And if I see anybody
undesirable coming in here, I'll be the first to complain."
Cole carried on affairs throughout his marriage. By the time he contracted lung
cancer, he was estranged from his wife Maria in favor of actress Gunilla Hutton,
best known as Nurse Goodbody of Hee Haw fame. However, he was together with his
wife during his illness and she stayed with him until his death. In interview, his
wife Maria has expressed no lingering resentment over his affairs, but rather
focused on his musical legacy and the class he exhibited in all other aspects of
his life.
Cole was a heavy smoker of KOOL menthol cigarettes, smoking up to three packs a
day. He believed smoking kept his voice low. (He would, in fact, smoke several
cigarettes in quick succession before a recording for this very purpose.)
He died of lung cancer on February 15, 1965, at St. John's Hospital in Santa
Monica, California. His funeral was held at St. James Episcopal Church on Wilshire
Boulevard in Los Angeles. His remains were interred inside Freedom Mausoleum at
Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Nat King
Cole - Manifesting Generator - Biography
